Newt Gingrich: GOP establishment "mired in stupidity"

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, seen by many in the Republican Party as an "ideas man," slammed as a "false attack" the argument that conservatives "don't need new ideas" during a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, repeatedly scalding the Republican establishment for being "mired in stupidity."

"The Republican establishment is just plain wrong about how it approaches politics," Gingrich said. "We have to disenthrall ourselves of the establishment's anti-idea approach."

"You're going to hear a false attack that we don't need new ideas," he continued. "Let me draw a distinction: we don't need new principles, but we need lots of new ideas about how to implement those principles in the 21st century."

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Again and again, Gingrich lit into both Republicans and Democrats for what he characterized as their myopic policy mindset. "We stand today on the edge of a great future, but Washington is blind to it in both parties," he said. "I've been trying for two-and-a-half years to get the House Republicans to understand. They control every committee and every subcommittee in the House; they could be having a hearing every week on" the promise of the future.

Unfortunately, Gingrich said, the GOP is "determined to avoid" thinking about it.

"It is virtually impossible to get people in Washington, D.C., to actually learn how to think about a new world," he said. "It is sobering to me to be standing here, as a senior member of this party, telling you from 1976 to 2013 we have the dominant wing of this party, which has learned nothing and is as mired in the past and mired in stupidity as it was in 1976."

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Gingrich: GOP "mired in the past, mired in stupidity"

"There are dozens of new areas where we're about to breakout, and we're about to have a dramatically better opportunity," he said, "and this city, in both parties, is literally blind to the great potential of this country."

He urged conservatives to abandon a purely reactive posture and move forward with solutions of their own. "We are not the anti-Obama movement; we are for a better American future," he said. "We're for empowering individuals, not empowering bureaucrats."

"I do believe that we ought to focus on the right to rise," Gingrich said. "We should unflinchingly stand for the right to life, because that's the predicate to the right to rise."

He closed by saying he was "very excited" about the recent elevation of Pope Francis, "who I believe is going to challenge all of us."

"He's going to challenge the left on social policy, and he's going to challenge the right on thinking about the poor," Gingrich said, "and I think that's good for all of us."

[railroadokie]

One good look in the mirror should answer all the questions have concerning the GOP.

[OldTimeTruth]

First time I have ever heard Newt tell the truth about himself and his GOP buddies. "mired in stupidity"

[BWB2020]

Ol' Lizard Boy was one of the ones most responsible for the GOP's current state, now he wants to criticize the work of his own mouth.

Baggers are such maroons!

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Newt looks like the penquin from the Batman movies and just as evil.

[FOX_PARROTS_LIE]

"The Republican establishment is just plain wrong about how it approaches politics," Gingrich said.



When Bob Schieffer asked RNC chairman reince priebus about the GOP needing to change their message this morning, he just bypassed the question and went on with MORE OF THE SAME old, tired republican messaging for the 1890s. LOL!

[FOX_PARROTS_LIE]

Obviously, with more of the old guard like gingrich, perry, romney and others at CPAC, the divergent messaging by rand paul and rubio seemed to tell Americans that this republican party is just LOST!

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

"Life isn't fair but government should be"

Ann Richards Former Texas Governor and Democrat

[michaelamsterdam]

What wasn't fair, to Ann Richards, the people of Texas, and eventually America and the world, GOP-R-CON-MEN...

Was that her governorship was purchased out from under her for the benefit of a draft-dodging, coke-head ne'er-do-well by the name of George W. Bush..

Whose two major accomplishments in Texas were to bankrupt the state and run a distant second to China in executions...

Before going on to preside as president over the largest transfer of wealth (THEFT) in the history of the human race...

And contriving a failed oil deal thinly disguised as an unnecessary and illegal 10 year war in Iraq

THAT was unfair to the entire world!

[Blank_Ballot]

He thinks the party needs new policies and then he demands there continue to be the unconstitutional religious test of death by pregnancy (he calls it a "right to life") for ALL republican candidates. This isn't new policy! This is the old policy that has cost the republicans the last 2 presidential elections and many Senate races.

He is correct though that there isn't any difference between the "establishment leaders" of either party.

THEY BOTH THINK ARTICLE 6 SECTION 3 of the Constitution and the 1ST 16 WORDS of the 1ST Amendment don't apply to INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. They think religious freedom is a "group" right and that the group with the most votes, gets to force everyone in the other group to follow their religious beliefs.

BHO and the communists, socialist, and Marxists of the democrat party think that religious freedom means that government can force people of faith to pay for abortion. (Actually, since they insist on sending MY tax dollars to China to assist China in the forced enforcement of a National One Child Population Control Policy, they must believe that government can force women to use artificial birth control, under go forced sterilizations and abortions. If that isn't what they believe, they would stop sending the money and introduce calls for sanctions against China at the UN.)

Here is an idea for Newt. Engage in the sex act that you republicans think is a religious sin and should be a secular crime. Get pregnant but don't repent of the sin so you will be a sinner when you die. Then report back and tell the rest of us where you end up at. Why aren't any of the salvation through death by pregnancy men willing to die of pregnancy? To me they are the same as the taliban or hamas leaders that send young women to die as suicide bombers for allaha (god) but they are unwilling to strap the bombs onto themselves.

[fiberglass3]

This is the one and only time that I agree with Newt.

GOP establishment is "mired in stupidity"

[FOX_PARROTS_LIE]

Same message from gov. jindal when he called the republicans, the party of STUPID!

Some things never change!

[omnibus66]

I guess that Newt hasn't gotten the word that their darling Hispanic Rubio has a new idea. He loudly proclaimed at his CPAC speech that his new idea is "America". No joke, that's his new idea.

The Republicans are going to introduce one word (America) bills in both the Senate and the House next week and upon passage all of our problems will be solved.

[FormerUSMCSergeant]

"...this party, which has learned nothing and is as mired in the past and mired in stupidity as it was in 1976."
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Newt's about to be excommunicated by the repubs. They do it to anyone who speaks the truth.