Well said.

I had lunch with Newt yesterday, and when you hear him speak and listen to the whole comment, it makes a lot of sense. He talked about how the government couldn't do what the Wright brothers did even though they spent a lot of money and had all of the experts available. But that isn't to say that the government should never ever spend on research and development and infrastructure. Just do it in ways that incentive the private sector to figure out the solution.

Newt is trying to have a very broad appeal, and I applaud that. While I would love to have an uncompromising conservative in office, I don't mind someone that can actually build broad consensuses around conservative principles... Kind of like Reagan did.

I wasn't a big Newt fan before yesterday, I was open minded, but not any huge supporter of anyone.

Now I am firmly in the Gingrich camp.

I can't see the difference in the reasoning which would lead to a Federal Erie Canal project vs the reasoning which led to "green tech" investments like Solyndra. And if the reasoning is the same - as Newt seems to be suggesting - all you are left to argue is that your guys are smarter than their guys. That's not a philosophical difference.

And that's the problem with these kinds of arguments from Newt.

And for what it's worth, the Erie Canal was not a Federal project. That idea was rejected by three presidents who found it unconstitutional, including James Monroe who vetoed legislation to find construction. The state of New York funded the canal.

Well, thanks, but I didn't make the argument you attribute to me, and did not make the statement you quoted me as offering, either. I only added as a footnote that the Erie Canal was not a Federal project.

And Conservatives should understand the Constitution, too.

The over-the-top din of Newt dumping from the conservative pundit class is becoming comical. I don't know for sure who I am supporting at this point. But the horrible man everyone is portraying Newt to be is not the man I see. He certainly has his flaws, like all the candidates, and he may not be the right nominee for Republicans, but attacks like your latest, are ridiculous. Now Newt is a bad guy because he favors the transcontinental railroad!

Seamus,
There is a real distinction between Mitt Romney & his continued staunch support for Romneycare neutering the GOP's best effort to repeal Obamacare and Newt's mere words (which he may contradict in another interview this afternoon) having any impact at all on future GOP attempts to reign in spending.

Romney has ENACTED a universal health care plan and REFUSES TO REPUDIATE that failure. Mitt won't even acknowledge that his ACTIONS helped CAUSE Obamacare.

With Newt - the worst that has happened is a nutty, outside-the-box thinker has blabbered an immediate idea without first completely vetting the idea in his head. After watching Gingrich for 20 years, many conservatives are confident and comfortable KNOWING that Newt will eventually review his thoughts and statements and reformulate the idea before committing it to an actual plan or piece of legislation.

Romney is a retail politician weighted down with an anchor of his bad signature program. When Mitt flip flops on an issue, it is intentional with a political purpose in mind.

Newt is an idealist free thinker who will say 8 different things before settling on an innovative idea to address a problem. When Newt flip flops, it is usually unintentional and without a political purpose - i.e. it's Newt being Newt.

Newt is not ideal, but Romney is far, far worse.

You're missing the point of my repsonse.

Geraghty equated Mitt's flip-flops with Newt's flip-flops and tried to frame the argument that we can trust Gingrich to end subsidies as much as we trust Mitt to repeal Obamacare. Further, Geraghty is following the attempts by many within the GOP establishment to make the erroneous claim that Gingrich is not conservative, but Mitt somehow is.

My distinction in response to Geraghty's faulty comparison between the two candidates is that Mitt is a craven politician who flip-flops for advantage and that Newt is basically a college professor who filp-flops because he speaks in information bursts that sometimes contradict.

Mitt's calculated policy positions flips are not the same as Newt's scattered what-if brainstorms. I think the GOP base understands that distinction.

And - in a year when repeal of Obamacare is the main objective of the GOP base - only one candidate is jumping in the electoral pool wearing the boat anchor of ENACTING universal health care.

A government headed by Newt Gingrich would probably be better at venture capitalism than the Obama administration, but that is an incredibly low bar. Regardless of who is president, the government is singularly poorly suited to decide which technologies and businesses in which to to invest other people's money. Death to all subsidies.

Sure, Newt undermines the argument that we should eliminate all subsidies. But most Republican candidates support some kind of subsidy anyway. Very few support government-dominated health care plans or an individual healthcare mandate at any level.

But congrats on grasping the actual argument why Romneycare matters. Too often I hear pundits dismiss the issue on the basis that Romney has pledged to repeal Obamacare. But the key point is that his continued support for Romneycare severely undermines the arguments against Obamacare. And it will be difficult for any Republican to make those arguments in Romney is the nominee. He must be stopped.