Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on February 09, 2011, 06:26:49 AM
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I strongly favored Newt for 2008 and, although I have felt a bit let down by him in the last few years, he remains someone I consider seriously. Here is some of his current thinking.
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Reagan's Lessons for the Crisis in Egypt
by Newt Gingrich
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 38th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Over 10,000 conservatives attended last year's CPAC, worried about the left-wing overreach of the Obama administration and determined to do what it takes to defeat the Left at the polls in November.
This historic attendance at CPAC in 2010 was followed by a historic election, in which we saw the largest one party pickup in the House of Representatives since 1948. It was an enormous victory for the power of conservative principles.
Of course, after such a historic victory, there is the question, "Now what?"
Remarkably, attendance for this year's CPAC will be even larger than last year's record attendance. Almost 12,000 people have registered. It is clear that the momentum against President Obama and the left is building as people realize the 2012 elections will be a decisive moment for the country.
Many conservatives, however, also recognize that the next two years should not only be spent preparing to win at the polls. We must also develop broad support for a governing agenda that can be implemented by a new conservative President and conservative Congress.
In other words, CPAC this year will be important not just in outlining why we must reject the left wing governance of the Obama administration and Reid Senate, but also in articulating what a center right coalition would replace it with.
With this challenge of replacement in mind, I will focus my speech tomorrow at CPAC on one such area that badly needs replacement if we are to keep America safe and create robust economic growth with millions of new jobs: American energy policy.
I will be driving four main themes during my speech:
It is in our national security interest to produce more American energy. We must reduce the world's dependence on oil from dangerous and unstable countries, especially in the Middle East.
In contrast to this urgent national security need, the Obama administration's policy has been almost the exact opposite of what is required. In effect, they have been waging war against the American energy industry.
A comprehensive energy strategy that maximized all forms of American energy development would not only make the US and our allies dramatically safer, it would make us much better off economically.
Part of this strategy would be to replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency ] that achieves better environmental outcomes through an emphasis on the transformative power of new technology and a collaborative approach with industry and state and local governments (as opposed to the bureaucratic, regulatory model of the current EPA that does more to kill jobs and halt American energy development than it does to protect the environment).
You can watch my speech live at 12:30 ET tomorrow by signing up at the CPAC website.
Ronald Reagan: 100 Years Old, But Still a Timeless Message
This year's CPAC conference is well-timed on the heels of Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday.
Callista and I were fortunate enough to participate in Reagan Centennial events in Illinois and at the Reagan Library last weekend, including a visit to Ronald Reagan's birthplace in Tampico, IL. You can see pictures of our visit at my Facebook page.
It was Ronald Reagan who delivered one of the most memorable CPAC speeches in 1975, calling for the Republican Party to raise a "banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors".
This advice is as true today as it has been at any time before. Boldness would be an especially effective contrast to the timidity and confusion that has characterized the Obama administration's response to the protests in Egypt.
There is, however, another speech delivered by Ronald Reagan at CPAC that may resonate even more today.
Titled, America's Purpose in the World the speech argues that American leadership requires us to understand and express forcefully what makes America great and similarly to understand and speak clearly about how starkly our enemies stand in opposition to those values:
"The themes of a sound foreign policy should be no mystery, nor the result of endless agonizing reappraisals. They are rooted in our past -- in our very beginning as a nation...Our principles were revolutionary...Our example inspired others, imperfectly at times, but it inspired them nevertheless...To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world -- nothing more and nothing less."
"To carry out that purpose, our fundamental aim in foreign policy must be to ensure our own survival and to protect those others who share our values. Under no circumstances should we have any illusions about the intentions of those who are enemies of freedom."
"...If we are to continue to be that example -- if we are to preserve our own freedom -- we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination."
The Lessons of Ronald Reagan for Egypt, #1:
Know Our Values and Protect Those Who Share Our Values
It is hard to read Reagan's message from his 1978 CPAC speech and not think immediately about today.
Reagan was referring to the failure of the United States under Jimmy Carter to stand up for human rights against Soviet totalitarianism. But the same principles apply today to our struggle with radical Islamism and, in particular, to the unfolding crisis in Egypt.
First, it must be the policy of the United States to defend consistently and resolutely the standards for the universal rights of man outlined in the Declaration of Independence and codified into law in the Constitution.
This principle has much deeper and more complicated ramifications than a shallow support for democratic elections. Instead, we should be on the side of genuine freedom for the people of the world.
The fact that the two U.S. backed democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq are refusing to protect the religious liberty of Christians and other minority religions (or worse, are complicit in their persecution) is evidence of a total lack of clarity regarding the purpose of US foreign policy. ( See here and here for examples.)
With regards to the situation in Egypt, the principles Reagan outlined in this speech tell us that, of course, we should be on the side of the Egyptian people and we should be prepared to help them move toward a democracy.
These principles also tell us, though, that the people of Egypt will be no better off if the Mubarak dictatorship is replaced by a Radical Islamist dictatorship that implements an even worse form of oppression. A replay of what happened in Gaza in 2006 when Hamas was able to strong-arm a victory in their elections would be a disaster.
This means that the United States must be willing to stand by the military and other stable institutions within Egypt as they oversee a transition period that allows for genuinely free and fair elections, with new political parties and leaders in an environment that protects freedoms of speech, the press and free assembly.
