Republicans deserve to be heavy underdogs in a potential presidential showdown against Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
"I mean, if their competitor in '16 is going to be Hillary Clinton, supported by Bill Clinton, and presumably a still relatively popular President Barack Obama, trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl. And the Republican party today is incapable of competing at that level," Gingrich told NBC's Meet the Press.
His remarks suggest that influential Republicans are waking up to the reality that the party's brand has been greatly damaged over the past decade.
While a number of top conservative thinkers have blamed their crushing election defeat on the choice of Mitt Romney as nominee, Gingrich admits the party's problems run much deeper.
"We didn't blow it because of Mitt Romney. We blew it because of a party which has refused to engage the reality of American life and refused to take-- to think through what the average American needs for a better future," he told David Gregory.
Oddly enough, Gingrich insists the onus is on President Obama to find a way to compromise with weakened Congressional Republicans.
If the White House refuses to give in to certain Republican demands, Obama will incite a "permanent" political war.
"This president has a chance as he did in '09 to come in and say, 'I'm going to sit down and work with you. We're going to be bipartisan, we're going to put the country first,' or he has a chance to do what he did in '09, which is say, 'I'm going to write a stimulus package with only Democrats and ram it through unread.' He can continue down the road he's on right now. He guarantees a permanent war because everybody on the right at every level sooner or later is going to get sick of it," Gingrich said.
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Business News
June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.