May 17, 2011 07:48 PM UTC

Newt Gingrich Messing Everything Up

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Los Angeles Times reports:

Rep. Paul Ryan spent Monday defending his plan to radically rework Medicare after it came under fire in surprising fashion from a fellow Republican, Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich became the first GOP presidential candidate to openly rip the plan, which would convert Medicare into a private insurance program, after the proposal — part of a House budget blueprint to tame federal spending — drew heavy criticism from some voters, and polls showed it to be unpopular.

“The budget passed by the House last month takes credible steps to controlling healthcare costs,” Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago. “It aims to do two things: to put our budget on a path to balance, and to put our economy on a path to prosperity.”

Gingrich had called Ryan’s proposal “right-wing social engineering.” He said the effort imposed “radical change.”

And while Ryan didn’t mention the critique in his speech, earlier in the day, while on a radio show, he fired back. “With allies like that, who needs the left?” Ryan said on Laura Ingraham’s program…

Of course, it’s not just Rep. Paul Ryan, who announced today that he will not run for the Senate seat being vacated by Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl, that Newt Gingrich endangers by going off reservation on the controversial House GOP 2012 budget plan. Gingrich’s attack on the “Ryan Plan” could easily find its way into ads targeting Rep. Scott Tipton, or Rep. Cory Gardner, or any of dozens of hot congressional races that will play out next year. To be clear, we don’t consider Gingrich to be a viable presidential candidate–the question will be, assuming he stays in the race long enough to affect the debate, whether he proves an uncomfortably frank one.