Moving toward elections too soon will create an enormous opening for the radical Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which despite its official ban in Egypt is still the largest and most organized opposition group to the government. Under no circumstances should the United States be willing to support a government in Egypt that lifts this ban against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ronald Reagan would also have understood that despite troublesome aspects of his rule, Hosni Mubarak has been a U.S. ally who has kept the peace with Israel. Compared to Obama, Reagan would have been much more discreet about pressuring Mubarak to leave office, recognizing that publicly abandoning him would send the wrong signal to other world leaders about how the U.S. treats its allies.
The Lessons of Ronald Reagan for Egypt, #2:
Understand Our Enemies and Speak the Truth About Them
There has been a lot of left-wing "sophisticated" analysis arguing that the United States should treat the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate democratic voice in the Middle East.
This is nonsense.
The Brotherhood's insignia is two crossed swords under the Koran. Its founding slogan is " Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Its Palestinian branch is Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
It is evidence of the elite's profound confusion that they cannot bring themselves to say the obvious: the Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, and the enemy of free people everywhere. They are the self professed enemy of Western notions of freedom and liberty. Their goal is an Islamic state. By any rational standard they are the personification of the West's struggle against radical Islamism.
Yet, Barack Obama actually invited the Muslim Brotherhood to his speech in Cairo in 2009 and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations in the United States are routinely looked to by our government and the mainstream press as voices of moderation.
Ronald Reagan would have recognized the elite's total unwillingness to speak honestly about the nature of our enemies; he spent much of his career combating their similar inability to speak the truth about the totalitarian goals and aims of the Soviet Union.
Reagan would have been prepared to have an honest conversation about the ideological connection that unites our enemies and motivates them. He would have been prepared to say quite bluntly that we are in a long war against radical Islamism, a belief system adhered to by a minority of Muslims but nonetheless a powerful and organized ideology within Islamic thought that is totally incompatible with the modern world.
Reagan would also have consistently found ways to reach out to all Muslims who genuinely recognize the same universal rights of man laid out at our nation's founding and who stand up for our Constitutional principles and the importance of religious freedom for all.
Furthermore, Reagan would have vigorously rebuked those who jump on any honest discussion about radical Islamism as an attack against all Muslims. After all, they're the ones conflating radical Islamists with all Muslims, not those trying to speak honestly about our enemies. In fact, knowing Reagan's humor, he probably would have found a way to make a joke about their confusion.
The Lessons of Ronald Reagan for Egypt, #3:
Focus on the Goal, Our Rendezvous with Destiny
Many on the Left may find it odd that I cite Ronald Reagan as guidance on how to handle our challenges with radical Islamism in the Middle East.
After all, they will say, Reagan helped arm the Afghans. He backed Saddam Hussein against the Iranian government, etc.
Reagan had, however, one foreign policy goal: defeat the Soviet Union. Every decision he made was measured against the yardstick of whether it fit within his strategy to defeat the Soviets.
The result was that eleven years after he was elected President, the Soviet Union disappeared.
Today, our foreign policy goal is equally simple, but no less daunting than defeating the Soviet Union: isolate, discredit, and defeat those who promote the radical Islamist ideology that motivates those who seek to destroy Western civilization.
We must be similarly focused on this goal if we have any chance to succeed. Every aspect of our foreign policy must be in service of a strategy to achieve victory.
This is our generation's rendezvous with destiny. And ultimately, Ronald Reagan's most instructive message for meeting our challenge would probably be, "I did my generation's job. Now it's your turn."
Your Friend,
Newt
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Crafty,
My feelings about Newt are the same.
My biggest concern about him in general is he is not 'touchy feely". He can't reach out to the "little guy" or minorities. He might have a shot at Reagan Dems though only the white ones.
Then again he is the only one so far among the the "top tier" candidates (to borrow from Doug) who is a real natural born thinker.
I am not optimistic about '12 on the Presidential side. Obama has been persauded and coached to play the middle from a PR and campaign mode though he is obviously still a radical liberal at heart and as much as he can get away with from a policy point of view. Therefore without a candidate who can cleary highlight the differences between the progressive agenda and a conservative one (like Newt), AND call out Obama for what he is and not allow him to deceive the swing voters, there is near zero chance a Republican can win IMHO.
If Obama keeps up the charm attack, like Clinton did, it is almost check mate.
History has proven this and Obama's poll numbers are already back up to prove my point.
Obama just need follow the script. It is already a proven winner. You can fool some of the people ALL of the time.
Does anyone hear think Palin, Huckleberry, or Romney can get swing voters?
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154
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I never saw that before. GM, do you know when that commercial was done?
I notice we are going to spend 50 Bill on trains.
We can't just drill offshore, Alaska, and the Canadian tar sands?
I really don't want to spend 5 bucks for a gallon of gas. With Obama our best days are behind us. Commercials like this do not make me think Newt will change this perception.
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Lunch-losing video: Gingrich and Pelosi tag-team for Al Gore
By Michelle Malkin • April 22, 2008 12:13 PM
I mentioned the massive, $300 million Gore-bastic global warming hype ad campaign a few weeks ago. I thought the Robertson/Sharpton pairing was going to be bad, but it’s nothing compared to these two stiffs on a couch peddling eco-alarmism. There was a time when Newt Gingrich and the Beltway GOP establishment could be counted on to defend free market environmentalism, property rights, and rational cost-benefit analyses. No more:
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http://townhall.com/columnists/howardrich/2011/02/10/going_gingrich/page/2
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Mittens Romney and Newt, I find them smart and capable and utterly untrustworthy.
