Eloquence is cheap!

The final debate in South Carolina before GOP candidates' turn their attention to the next hot-spot, Florida, was nothing more than an opportunity for the desperate candidates to beat up the front-runner. The candidates - former Senator Rick Santorum and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich - came to the scene knowing they needed to do something about the front-runner former Massachusetts' Governor Mitt Romney. While some of their questions and attacks on Gov. Romney maybe legitimate, the crowd seemed to love the "fine lines" and eloquence of the candidates, especially Gingrich, that they failed to scrutinize the substance of his statements. It is reminiscent of President Obama (then a DNC candidate) and his performance in DNC Primary prior in 2008. One analyst said that Obama is "eloquent" but when putting that aside, his statements or arguments don't hold water. The real danger in this is that the smooth talking often always eclipsed the real issues.
In 2008, Gingrich made a statement that sent the GOP and Conservatives into a tail-spin. He wrote "The Era of Reagan is Over" which enraged many Conservatives including the GOP radio man,  Rush Limbaugh. Yet, through out this election, he kept referring to himself as a "Reaganite Conservative" or a Reagan kind of a candidate. If this is not what you called U-Turn, I don't know what it is. He also attacked Rep Ryan Paul's economic plan that aimed at saving Social Security and Medicare instead of destroying them slowly - by cutting back benefits - to pay for the Obamacare, calling it a "Right-wing social engineering" which he later repudiated. This is the man that Conservatives want instead of Gov. Romney?

On taxes, Gingrich joined the Demcrat Party's class warfare and attacked Gov. Romney on his time with Bain Capital and during last night's debate (Monday 16), he again asked Gov. Romney to release his Tax returns. He made it sound as if Gov. Romney was dishonest and that his has nothing but dirty money - a fine line that embraces the 99% protestors through the country. I thought the GOP wants a Conservative candidates. Even if Gov. Romney's answer is seen by many people as not so genuine, it is essential to note that every candidate will soon release their asserts and Tax-papers. However, voters need to know that Gov. Romney and Gingrich have many differences in the way they make money. For instance, Gov. Romney made millions of dollars as a CEO of a private firm, while Gingrich made millions as a politician. If a politician becomes filthy rich while the rest of the country is filthy poor, what is that? Isn't that real hypocrisy? 
Evidence also shows that when Gingrich became a politician he only make $10,000 and when he became speaker he made over $600 thousand and at the end of his leadership as Speaker of the House, he had $7 million,  and also made a million dollar lobbying for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - a group responsible for the housing bubble that busted just after he left. Yet, he had the audacity to ask Gov. Romney's tax-return and attacked him of being a dishonest capitalist, really?
And when explaining how he would reform the "Social Security", Gingrich started off by saying that individuals - members of the Social Security - will have each savings account after the Chilean model. When Sen. Rick Santorum pointed out that it would be extremely expensive to run such a program that may also add a huge strain on the already weak economy, Gingrich again said something that I believe the SC voters missed. He said he would "consolidate" the more than 100 agencies he views as waste, into one and take the money that these agencies would loose and pay for his plan. He then went on to say that he would "find-ways" to pay for it. In other words, he will have to lay-off people for the express purpose of enforcing his program. We all know that to install a humungous program then looking for ways to pay for it is almost synonymous to Rep. Nancy Pelosi who - when explained the support for Obamacare - said that the bill was needed to be passed before people would see what's in it.
Again, when it comes to Gingrich's eloquence, supporters don't really care whether his argument made sense, they applauded the eloquence in which the ideas are expressed. This is exactly how President Obama was elected. One commentator once said that when President Obama speaks, he sounds more convincing but when someone dives deeper into the substance of his arguments or statement, they don't really make sense. SC voters would be so dumb to fall for the smooth-talking Southerner without reading what this man is saying line-after-line.