I don't have a dog in this fight, but...

[Happy Monkey]

You're not going to get an answer, Lamplighter.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

You're not going to get an answer, Lamplighter.

Defend him if you can....

[Lamplighter]

During his acceptance speech in 1984 as Democratic nominee for President,
Walter Mondale said:

"By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two-thirds.
Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done.
Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."

I have a memory of this moment because of the stunned silence that followed.
While this was meant to show that Mondale would be honest with voters,
it was largely interpreted as a campaign pledge to raise taxes.
Mondale's loss was catastrophic: winning only District of Columbia and his home state, Minnesota

Yesterday during the GOP candidates' debate,
Newt Gingrich may have just made the same sort of statement on "llegal immigration"

“I don’t see how the party that says it’s the party of the family is going to adopt
an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century,”

“And I’m prepared to take the heat for saying let’s be humane in enforcing the law
without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality
so that they are not separated from their families.”

"I want to be tough, but I'm not willing to kid people," he said after the debate.
"I can't imagine any serious person in this country that wants
to tear families apart that have been here for 20 years."

[Lamplighter]

Gingrich said in the Republican debate Tuesday night.
"I'm prepared to take the heat for saying let's be humane in enforcing the law."

And so it begins....

Associated Press
Charles Babington
Nov 23, 2011
Gingrich risk: Will the GOP cast its lot with him?

"Illegal immigration is Newt's acid test," Scala said,
and tea party conservatives might be "having second thoughts today.
Let's see if he can keep them on board."

"Newt Gingrich is finished!" said William Gheen, president of the anti-immigration group ALIPAC.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, one of Congress' most outspoken conservatives,
said Gingrich's prescription "is a form of amnesty" that "makes it harder" to consider endorsing him.

Romney offered Gingrich no wiggle room.
While campaigning in Iowa, he said, "People who have come to the country illegally
should not have a special pathway that is preferable to those that
stand in line in their home countries to come to this country."

Romney said Gingrich's plan would not stand scrutiny.
"How about someone who's been here 20 years, how about 12 years, about 10, five, three?"
he said. "How many children do you have to have to apply to this principle?"

"If 2012 were an ordinary election year, Gingrich would be doomed
by his gaffes, three marriages and fleeting alliances with Hillary Clinton on health care
and Nancy Pelosi on global warming," columnist Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard.
But Republicans are obsessed with ousting President Barack Obama, he said.

"And if that means choosing a candidate with a lurid past and a penchant for self-destruction,"
Barnes said, then Republicans "are likely to swallow hard and nominate Gingrich."