Gingrich: ‘Formidable’ Clinton most ‘effective’ candidate

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the leader of the 1994 Republican revolution said late Thursday that top Democratic White House candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) is the most “effective” candidate of the 2008 presidential race.

{mosads}In a discussion with blogger Ed Morrissey on BlogTalk Radio, Gingrich flirted more with his own potential bid by throwing some significant criticisms at his own party’s candidates. He repeatedly offering backhanded but seemingly sincere compliments to Clinton and indirect but brutal shots at his own party's candidates.
 
“The most sobering thing about where we are right now is that the most effective candidate in the race is Hillary Clinton,” Gingrich said, according to a transcript provided to The Hill. “Her answers are wrong, [but] she is a serious, competent, formidable person.”
 
Gingrich, who has said in recent weeks that he would likely pursue a candidacy if he thought he could secure $30 million in campaign contributions, did not hesitate to harshly criticize his own party’s current field of candidates for skipping various debates hosted by minority groups.
 
“Let me be clear, I think Republican consultants are mostly very stupid,” he said. “I think they have no education. I think they have no sense of history.”
 
He added: “If I throw away African-Americans, and then I throw away Latinos and then I throw away suburban women and then I throw away people under 40, and then I throw away everything North of Philadelphia — there’s a morning where Republicans can’t get to a majority.”
 
Speaking specifically to black voters, Gingrich said: “No group in America has been served worse by government than the African-American community.”

On Thursday, Gingrich's three-day "American Solutions for Winning the Future" even began, featuring a series of workshops.