Newt Gingrich's record

U.S. intervention in Libya

“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening... The United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.”

March 7, 2011; Fox News interview

“I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Gadhafi. I would not have used American and European forces.”

March 23, 2011; NBC News interview

VERDICT: Flip-flop.

“I don't think right wing social engineering is any more desirable than left wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate...I think that is too big a jump.”

 May 15, 20011; “Meet the Press”

“I made a mistake and I called Paul Ryan today, who's a very close personal friend, and I said that. The fact is that I have supported what Ryan’s trying to do in the budget.”

May 17, 2011; Fox News interview 

VERDICT: Half flip-flop. It was never entirely clear whether Gingrich was renouncing his view of the Ryan plan or merely regretting his heated rhetoric. His overall view of the Ryan plan remains unclear.

The healthcare mandate

“I am for people, individuals, exactly like the automobile insurance, individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance.”

1993; "Meet the Press" 

“I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.” 

May 16, 2011; Campaign video

VERDICT: Flip-flop.

Climate change

Nancy Pelosi: “We don’t always see eye to eye, do we Newt?”

Newt Gingrich: “No. But we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.”

2008; TV commercial

“[The Pelosi ad was] probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done. It is inexplicable. As somebody used to say, there aren’t enough hay-wagons to stand on to get people to understand that one.”

November 2011; Fox News interview

VERDICT: Half flip-flop. Regret about starring in an ad with a conservative bete noire is not, in itself, a policy shift. But Gingrich said in 2007 that he “strongly” supported cap-and-trade measures, and denied ever having done so earlier this year.

The records: Gingrich | Romney