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Mittens Romney and Newt, I find them smart and capable and utterly untrustworthy.
I agree. And I think much of America agrees too. The Republicans are on a role; surely they must be able to find someone better.
If the Republicans want to beat Obama, they need to find a fresh face; someone who is dynamic, conservative, but practical, experienced
and is a leader. And I don't mean Palin or Huckabee either. Maybe Jon Huntsman? He seems trustworthy and capable. Even I would vote for him.
But surely the Republicans can find someone "new" rather than rehashing the same old.....
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"The Republicans are on a role (sic)"
Given the inability to come up with even half of the minimun promised cuts of $100B would seem to indicate that the inadvertent use of the homonym yields a more accurate description :lol: :-P :roll:
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Very funny work their by our moderator!
JDN, Huntsman, why? "He seems trustworthy and capable." You base that on ...
(maybe answer over on Pres. 2012)
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"Very funny work their (sic) by our moderator!"
Another misplaced homonym :lol:
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The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism Strike Again
by Newt Gingrich
In a speech he wrote for Vice President Spiro Agnew, the late William Safire coined a memorable term to describe the Washington press corps. He called them "the nattering nabobs of negativism." This timeless description was on my mind this weekend while reading the mainstream media's coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
During my speech to CPAC, I tried to lay out a substantive and compelling alternative to Obama and the Democrat's left wing governance, focusing on American energy and environmental policies. I proposed an aggressive, all-American energy strategy that would dramatically boost all sources of energy production in our country.
I also proposed replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with a new Environmental Solutions Agency which would focus on technological solutions to our environmental challenges and adopt a collaborative approach with business and local government, instead of the command and control regulatory model of the EPA.
(You can watch my speech at Newt.org and let me know what you think.)
The record crowd of over 11,000 attendees reacted strongly to this vision for lower energy prices, more jobs, better environmental outcomes and a safer America. It was clear watching the crowd's reaction to my speech and the speeches of others that the conservative movement is energized by the possibility of winning an epic election in 2012. It's also clear they expect real conservative reform from a new conservative president and Congress.
Maybe that optimism and energy made some people nervous.
Before the event was even over, the mainstream media was hard at work trying to pour cold water on the fire that has been lit across this nation.
This article from the Associated Press sums up the doubt and skepticism that so many in our elite media seem intent on sewing amongst the American people.
The not-too-subtle message from these guardians against high expectations is crystal clear: Don't get your hopes up. Real change isn't possible in America. You might as well stay home. In fact, this piece of conventional wisdom is both historically wrong and insidious.
History shows that real change is possible, but only if the American people are informed and engaged.
Power Resides with the American People, Not in Washington
There are two great examples of successful conservative reform from the past thirty years.
The first was the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. The second was the new Republican majority after the Contract with America campaign of 1994. Both were able to deliver because they understood that real power resides with the American people, not in Washington.
If You Respect the American People, You Can Rely on the American People
Ronald Reagan had a rule of thumb when negotiating with the Democratic Congress.
This rule was described to me by an associate of Reagan's as, "I show the American people the light. They turn up the heat on Congress."
Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator, but he can better be understood as a great educator. He thought that if he could use his platform as a national figure to inform the American people, they would provide the pressure to implement conservative reform.
That's how Ronald Reagan was able to cut taxes, reduce spending, and reform burdensome regulations to revive the American economy despite having to deal with a Democratic Congress that was opposed to his agenda. Reagan understood that the American people would pressure the Congress into doing the right thing. All Reagan had to do was champion policies that reflect American values and treat the American people with respect by being honest and clear about the facts.
Reagan's great foreign policy achievement was defeating the Soviet Union. Here too he relied on the American people for backup. He understood that his vision for victory – as opposed to détente – would be opposed by much of the establishment, within the news media and diplomatic corps, but supported by the American people.
Similarly, when I was Speaker, the Republican Congress was able to achieve its principal goals despite having to work with a liberal Democratic President. We balanced the budget while cutting taxes and increasing military and defense spending. It is a historic fact that Clinton never proposed a balanced budget. It was the Republican House that made it happen. (In this blog post at American Solutions, Peter Ferrara argues that President Obama is stealing a page from Clinton's playbook.)
All this was possible because we understood that President Clinton would eventually yield to the demands of the American people. That's why after twice vetoing another one of our principal goals, welfare reform, Clinton eventually signed it in 1996, before he ran for reelection. He knew he wouldn't be able to stand the heat from the American people if he didn't.
Campaigns on the Issues, Not Personalities
Ronald Reagan and the Republican Congress under my Speakership also delivered on our goals because the preceding election campaigns focused on the issues, not on personalities.
In 1980, Reagan offered a bold, competing vision for America's future that outshone the malaise and weakness of Jimmy Carter. He promised to cut taxes to boost economic growth, to renew America's strength in the world by standing up to the Soviet Union, and to restore America's civic confidence in its founding and unique purpose (American exceptionalism).
With a weak economy and the hostage crisis in Iran in 1980, Reagan could have simply run as "not Carter" and emerged victorious. But then he would not have had a mandate to govern, and would never have been able to achieve his principal goals.
Similarly, in 1994, we explicitly crafted the Contract with America campaign around conservative reforms that we understood had overwhelming support in America (if not in the editorial pages of the NY Times) but had nonetheless been blocked by the Democratic House.
Consequently, despite having a liberal Democrat in the White House, we still managed to achieve a balanced budget, welfare reform, tax cuts, increased military and defense spending, and more.
