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Romney Campaign Press Release - Commentary's Pete Wehner: "Gingrich on Reagan: 'He is in Some Danger of Becoming Another Jimmy Carter'"

January 26, 2012

"What these episodes reveal about Gingrich isn't that he's not a conservative; it's that during the course of his career he's been intemperate and erratic. He views himself as almost alone when it comes to understanding the world-historical moment he always seems to be living in. ... Gingrich's comments were not those of a 'loving critic,' to use a phrase from Madison. The former House speaker used words that were lacerating, extreme, and at times insulting."

Gingrich On Reagan: "He Is In Some Danger Of Becoming Another Jimmy Carter"

Commentary Magazine

Peter Wehner

January 26, 2012

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/

...

What these episodes reveal about Gingrich isn't that he's not a conservative; it's that during the course of his career he's been intemperate and erratic. He views himself as almost alone when it comes to understanding the world-historical moment he always seems to be living in. He has the courage that others, including Ronald Reagan, lacked. He possesses the insights that others, including Ronald Reagan, were deprived of. Gingrich's comments were not those of a "loving critic," to use a phrase from Madison. The former House speaker used words that were lacerating, extreme, and at times insulting.

One Gingrich quote is particularly revealing and hasn't, to my knowledge, yet been highlighted. But in Steven Hayward's wonderful book, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, Hayward quotes Gingrich as telling the Wall Street Journal that Reagan was "in some danger of becoming another Jimmy Carter." That is about as wicked a rhetorical blow as one Republican could level against another. And this statement came after Reagan's first term, in which he achieved historically important reforms.

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That is why some of us, even as we're willing to acknowledge Gingrich's strengths and contributions during the years, believe he's fundamentally lacking when it comes to the character—public and private—necessary to be president.

Mitt Romney, Romney Campaign Press Release - Commentary's Pete Wehner: "Gingrich on Reagan: 'He is in Some Danger of Becoming Another Jimmy Carter'" Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/299612

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