Gingrich sees open field, mounting crises

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) suggested Monday morning that the country faces mounting challenges at home and abroad to an extent most Americans simply cannot comprehend.

“The world is much more difficult than any American realizes, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better,” Gingrich said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

{mosads}From an economic system in tatters to dangerous enemies abroad and a culture of corruption among politicians from coast to coast, Gingrich said President Obama faces truly mountainous tasks. The country, he said, will require “changes on a scale that is going to drive the establishment crazy.”

Gingrich voiced disappointment with the economic stimulus package moving through the Senate this week, saying any package should focus on boosting small businesses rather than on bailing out big corporations and banks.

“What they’re trying to do now is bail out the guys who failed, and I think that’s very dangerous,” Gingrich said, comparing the latest stimulus plan with bailout legislation signed by former President Bush. “That’s not change you can believe in. That’s more of the same.”

Facing increasingly well-educated generations of Indian and Chinese citizens, Gingrich also called for an overhaul in the nation’s education system. While high schoolers in India get four years of physics training, “this country is aggressively preparing for the 1956 Olympics,” Gingrich said.

Warning that foreign challenges are mounting just as quickly as domestic concerns, Gingrich pointed to Mexico, where violence fueled largely by drug cartels has exploded, and Pakistan, where terrorists roam freely in some parts of the country, as two of the nation’s top concerns.

“We are piling up risks, and one morning one of those risks is going to break loose,” he said.

Gingrich lauded what he characterized as a fired-up House Republican conference for sticking together against the stimulus package.

“You can think they were right or they were wrong, but they came together,” he said. “If Nancy Pelosi wants to run a one-party [House], then she should run it with Democratic votes.”

But the political class in general, Gingrich said, is infused with layers of corruption on a scale so far unconsidered.

Illinois Gov. Rod “Blagojevich is simply the tip of an iceberg of systemic corruption across the country,” Gingrich said, citing a “general pattern of theft” in government and private industry.

Gingrich looked ahead to the 2012 campaign and said he sees an open Republican field aiming to take Obama’s job.

“If Sarah Palin seeks out a group of very sophisticated policy advisers and develops a fairly sophisticated platform, she will be very formidable,” Gingrich said.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who made a strong run at the 2008 GOP nomination, “has got to figure out how to close the sale,” he added. Gingrich also suggested Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) could position themselves for national candidacies in four years.

In general, Gingrich said he thinks Republicans have opportunities in the near future, including a strong bench of up-and-coming national figures and a House seat the party looks set to compete for in New York, following Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D) move to the Senate.