Why this election is a choice, not a referendum

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

At the “heart of this campaign,” Newt Gingrich told his adoring followers in his South Carolina victory speech on Saturday night, is the fundamental choice between “American exceptionalism” and “the radicalism of Saul Alinsky.” America has a choice, he argued, between the vision of the founders and that of radical organizer Saul Alinsky, between a paycheck president and a food stamp president.

For a man of serial corruptions, it is ironic that character assassination is Gingrich’s true craft. Dog-whistle racism — Obama as the “food stamp president” — provided him his initial lift in South Carolina. Few at Gingrich’s victory speech knew who Alinsky was, but they could tell from the name that he was surely unsavory and probably un-American.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-this-election-is-a-choice-not-a-referendum/2012/01/23/gIQAyVfeNQ_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions