The Laura Ingraham Show - Newt Gingrich: No obligation to "automatically salute" Santorum

@0:24 Ingraham: Couple of things I need to get into with you, Speaker Gingrich. And one is this concern about the Latino vote in the United States. And you know I'm pretty hardcore—we got to enforce this border and it's actually not fair to immigrants or American citizens to do the things that we've done in the past, like turning a blind eye to border enforcement or we do it in a herky-jerky fashion and now people are in the shadows and they're scared. Meanwhile there are working-class people who feel they are put-upon. Everyone seems to be unhappy here—right? So that's where I come from, but at the same time if Republicans are losing six to one in the Latino community for votes, if that Fox poll that came out ten days ago is accurate, then the Republican Party has a big problem.

Gingrich: I think we have a huge problem, and I think people shouldn't kid themselves about it. I am going, in just a few hours, to a Latino workshop and conference precisely to talk with leaders at Judson College, a Hispanic roundtable here in Chicago. But I would also say, if you look at, for example, my proposal for an American energy plan for getting gasoline below $2.50 a gallon that affects every Hispanic voter in America.

@2:21 Ingraham: To make the argument as cynically as the Democrats do that if we only just say "amnesty, amnesty, amnesty and benefits, benefits, benefits" that people will just come into the fold, that doesn't help anyone in the long run. It certainly doesn't help American prosperity in the long run.

Gingrich: It also frankly shows that they despise the integrity of Latino voters. Most Latino voters are not looking for benefits, they are looking for a job. They are not looking for the government to take care of them, they are looking for a chance to take care of their own family.

@6:29 Ingraham: Mitt Romney is helped, most analysts believe, by the fact that you're remaining in this race. And in the end, if you help hand Mitt Romney this nomination, then what will you have accomplished if Mitt Romney becomes the nominee?

Gingrich: I don't believe that. I think one of the reasons that Mitt Romney's been much less effective since Santorum emerged is that he's had to split his attacks. It's very hard for him to attack both of us. There's real danger, from his perspective, that attacking one of us just drives votes to the other, and he still doesn't get the votes.

@7:13 Ingraham: So you think you are going to get the nomination?

Gingrich: I think it is possible. I think nobody knows. A race in which everybody has been wrong for 8 months why assume they are right this week.

Ingraham: How do you win the nomination now?

Gingrich: You win the nomination by gaining vote by spreading a message by having people conclude that in the end you are the one person that can get America back on the right track.

Ingraham: Can you win New York and California?

Gingrich: You have to win, I think, Texas and California. They are the two largest states in the country.

Ingraham: You are behind in Texas.

Gingrich: It's a long way, you know I was also ahead everywhere in the country in December. So these things change back and forth.




@8:13 Ingraham: As a matter of self sacrifice for the betterment of conservatism—I'm just looking at my Facebook here because people are e-mailing in as I'm saying this. Newt could be the hero here, come out and join Santorum on the trail, and run this thing to Tampa, and be the hero people already think he is.

Gingrich: My view on that is that the minute Romney has one opponent his SuperPAC will drown that opponent in mud. That's what happened to me in Iowa and Florida. It will eventually happen to Santorum and I think it is actually to our net advantage to keep Romney divided. Beyond that, there are a lot of things I don't agree with Santorum on. I don't have an obligation to automatically salute as a conservative somebody who was in a leadership that ran up $1.7 Trillion in debt.

@9:26 Ingraham: Mitt got the three million on Wall Street last night. Did you see that, Newt? He got three-million bucks.

Gingrich: Romney's raising the money from the people who took TARP money. So you tax money is going back to you through Romney's SuperPAC, just understand that. This is one of the most outrageous examples, I think he has gotten over a half-million dollars from Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs got $13 Billion through the backdoor from the taxpayer. So what you have with Romney is essentially the essence of crony capitalism being recycled.