During Newt Gingrich’s appearance at my think tank in North Carolina yesterday, I tried a couple of times to draw out something definitive about his presidential announcement in the fall. Didn’t work. But Gingrich did let loose some wonderful put-downs of the process and televised debates to date:
“We have shrunk our political process to this pathetic dance in which people spend an entire year raising money in order to offer nonanswers, so they can memorize what their consultants and focus groups said would work.”
And
“This idea of demeaning the presidency by reducing it to being a game show contest … is wrong for America, and I would never participate in it.”