Newt vs. Juan: Is there an implicit message being sent in SC?!

The Right by Dwight Cameron

On MSNBC’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews talked about the nuance of Newt’s remarks that the Speaker made during a heated response to Juan Williams' questions in Monday’s SC debate. 

Newt defended his advocacy for putting poor kids to work in roles such as janitors as well his repeatedly dubbing President Obama the “Food Stamp President”. Matthew’s implication is that Gingrich played to the audience who was eating up the hidden message of bigotry as evidenced by their repeated applause to the Speaker’s remarks.

While I think Newt is a very skilled politician and can play a crowd as well as anyone, and while some in this particular crowd may have held underlying stereotypes about African Americans, I do believe that he was truthful and consistent in his message. He does believe that young people benefit from learning a work ethic at an early age, citing his daughter as an example. 

Furthermore, he is sticking to his guns with respect to stressing the fact that more people have been put on food stamps during the Obama administration than ever before. Of course, he conveniently does not factor in the greatest joblessness that we have experienced as a nation since the Great Depression.

The follow up question that Juan Williams didn’t ask is Mr. Speaker, “What would you have done with the millions of Americans who are at or below the poverty level and are having trouble putting food on the table for their families? Would you have denied them food stamps?”

I am certain that Newt would have finessed the question by replying that he would have done something similar to what President Clinton and he accomplished with Welfare Reform in the late nineties.

The bottom line is that there were five candidates on stage and each of them were desperately trying to score points and to eat away at the front runner Romney’s slight lead in the polls. Newt, in my mind, succeeded to do just that. I predict that it will go down to the wire on primary day, Saturday, January 21^st with Newt pulling off the upset.


The Left by Y.I. Wearblack

The way I see it, as a postscript to Newt’s hidden message about the poor being lazy-anyone who asks his second wife for an “open marriage” shouldn’t be running as a “Christian conservative.” Nor should he be playing to the platitudes of the so-called  “social conservatives" in South Carolina just to get votes. He should take the high road for once in his life and do what Perry did, leave the race.  Sarah, come back!