Gingrich: Obama "The Food Stamp President" and Blacks to Switch Sides

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has joined other conservatives in using high unemployment rates among African-Americans as a bid against President Obama, saying that the president has performed so poorly that blacks will vote Republican in 2012."No administration in modern times has failed younger blacks more than the Obama administration," said Gingrich during the keynote speech at the Maryland GOP's annual Red, White & Blue banquet in Baltimore.

Gingrich cited high unemployment rates among African-American teenagers and said that the black vote is ripe for the picking.

"Think of the social catastrophe of 41% of a community not being able to find a job. But we have to have the courage to walk into that neighborhood, to talk to that preacher, to visit that small business, to talk to that mother. And we have to have a convincing case that we actually know how to create jobs," he said, as reported on talkingpointsmemo.com. "The morning they believe that, you're going to see margins in percents you never dreamed of decide there's a better future," Gingrich said. "It takes courage, it takes hard work, it takes discipline and it's doable."

Gingrich stepped in it earlier by calling Obama "the food stamp president," but said that if elected he would be a "paycheck president." Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, invoked the phrase again during Thursday's speech, adding a bit of nuance, suggesting that blacks might have a come-to-Jesus moment this election and distance themselves from the president.

"I will bet you there is not a single precinct in this state in which the majority will pick for their children food stamps over paychecks," he said.

Gingrich's remarks ring similar to those of Rep. Michele Bachmann, who is also running for the Republican presidential nomination and told a group at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans last week that Obama "has failed the African-American community" for not doing more to bolster employment rates.

Gingrich has a long history of making what some have seen as patronizing, bigoted or outright racists remarks about minorities, women and the LGBT communities.

An article last year on mediamatters.org chronicled what it called "Newt Gingrich's history of bigoted remarks," from over the years.

Here's just a taste:

In August Gingrich compared the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero to Nazis erecting a sign near the Holocaust Museum or a Japanese memorial near Pearl Harbor.

In 2007 he said that bilingual education teaches "the language of living in a ghetto."

And in 1995 he said that women were not fit for front line combat in the trenches because "they get infections."

One of the more offensive of Gingrich's comments came in a 1994 interview with The New York Times, in which he proposed that the government should abandon giving poor young mothers welfare and instead start building more orphanages.

And during a radio show earlier this week with host Laura Ingraham, Gingrich criticized First Lady Michelle Obama's trip to Africa, again invoking black unemployment:

"Well you know when you had 45% African-American teenage unemployment in January in the United States, it would have been nice for the president to have focused on bringing that hope and optimism to young Americans as well as young Africans."

By Trymaine Lee

Gingrich--biggest election since 1860

I drew this quote from msnbc.com: "Republican Newt Gingrich told a Georgia audience on Friday evening that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War.

"Addressing the Georgia Republican Party's convention, Gingrich said the nation is at a crossroads and that the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama would lead to four more years of 'radical left-wing values' that would drive the nation to ruin."

What struck me as ironic about this comment is that Gingrich is comparing this race with the Lincoln race, and he's doing so in Georgia.  I don't think he intended the overtones this comment brings with it in context.  The context might lead one to conclude that Gingrich thinks that the 1860 race went the wrong way.  After all, Lincoln advocated the authority of the federal government over the rights of individual states like Georgia, and Georgia opposed Lincoln. Furthermore, Gingrich stands for a substantial reversal of the trajectory the Lincoln administration solidified with regard to federalism.

The current Republican party has ironically done a 180 flip since Lincoln and become the party of states' rights over the authority of the federal government.  It is no wonder it is strongest in the south.  Well intentioned conservative Christians have innocently thought they were voting for an anti-abortion agenda when what they were really voting for was a states' rights agenda.  After all, overturning Roe vs. Wade only throws the issue of abortion back to the states--it doesn't stop a single abortion.

So let's be very clear.  Christian voters need to recognize that their votes for Republican presidential candidates these last forty years in the name of abortion has never come close to being anything of the sort.  It is a bait and switch on the innocent and well intentioned.  Vote for more of Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Antonin Scalia if you favor states' rights like the pre-Civil War south.  A vote for them because you're against abortion is like bombing an entire city because you think enemy #1 might be hiding there.  There might just turn out to be a lot of collateral damage with no promise you'll actually hit your target.

P.S. Indiana just passed the toughest anti-abortion law since Roe vs. Wade--no abortions after the 20th week.  And it had nothing to do with the Supreme Court.

APNewsBreak: Gingrich announcing 2012 bid on Wed.

Newt Gingrich (AP photo)

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ATLANTA – A spokesman for Newt Gingrich says the former House speaker will announce Wednesday he is running for president.

Rick Tyler said Gingrich will make the announcement by Facebook and Twitter. He will give an interview to Fox News later that night.

Gingrich will offer his first speech as a presidential candidate at the Georgia Republican Party Convention on Friday.

Gingrich has made no secret of his White House ambitions. He's been raising money and assembling a campaign team for months.

Getting into the race marks a comeback attempt by the former Georgia congressman who stepped down from the House in 1998 after four tumultuous years as speaker. He had led the GOP to their first majority in the House in 40 years.

 

by SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press