More important, in my opinion than the words of the debate, were the implications. The fact that Gingrich stood up saying, "there has to be, if you will, a green conservative [with] a willingness to stand up and say, 'All right, here's the right way to solve these' ... rather than get into a fight over whether or not to solve it," has meaning. He didn’t fight Kerry over the basis of whether or not global warming is an issue but instead brought it back to a conservative ideal; let the market fix the problem.
While Kerry is just trying to bring light to this issue, Gingrich is setting up a bid for the President. Along with his upcoming book “A Contract With the Earth” he has wrote “Saving Lives and Saving Money” on the issue of healthcare. Healthcare and the environment are typically Democratic issues that Gingrich is trying to steal from them. In the end Kerry, while supporting his issue, was helping Gingrich start forming his liberal issues with conservative solutions agenda.
What does this mean for middle America? Gingrich is one of the architects of Contract with America. He led the charge to retake the House from Democratic control after a generation. Is he just playing the strategy game or is he becoming more moderate? Based on his solutions I think it’s a mixture. Regardless, it makes this election cycle much more interesting to watch, and Gingrich hasn’t even declared his intentions yet.
2 comments:
I agree that the development of Newt throwing in his hat as a "green conservative" is interesting, but I believe that neither his argument nor his new label will make any new traction.
First, although I have not seen the figures, I don't think many Repblicans other than Gingrich consider themselves "green conservatives," especially in the party's current mixture of neo-cons, libertarians, social conservatives, who tend to be quite disdainful of the "Save the World" crowd. I don't think Newt 2.0 will win any points with this new style, and in fact, it may hurt his already decent position that has aided by the fact he is a wholesome and genuinely conservative Repubican who was not direcly involved in the Bush administration.
Second, Gingrich's assertion that the market can fix itself is absurd (and I am surprised that Kerry somehow forgot to mention this) for the simple reason that the market is the problem. Unless the government gives industry incentive--and by incentive I mean money--to do what they should have been doing for the last hundred years, then the market is not going to budge one bit. Business, by its very nature and definition is self-serving, and designed around a model for profit. For this reason they are inherently incapable of making effective changes for the common good, unless coerced or paid to do so.
I am greatly surprised that no compromises have come out of this issue as it is one that leaves lots of space for mixed projects that could benefit everyone. Unfortunatly it is seen as a black and white regulation or no regulation issue, and will likely remain in its current stalemate unless a prominent moderate can broker some sort of in-between measure, or at least prompt complex debate between the two sides on the issue.
Thanks for writing this.
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