Perhaps Republicans could have won control of the House in 1994 by simply running against Clinton. However, the Republican landslide would not have been as large, and we certainly would not have had the mandate necessary to enact real change.
Contrast these elections and subsequent real reforms to the 2004 and 2008 elections.
I wrote a white paper in 2004 pointing out that on over 70 key issues, John Kerry was on the wrong side of public opinion by larger than a 70-30 margin. An election campaign run on these issues would put John Kerry at an impossible disadvantage and could have led to a landslide result with a true mandate for President Bush to govern.
However, the choice in the minds of most American voters in the fall of 2004 wasn't over two competing visions for America; it was between forged National Guard papers and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth commercials. Accordingly, more people turned out to vote against John Kerry than to vote against George W. Bush. With no mandate to govern, is it any wonder that Bush's subsequent attempt to reform social security was dead on arrival?
In 2008, President Obama won an enormous victory. He carried states that had not voted Democrat in a long time. Democratic majorities in the House and Senate were increased. It seemed that he would have free reign to accomplish any number of liberal priorities.
However, because he had run a personality-focused, shallow campaign about "change" without clearly defining what that change meant for the American people, President Obama's political capital quickly ran dry. The only way he was able to pass the stimulus and health care bills was through brute force and political backroom dealing. His signature achievements were passed despite the will of the American people, not because of their support. That's why he was massively rebuked during the 2010 elections and much of his agenda is now being unwound.
A Contract with America in 2012
The lessons from past successes in achieving real change – and past failures – are clear.
Because power ultimately resides in the people, achieving real reform requires the expressed consent and engagement of the American people.
That means if America really is ever going to see that conservative future of freedom, faith and prosperity we heard at CPAC, we will need a campaign in 2012 that is waged on the great issues of the day.
We will need candidates that have a clear and substantive plan to govern and who can explain conservative solutions to the American people in a way that gets them excited and engaged.
We will need a new Contract with America in 2012.
A new Contract with America with specific, substantive, conservative solutions to the great challenges facing our nation is the only way to gain the mandate from the American people needed to bust through all the embedded interests in Washington and the state capitals that will oppose change.
If a new conservative President and Congress develop and win based off of a new Contract with America in 2012, there is nothing that can stand in the way of true conservative reforms that will create jobs, make America safer, and maximize individual freedom and dignity for all Americans.
Not even the nattering nabobs of negativism in the press corps.
Your Friend,
Newt
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"I proposed an aggressive, all-American energy strategy that would dramatically boost all sources of energy production in our country. " :-D Great
"I also proposed replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with a new Environmental Solutions Agency" :? I don't like this.
"All this was possible because we understood that President Clinton would eventually yield to the demands of the American people. That's why after twice vetoing another one of our principal goals, welfare reform, Clinton eventually signed it in 1996, before he ran for reelection. He knew he wouldn't be able to stand the heat from the American people if he didn't" True except with the government stalemate that toppled Newt.
"His [Obama] signature achievements were passed despite the will of the American people, not because of their support." Not only that. They were passed despite Obama not because of him (the ONE)
"We will need a new Contract with America in 2012." Good idea. Perhaps it is better to wait to not let the Bamster try to co-op them. At least with phoney rhetoric.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Newt Gingrich needs no introduction to most Republican audiences. It is the reintroduction that is the challenge.
If Mr. Gingrich moves forward with a presidential bid, as his advisers and friends say he is poised to do as soon as this week, he will start with a reputation as one of his party’s most creative thinkers and a record of leading Republicans back to power in the 1990s and confronting Democrats on spending.
But he will also have to grapple with aspects of his life and career that could give pause to elements of the Republican primary electorate, including a lack of a well-established association with religious conservatives and attendant questions about his two divorces.
So as he travels the country, he is striking two related notes: that the nation faces not just a fiscal crisis but also a loss of its moral foundation, and that his conversion to Catholicism two years ago is part of an evolution that has given him a deeper appreciation for the role of faith in public life.
On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society.
“To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”
To most audiences, Mr. Gingrich does not talk directly about converting to Catholicism, but his faith has become an important part of his dialogue with conservative voters.
In an interview, Mr. Gingrich said he knew that a campaign would bring new attention on the full scope of his personal and political background. Last week, in an appearance at the University of Pennsylvania, he grew testy when he received a question from a Democratic student activist about the details of his two divorces.
“There are things in my life I’m not proud of, and there are things in my life I’m very proud of,” Mr. Gingrich said in the interview when asked what effect his background would have on a candidacy. “People have to decide who I am. Am I a person they want to trust to lead the country or not?”
In Washington, Mr. Gingrich, one of his party’s best known and most polarizing figures, may still be remembered for a spectacular rise and fall: the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, the confrontation with President Bill Clinton that led to a government shutdown the next year, ethics battles and his resignation as speaker in 1998. He also acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Callista Bisek, then a House staff member, while leading impeachment proceedings against Mr. Clinton for lying about his own sexual transgressions.
But elsewhere, Mr. Gingrich’s reinvention has long been under way, amplified through regular appearances on the Fox News Channel, as he tries to build support among the voters who will choose the 2012 Republican nominee.
Rival Republicans marvel at his deep well of ideas, his innate intellect and his knowledge of government. They also point to the strategic approach taken by the Gingrich team in the 2010 elections, including holding training sessions for a new generation of elected officials. He has secured important endorsements, including one from the new majority leader of the Iowa House, who has been courted by all potential presidential candidates.
