Bob Schieffer apparently didn't find much irony in Newt Gingrich, the same man who equated bilingual education to "the language of living in a ghetto" now bragging about his Hispanic co-chairs in California during their discussion on the upcoming primary races and how Gingrich is likely to fair. He just moved right on to the next topic after Gingrich made these remarks.
GINGRICH: We keep growing, we keep getting stronger. Governor Perry has told me that he thinks I'll carry Texas the last weekend of May by a huge margin, which would lead into California, our biggest state, the following week where we already have 17 Hispanic co-chairs statewide in California and a number of folks in the Korean and Chinese and Thai and Vietnamese communities. So we're reaching out across all of California.
Yeah, they're reaching out alright. Reaching out and demonizing and fearmongering at every opportunity. I guess this is about what we'd expect from the same man who tried to blame President Obama for scaring Latinos away from the Republican Party back in May of 2010 on Greta's show -- Newt defends AZ law: Obama 'engaged in ... a racist dialogue to try to frighten Latinos away from' GOP.
Full transcript below the fold.
SCHIEFFER: Well, you're looking very good in Georgia according to the polls. It looks like Santorum and Governor Romney are kind of neck in neck out there in Ohio. Santorum seems to have a lead in both Tennessee and Oklahoma.
How do you see Super Tuesday shaking down? What would you expect to see Wednesday morning as you looks back on it?
GINGRICH: Oh, I think there will be basically Santorum and Romney in the lead, me in third place, but coming back and gaining ground. If you look at the Gallup numbers, for example, I closed the gap on Santorum pretty dramatically in the last two and a half weeks. You know this is the seventh time as you and I have talked about it, this is the seventh time I've been through this up and down cycle. We survived Pawlenty, and Bachmann, and Donald Trump, and then Cain, then Perry, then Cain again, and now Santorum. So we wanted to keep -- twice I've been the frontrunner.
And by focusing on big ideas like a national energy strategy and American energy strategy with 2.50 a gallon gasoline and an ability to say no future president will ever again bow to a Saudi king, I think I'm beginning to come back to my real job which is to be sort of the visionary conservative who offers bigger, better solutions for the future. That's what I do best. And twice that's put me in the lead nationally, and now I have got to convert that into delegates.
SCHIEFFER: So you see multiple winners on Super Tuesday. And I take it you're thinking if you win in Georgia, then that gives you a good chance in Alabama and Mississippi. So you don't see this thing ending any time soon.
Do you think there's a chance anybody else will get in to this race?
GINGRICH: I think it would be very hard for anybody else to get in the race. We chatted briefly when we were doing -- Governor Huckabee's forum, and Romney and Santorum and I chatted just for a minute or two together. And we all agree that, you know, the American people expect somebody to come out and earn it the hard way. Lots of people look really good sitting at home being talked about. They don't look as good once they get on the campaign trail as you know because you've covered it for so many years.
This is a rough and tumble business. And I think one the three of us is going to end up being the nominee. And my hope, of course, is that as people get attracted to things like $2.50 gas, then we now have over 173,000 donors, 95 percent under $250.
We keep growing, we keep getting stronger. Governor Perry has told me that he thinks I'll carry Texas the last weekend of May by a huge margin, which would lead into California, our biggest state, the following week where we already have 17 Hispanic co-chairs statewide in California and a number of folks in the Korean and Chinese and Thai and Vietnamese communities. So we're reaching out across all of California.
So my hope would be to go into the summer as the guy who could best debate Barack Obama.
