The unspooling of former U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential ambitions came fast and furious this week in the wake of his assault on U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposals. After previously offering his support for the Ryan plan — which aims to cut $6.2 trillion worth of deficit spending over the coming decade — Gingrich flip-flopped this week and said the proposal represented too much of a “radical change” for him.
“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said during a now infamous interview on Meet the Press.
Those comments sparked a full-fledged uproar — not only among Republican voters who support the Ryan plan, but also among fiscal conservatives who know the Ryan plan doesn’t do enough to address entitlement spending, the root of our nation’s fiscal implosion.
“You’re an embarrassment to our party,” one angry Iowa GOP voter told Gingrich bluntly, urging him to drop out of the presidential race “before you make a bigger fool of yourself.”
So much for the goodwill Gingrich was hoping to earn in the Hawkeye state by pandering on ethanol subsidies. Meanwhile in early-voting South Carolina, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint said he was “dismayed” by Gingrich’s remarks.
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