The headline of Newt Gingrich's appearance on "Face the Nation" today has been that he declared that Sarah Palin will not be the future of the GOP. What he actually said was less inflammatory and more sensible.
What he did was praise her as a "wonderfully aggressive, intelligent, hard-working person" and say that, while an asset, she's not the guaranteed leader of the party. He took the star of this election and placed her in a constellation of up-and-coming Republican governors, such as Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Jon Huntsman of Utah, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.
Jindal was on hand to argue that conservative governors can make concrete changes in their states and demonstrate that conservative ideas can be a solution to real problems-- a message that was entirely lost in the presidential campaign, but has not been lost on the people of Lousiana. He also refused the Palin-bashing bait Bob Schieffer so desperately wanted him to take: "Didn't it bother you when Sarah Palin stole the show at the Republican Governors' Association?" Thank you, Regina George, new moderator of "Face the Nation."
Of the media's treatment of Palin post-election, Gingrich said: "They know how to spell Sarah Palin's name. They've got it locked in their word processors. She's going to be a much bigger story in the short term."
He's right. The media wants desperately to talk about 2012 and Sarah Palin, when conservative leadership needs to be talking about now and 2010. Sarah Palin is a force, but she will not be the only force. She should neither be summarily dismissed (as some have been far too eager to do) nor prematurely anointed, and avoiding too much preoccupation with the debate would be wise.
Below, Newt and Jindal talk about the mess we find ourselves in, and who's got the stuff to get us out:
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