Guard Against Gingrich As Gatekeeper

It is a big night on the Iowa-Nebraska border in Sioux City tonight, where the final GOP debate before the Iowa caucus will be held. The lovely Megyn Kelly is warming up.

The fallout from what seems like 40 previous debates has only eliminated two candidates, Herman Cain and Tim Pawlenty. Beginning with Michele Bachmann and most recently with Newt Gingrich, each candidate has enjoyed time at the top of the polls at some point, except of course for Jon Hunstman, who may not be aware of the fact he is a Scoop Jackson Democrat.

Gingrich is an interesting fellow, who generally speaking, I appreciate. Gingrich gets it on many issues Obama has no clue on, including free trade, Occupy Wall Street, the hatred facing Israel and the threat of Islamic terrorists. Descriptions of Newt as an idea factory are seemingly reasonable, and he is top of the class from a historical perspective, with the latter being where he and I will part company.

However, if someone who to ask me who I considered the greatest President of the 20th century, without spending a nano-second of thought, I would proudly announce Ronald Reagan as my easy choice. This is somewhat surprisingly not the case for Newt. Take a listen:



Oh my. But, it gets worse. Gingrich is also a big fan of Woodrow Wilson:



Forget that Gingrich, a self described Teddy Roosevelt disciple, was at odds with the Tea Party in supporting a big government candidate recently in NY23, jumped in opposition against Rep; Paul Ryan and his Roadmap for America, and is on the wrong side of global warming, his admiration of these Progressive Presidents is a real deal breaker.

In fact, global warming is the vehicle for the largest big government expansion in history through regulatory control on pollution, energy usage and development, food consumption and human behavior. It does not get any more big government than that.

Certainly, one would have thought we learned what not to do through economic governance in he aftermath of the Great Depression as appropriately highlighted this week in Investors Business Daily. Refraining from expansive government intervention, taxation and regulation would be central to the lessons learned, so electing a big government "Teddy Roosevelt" Republican Progressive in the form of Newt Gingrich, who speaks in admiration of Woodrow Wilson and FDR, following the abysmal Obama administration, is not a direction I favor to say the very least.

On the other hand, if it comes down to Obama versus Newt, mark me down for Gingrich.