Mr. Gingrich said he believed that the 2012 election was comparable in historic scope to 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover and ushered in the New Deal, and to 1860, when Abraham Lincoln prevailed over Stephen A. Douglas, setting the stage for the Civil War.
He urges Republicans to not settle for “rejection conservatism,” which simply casts aside liberal arguments, instead of “replacement conservatism,” which would fundamentally change institutions that he believes have outlived their effectiveness.
“That’s part of what the Republican Party has to come to grips with,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Does it want to be a party prepared to replace the failed institutions and move to a very bold new approach? Or does it want to try to muddle through accepting the framework of the systems that are failing?”
As always, Mr. Gingrich continues to mix the abstract and the more politically concrete.
The man who introduced the Contract with America in 1994, which still stands as a gold standard of political branding, now has a snappier jingle for today’s shorter attention span. The message is so concise that he pulls it from the breast pocket of his suit, no matter if he is delivering an intimate dinner speech or addressing a large audience, as he did recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The note card reads: “2 + 2 = 4.”
It is an elementary lesson on spending and debt, he said, that has eluded the Obama administration. He uses it to present his broader view that the next presidential election should be a major debate over the size and scope of government.
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When President Obama changed his position last week and said he believed that the 1996 law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages was unconstitutional, Mr. Gingrich waited a full day to offer his reaction. In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Gingrich kept his criticism confined to process, rather than the merits of marriage, saying: “The president is replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama.”
It remains an open question how a new inspection of Mr. Gingrich’s record would hold up to scrutiny by voters, including his own spending votes and the 1995 government shutdown, but his advisers believe that it could be well received, given the sentiment of Tea Party supporters. And in the early going, Mr. Gingrich appears to be getting another look from religious conservatives, especially Catholics, a traditional swing constituency.
Before and after his appearance here, dozens of people lined up to buy books, movies and other mementos that help finance the operations of Mr. Gingrich’s array of business enterprises and provide a window into his growing popularity among some social conservatives. Mr. and Mrs. Gingrich sat for more than an hour signing inscriptions, with his best-selling book, “Rediscovering God in America,” a particularly popular item on this snowy night in Ohio.
Dr. Jack Willke, an early leader in the anti-abortion movement in Ohio and across the country, was among those waiting for an autograph. Dr. Willke said he was delighted that Mr. Gingrich had increased the role of faith in his public appearances, something that he said he did not recall during Mr. Gingrich’s tenure as speaker of the House.
“We were there long before he was,” Mr. Willke said. “It was never a big public thing for Newt, but he’s surfaced now as considerably more so.”
As Dr. Willke and his wife, Barbara, mingled with others in the crowd, Mrs. Willke said she was delighted to read about Mr. Gingrich’s baptism as a Catholic in March 2009. When one woman asked about his conversion, Mrs. Willke replied: “His Catholicism certainly sounds legit, and even more so since Callista is in the picture now.”
A few feet away, another woman pulled a reporter aside and asked how many times Mr. Gingrich had been married. When told that the answer was three times, the woman said simply, “Oh.” (In 1981, he and his first wife, Jackie, divorced, and he married his second wife, Marianne, that year. In an episode often cited by his detractors, he visited Jackie in the hospital in 1980 while she was recovering from a cancer operation to discuss terms of their divorce. Mr. Gingrich disputes the account.)
When the conversation turned to marriage at the end of the 30-minute interview, Mr. Gingrich seemed displeased, but fully expecting questions about his personal life along with his ideas to change the country. He said he hoped voters would “look at the totality of someone who is 67 years old and a grandfather.”
Asked if he believed that people were forgiving, he replied, “We’ll find out.”
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I hope he runs. At least give a go.
If he doesn't do well at least he will have tried. We'll never know otherwise and always question not doing so.
Go for it Newt!
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To those who support Newt or are tempted, what do you make of the past personal issues? a. Does any of it offend you, b. does any of it make you think these things will hurt his chances in the general election, c. does any of it show character issues that could detract from his ability to govern?
From my point of view, Yes I will vote for him if nominated, but that doesn't count because I will vote for any of the named Republicans over Barack Obama based on vast policy differences.
Yes it offends me. I don't see why the R. candidate has to run a nearly 2 year campaign with the apparent lesser of the moral character, and R's are traditionally hald to a higher standard IMO. Obama's family situation is almost too perfect. Maybe something else breaks on a guy this fond of himself and high on power, but as far as I can see he is clean as a whistle in his marriage and family life.
Forgiveness sucks and behavior matters from my point of view. As clear as I keep hearing Newt say 'Calista and I' today, I remember him not very long ago always saying 'Marianne and I'. 3 wives is too many without a couple of real good excuses. Lots of people will be offended. These politicians parade their wives and children in front of us to for political gain, to demonstrate character. Husband infidelity hits married women hard IMO; that is a key demographic Republicans need; R's who do terribly with single women and are challenged with women overall. Making it worse, Newt's timing was bad - to be screwing around during Clinton's impeachment. How can that story die and how can that not be a distraction for him and an obsession with validity for the angry left? A recent conversion to Catholic faith, during his preparation for a run, looks opportunistic to me. God can judge his soul but I say that here among mortals you get judged as the man that you were and all that criticism is fair game.
I honor his previous historic accomplishments, but 1994 was 18 years before 2012, and his feat of sweeping congress has now been repeated. I honestly see him as a policy developer, spokesman and strategist, not the nominee or the President.
