Both Gingrich and Romney change their positions, but at least when Romney does it, he has a reason

A reader sends this, by Avik Roy at NRO:

Newt Gingrich’s rise to the top of the GOP polls is fueled, in part, by Republicans’ mistrust of Mitt Romney. Romney’s signature Massachusetts health-care law, the model for Obamacare, leads many to wonder whether Romney can challenge the president on this most important domestic issue. But any conservative who opposes Romney because of Romneycare should oppose Gingrich with thrice the intensity: Newt Gingrich is one of the principal abettors of the exploding health-care entitlement state we face today. Indeed, it’s not clear what would be worse for the cause of entitlement reform: Newt’s losing to Obama or Newt’s beating him.

“I wouldn’t switch my positions for political reasons,” Gingrich recently told a South Carolina radio station, in an apparent attempt to draw a contrast between himself and Romney. And perhaps Newt is right. He doesn’t change positions out of a considered desire to attune himself to public sentiment. Apparently he changes positions based on what he had for breakfast that morning.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 12, 2011 05:36 PM | Send