Newt Gingrich has acknowledged that his tendency to spout off like a political analyst might get him into trouble on the campaign trail.
On Monday, Mr. Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, sought to explain away just that kind of Sunday-morning pontification, in which he blasted the budget by his Republican colleagues in Congress and endorsed an individual mandate for health insurance.
?I am completely opposed to the Obamacare mandate on individuals,? Mr. Gingrich said in a new video released Monday. ?I fought it for two and half years at the Center for Health Transformation. You can see all the things we did to stop it at HealthTransformation.net. I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.?
The video was a quick attempt to walk back from his comments on NBC?s ?Meet the Press? on Sunday.
?I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy,? Mr. Gingrich told the host David Gregory. ?I?ve said consistently, where there?s some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you?re going to be held accountable.?
Mr. Gingrich also said on the show that he?s uncomfortable with the proposed changes to Medicare in the budget put forth by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House budget committee.
?I don?t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,? Mr. Gingrich said Sunday. ?I don?t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.?
That brought a quick retort from Mr. Ryan on Monday morning, who asked on a conservative radio program, ?With allies like that, who needs the left??
Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Mr. Gingrich, sought to soften his boss?s comments. In an e-mail to The Weekly Standard, Mr. Tyler wrote that ?there is little daylight between Ryan and Gingrich.?
?But look how it gets reported,? Mr. Tyler continued. ?Newt would fully support Ryan if it were not compulsory. We need to design a better system that people will voluntarily move to. That is a major difference in design but not substance.?
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