Former House Speaker: Hillary Clinton is beatable
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-16 09:26
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich agrees that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the
Democratic front-runner should she make a bid for president in 2008. But
winning, he says, is another matter.
Former House Speaker
Newt Gingrich appears during the taping of 'Meet the Press'' Sunday, May
14, 2006, at the NBC studios in Washington.
[AP] |
"This is a country which has elected a peanut farmer, an actor who made
movies with monkeys. I mean, you know, with chimpanzees. I mean, many things
happen in America," said Gingrich, referring to Presidents Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan.
"But I think, you know, she has a lot of challenges, and there's a question
whether or not there's a ceiling, that when you got down to the
Hillary/anti-Hillary, whether or not she can break 50 percent in primaries,"
Gingrich said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Calling Clinton "formidable" as a presidential candidate, Gingrich said: "If
we beat her we're going to beat her with better ideas. We're not going to beat
her with some kind of negative campaign."
In recent weeks, the architect of the Republican takeover of the House in
1994 has traveled several times to Iowa and New Hampshire, urging congressional
Republicans to rein in federal spending and focus on maintaining — if not
building — their majority in the November midterm elections.
Gingrich downplayed suggestions that he might be plotting his own run for
president.
"I doubt it at this point," he said. "I'm not ruling out running, but I'm
also saying we have real things to do in '06. We have real things to do in '07.
And it'll be nice to have a couple of years of talking about solutions, not just
talking about ambitions."
|
