Former presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, called on conservatives this Saturday morning at the packed Potomac Room during the 2013 CPAC. He was calling for change in both parties and called the Republican Party “Prisoners of the Past,” and said Washington politicians are “all trapped in the age of candles.”

The former Speaker of the House failed to reach out to the members present at the convention in any new ways, relying on a labored metaphor and props to do the job for him. The metaphor pointed to the invention of lightbulbs, in an attempt to highlight the out-of-control bureaucracy of Washington. However, his message came across slightly jumbled with a reference to Thomas Edison, who said “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”

He argued that if lightbulbs needed to be invented in today’s America, the EPA wouldn’t allow it, lawyers would be jockeying for lawsuits in case of electrocution, environmentalists would protest it, and “unions would block development of the electric light,” to protect their candle making jobs at all costs.