There is no correct analogy for Newt, but look at the implosion of Rudy Giuliani who was an American icon before facing a little scrutiny. Looking forward to other points of view on this. For those who support him, tell us what your wife thinks about it all.
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"I honor his previous historic accomplishments, but 1994 was 18 years before 2012, and his feat of sweeping congress has now been repeated. I honestly see him as a policy developer, spokesman and strategist, not the nominee or the President."
Exactly.
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Well put Doug; the Republicans should move on and find someone with character.
"Making it worse, Newt's timing was bad - to be screwing around during Clinton's impeachment."
AND he was busy discussing divorce terms while his wife was still in the hospital recovering from Cancer.
The story will never die. It offends my wife; and while even I too find him brilliant, his character offends me as well.
If the Republicans want to win, he should not be the nominee for President.
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And yet you weren't offended by Obama's self-admitted cocaine use, 20 years with a racist Rev. (Friend of Col. Gadaffi, to boot) and home purchased through a convicted felon.....
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As Doug implies; don't ask me, ask women.
And the Republicans need women to win this election.
Newt....
Three wives.
The hypocrisy of his screwing around during Clinton's impeachment. AND
filing for divorce and discussing terms while his second wife was still in the hospital recovering from Cancer.
That's cold. Let's see how many women vote for him.
Ask your own wife...
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GM's point is rational, but , , , this is politics.
And there is also Newt's brief dalliance with global warming, and his backing of a liberal in Republican clothing in that special election in upstate NY because that was who the Rep machine chose.
I too would like to seem him run and to see what the response is.
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My wife hates Cokehead Barry and looks forward to helping vote him out in 2012.
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Woof,
Newt will be announcing his candidacy in a couple of days. I still don't think it will be a serious bid.
P.C.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gingrich-presidential-bid-20110304,0,2306522.story
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Did Newt flip flop or is it a bum rap? I'm guessing most of us have seen the footage of Newt calling for a NFZ and then saying he wouldn't have intervened. Sure looks like a flip flop, but is it?
I watched Newt get interviewed by Chris Wallace last night. CW is a quintessential Washington insider reporter (watch his clueless interview with Glenn Beck and you will see what I mean) and he is a very good one. I thought his questioning of Newt last night to be aggressive yet fair, and respectful of Newt as a human being.
In addition to several direct questions on Newt's personal issues and foibles (which were gracefully and graciously introduced) CW went right after Newt to ask the flip flop question.
If I have it right, Newt said that once Obama called for ousting Kadaffy, then as a good bipartisan American putting politics aside at the water's edge he supported doing it whole-heartedly and not in some half-assed manner, but that he would not have made the call to take Kadaffy down. This sounds reasoned to me, but he certainly is going to have one helluva time beating the flip flop rap on this one.
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Well, it's not like he was married to that position......
:roll:
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Crafty: "Did Newt flip flop or is it a bum rap?"
They all have this problem, including Obama and Sec. Gates. The point with Gingrich is that he wants to be held to a higher standard. He is (?) the one with experience, who has lived through tough policy questions, thought deeper and is most ready to take the 3am phone call and have the right reaction. Looks to me like all of them have been all over the map on this.
One hit job on Gingrich I was not going to post is here: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/03/27/gingrich_vs_gingrich/ Excerpts:
"For someone who holds himself out as a public intellectual, Gingrich comes across all too often as more glib than thoughtful..."
Consider the former speaker’s position(s) on Libya.
On March 7, before US military action against Moammar Khadafy had begun, Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren asked Gingrich what he would do about Libya. Without hesitation, he called for aggressive American intervention and derided the president for not having ordered it already:
“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening,’’ Gingrich demanded. “The idea that we’re confused about a man who has been an anti-American dictator since 1969 just tells you how inept this administration is . . . This is a moment to get rid of him. Do it. Get it over with.’’
So eager was Gingrich for action that he wanted it done unilaterally:
America “doesn’t need anybody’s permission,’’ he said. “We don’t need to have NATO . . . We don’t need to have the United Nations . . . All we have to do is suppress [Khadafy’s] air force, which we could do in minutes.’’
Two weeks later, as the UN Security Council voted for a Libyan no-fly zone, Gingrich intensified his criticism. The Obama White House, he told Sean Hannity, “is maybe the most passive and out-of-touch presidency in modern American history.’’ Khadafy was still in place two weeks after the president said he had to go, Gingrich observed, and “there is no evidence that the no-fly zone by itself will be effective.’’
The next day, Gingrich told Politico that the president’s position on Libya “makes us look weak and uncertain and increases the danger in the Persian Gulf.’’
Yet by Sunday, with US missile strikes on Libyan air defense systems underway, Gingrich’s tune began to change. Now Obama was guilty of “opportunistic amateurism without planning or professionalism,’’ he said, and the only thing that could explain the administration’s decision was “opportunism and news media publicity.’’
On Wednesday, March 23, Gingrich went on NBC’s “Today’’ show to condemn the entire operation. “I would not have intervened,’’ he told Matt Lauder. “I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Khadafy.’’ For good measure he labeled the military campaign, which so far has gone pretty well, “about as badly run as any foreign operation in our lifetime.’’ That will come as news to anyone who can remember Vietnam, Somalia, or Iraq before the surge.
