The 2012 general election is going to revolve around the economy. The GOP primary will revolve around opposition to President Obama and the major players are slithering out of the woodwork. Potential GOP candidates will be rated by the Tea Party and who ever opposes President Obama most strongly will gain their support.
Unfortunately for at least TWO candidates, Mitt and Newt, there doesn’t really seem to be much difference in terms of the new healthcare law, named, ObamaCare. The individual mandate was strongly opposed by the right wing. We all know Mitt’s role with the individual mandate in Massachusetts, but it turns out the Newt Gingrich is going have the same problem.
Most people know or at least should know that the original idea for the individual mandate came from the HERITAGE FOUNDATION back in 1990 saying,
“government would require, by law every head of household to acquire at least a basic health plan for his or her family.”
Now this bi-polar conservative propaganda machine called this very individual mandate unconstitutional.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich embraced this plan while he was in the House. In fact he teamed up with Hilary Clinton in the mid 2000s.
A July 22, 2005, Hotline article on one of the events described the former speaker as endorsing not just state-based mandates but “some federal mandates” as well.
Newt wrote an op-ed in the Des Moines Register, “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.” An “individual mandate,” Gingrich noted, should be applied “when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed.”
Not only is Newt a bi-polar politician who now opposes the mandate he once championed. He also was a part of a commercial relating to climate change with Nancy Pelosi. They discussed how climate change was real and man made and the need for us to change our ways.
The typical low information voter doesn’t realize how much conservatives consistently flip flop or even the so called “think” tanks, like the Heritage foundation, that once backed a mandate plan until Democrats implemented it.
Newt and Mitt can run and try to hide, but the facts remain true. They will say what gets them nominated, and right now, whoever opposes the President most strongly will win, even if it is a lie.