Thus in the space of three weeks, Gingrich went from blasting Obama for not imposing a no-fly zone in Libya “this evening’’ to blasting Obama for imposing a no-fly zone in Libya. On March 3 he wanted the president to tell Khadafy “that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.’’ By March 23 he was mocking “humanitarian intervention’’ as an unserious “public relations conversation.’’
But if the only consistent note in Gingrich’s ever-evolving position on Libya is that Obama is always wrong, just who is the unserious one?
-------------------------
I did not see the Chris Wallace interview. Quote his explanation of different positions:
On Libya, Gingrich told Wallace that it was the president who changed the rules on the Libyan game.
“I said [originally] we should be for replacing Gadhafi, without using the U.S. military. Now the president on March 3rd changed the rules of the game,” Gingrich said. “The president came out publicly and said: ‘Gadhafi must go.’ My original position was: If you’re not in the lake, don’t jump in; once you’re in the lake, swim like crazy.
“Now that the president has said ‘Gadhafi must go,’ our goal should be the defeat of the Gadhafi government, and the replacement of Gadhafi as rapidly as possible,” he said. “Ideally, by using Western air power, with Arab forces — including I think Egyptian and Moroccan and other advisers to help with the ground campaign — but I see no reason for American ground troops to go in.
“But I think the president has positioned us; once the president says Gadhafi must go, we have an obligation as a country to get rid of him,” Gingrich added. “It should be unequivocal.”
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Very Funny GM. The marriage joke flew right over my head - three times.
One point I noticed unreported about the so-called past infidelity is that the potential new first lady, Mrs. Newt, that Newt so badly wants us to get to know, was also a knowing and consenting participant in the 'home wrecking' chapter. Someone try to tell me that married women, the majority are Republican, will be forgiving of that.
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Very, very doubtful. Newt has the ideas of a conservative and the personal morals of a liberal. That won't fly.
The left will hammer this point, over and over, unless he suddenly became liberal, then it's a "private matter".
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a) Are we buying his explanation? At the moment I am inclined to say yes
b) What do we make of his analysis?
==================================
Measuring Obama’s Speech
by Newt Gingrich
Monday morning, I posted to Facebook a five question checklist by which to measure President Obama’s speech on our military engagement in Libya.
Here is my analysis of how effectively the president answered those questions:
Does President Obama cite working with Congress more than working with the Arab League or the United Nations?
No. President Obama mentioned Congress just once in a 3,400 word speech. In contrast, he mentioned the United Nations Security Council and Arab league eight times. Furthermore, he dedicated a significant portion of his speech to the importance of cooperation between Western and Arab allies.
As I have said, I do think having allies in this effort is valuable, especially Arab ones. However, that desire must be appropriately balanced against the obligation the president has to respect Congress’ role, as well as the objectives of the mission at hand (more on this later).
President Obama made it remarkably clear in his speech that he places a much higher value on gaining the approval of the United Nations and the Arab League than he does on consulting Congress. By his own account, he committed the United States to action with a United Nations resolution before consulting with Congressional leaders, which he did only just before the bombing began.
The president also never seemed to consider the fact that allies – including Arab ones – could have been assembled faster in a way that bypassed the corruption of the United Nations.
Does President Obama define replacing Qaddafi as our clear and explicit goal? Having said Qaddafi “needs to leave" that has to be the goal of this war.
No. In fact, he said quite the opposite, that our mission was to stop an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and that “broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.”
There are two problems with the president’s argument.
The first goes back to the disproportional value the president places on gaining the approval of the United Nations.
The president tried to make the case Monday night that our military engagement was justified in order to protect human life. Yet, the first reports of Qaddafi’s forces firing on the Libyan people, including with his air force, arose in late February. On March 5th the Libyan dictator’s army fired on unarmed protesters. On March 6th, his forces laid siege to the rebel-held town of Zawiyah.
The president, however, chose to wait almost two weeks, until March 19th, for a diplomatic consensus to emerge and resolutions to be passed in the U.N. Security Council before taking action.
The disturbing conclusion one can draw from President Obama’s actions is that he believes the special duty he spoke of, for the United States to not turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by dictators, ranks lower on his list of priorities than gaining approval from the United Nations to do something about them. He clearly favors muddled coalition consensus to moral leadership.
The second problem is that leaving Qaddafi in power will not stop the humanitarian crisis; it simply drives it underground. In the face of overwhelming military superiority, Qaddafi will most likely conclude that his best option is to retaliate in ways that cannot be stopped with air power. In fact, hearing the President of the United States publicly say he would not use the military to drive him out of power will almost certainly convince Qaddafi his best option is to dig in.
The United States is signaling that all he has to do is wait it out because the president has explicitly told Qaddafi that we are not going to force him to leave power. This leaves us with an open ended commitment to enforce a no-fly zone. The Iraq no-fly zone lasted a dozen years and did not remove Saddam Hussein from power.
The simple fact is that so long as Qaddafi remains in power, the people of Libya remain at risk of violence by their government. That’s why the president’s “mission accomplished” message rings so hollow.
3. Does President Obama pledge to send a request to Congress to pay for the cost of the war so our men and women in uniform are not asked to take it out of an already stretched budget while they are still engaged in two other wars and several small campaigns?
No. The president did not mention how this effort was going to be paid for. All indications are that it will come directly from the Pentagon’s budget, leaving our men and women in uniform who are already stretched with even fewer resources.
4. Does President Obama acknowledge the danger of Al Qaeda allies among the anti-Qaddafi forces and pledge to work for a moderate replacement government without extremist factions?
Partial credit. The president never acknowledged the likelihood of the presence of al-Qaeda within the rebel forces but did speak vaguely about diplomatic efforts to “support a transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve.” He then concluded his speech with a more specific commitment that the United States would find ways to help those around the world that believe in core American principles.
5. Does President Obama describe clearly the coalition command structure, the American role, and an allied commitment to defeat Qaddafi?
No. In fact, his explanation of handing off command to NATO made it seem as if NATO was some sort of separate country with its own military resources. In fact, NATO is simply a military alliance and command structure through which our allies conduct joint military operations. In practice, handing off control of the operation to NATO only means that command will be transferred from American General Carter Ham (Commander of U.S. Africa Command) to American Admiral James Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander-Europe).
The president also failed to mention there is currently another engagement being commanded by NATO – the mission in Afghanistan. Of course, mentioning that would have exposed the smokescreen he was trying to create, since the United States continues to pay a heavy financial and human toll in Afghanistan every day.
The president’s long overdue explanation to the country was unsatisfactory in providing clear objectives for Libya. He did not explain why he valued the consensus of the international community over the Congress. His previously stated goal of removing Qaddafi is not in line with the goals of the coalition. He has placed the U.S. military in the position of refereeing a civil war under the auspices of a humanitarian effort without a definition of success. Lastly, the president cannot say today when our commitment to enforcing the no-fly zone might end.
What Should Have Been Done versus What Must Be Done Now
On February 24, I stated that U.S. military force was not necessary to remove Qaddafi. He was clearly in a weak position and we could have worked with our allies, particularly our Arab allies, who want to see a post-Qaddafi Libya, using quiet, covert, and indirect action to get rid of Qaddafi.
On March 3rd the president took that option off the table when he unambiguously declared that Qaddafi must step down from power and leave. This statement put the authority and prestige of the United States against a dictator, committing the United States to that objective. Anything less would be seen as a defeat for the United States.
In that new reality, I commented on March 7th that we should declare a no-fly zone in support of the president’s public commitment to oust the dictator.
By March 19th, however, the president had dropped his objective of getting rid of Qaddafi and adopted the U.N.’s objective of enforcing a no-fly zone for a humanitarian cease-fire. I said at that time I did not support using the U.S military if it was not for the expressed purpose of removing Qaddafi from power. I reiterated that prior to March 3rd, I would not have intervened militarily, but after March 3rd the only reason to use military force was to get rid of Qaddafi.
World events are becoming more complicated, intertwined, and fast paced. As such, our leaders need to be able to adjust their analysis and prescriptions as the facts dictate.
You can watch and read a complete timeline of my statements on Libya here.
Your Friend,
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Newt is in... and getting some bad publicity regarding his Sunday show appearance on Meet the Press.
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/16/sundays-disqualifiers
"By transparently running to the middle and sabotaging the Ryan budget, by implicitly accepting the single most offensive piece of policy of the Obama presidency, Gingrich has mortally wounded his presidential aspirations; unfortunately, he's done great damage to the GOP brand at the same time. But perhaps that's no surprise from a man who did an ad sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi to warn us all about the dangers of man-made climate change."
(That wasn't the worst of what they said about his candidacy.)
Meet the Press link. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43022759/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/t/meet-press-transcript-may/
------
If not for new problems he starts for himself every day, relating to experience he is one guy who would have known how to get positive legislation through congress.
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My strong support of Newt in 2008 is of record around here, as are my increasing expressions of doubt this time around. THIS I think is a fatal blow to any remaining willingness on my part to consider him seriously.
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Weaknesses and errors from Newt are sad because of his amazing accomplishments and amazing upside potential.
Newt is called by so many the smartest guy in the room but his brain keeps working outward to what else can we do, instead of like Reagan, narrowing and simplifying things down to 2 or 3 essential causes and focusing tirelessly on getting them accomplished.
Besides the why he did it, what was he lobbying for when he sat down with Nancy Pelosi? More restrictions on energy production and use, right as we were shooting our private economy in the foot from several directions creating government induced misery. Besides misjudging the problem, there was a government-based solution? And Nancy Pelosi could be the partner to get us there? I don't believe that.
How do we fight Obama over an unconstitutional mandate by backing a mandate?
How do we win with the Ryan plan while sabotaging the Ryan plan? For one thing, Ryan is extremely open to comment and better ideas. That criticism could have happened in private and a much improved plan could have come out of it in a nation changing press conference.
If Newt had soared to frontrunner, how was the media supposed to diplomatically ask the new wife about how this beautiful romance and partnership began. Newt should know better than anyone, conservatives are held to a higher standard. We are all human but you can not live your life less moral than your liberal opponent.
And the McCain experience should have told Newt, you don't bring conservatism to the mainstream by first pissing off all the conservatives.
Smarts includes both book smarts and street smarts/common sense. Lacking of either is a lacking in smarts.
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Exactly, Doug. Well said.
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Good riddance to Newt. He has been a caricature of his old self for years. Plus, with the baggage he carries, he could never win.
Of course, who is there that has a realistic chance right now? (Operative word being "realistic")
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With the economy as it stands? Most anybody, except some of the people stepping forward for the rep ticket.... :roll:
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May 18 , 2011· Vol. 6, No.20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Signed the Pledge To Repeal Obamacare,
Have You?
by Newt Gingrich
Yesterday in Mason City, Iowa, I signed the Obamacare Repeal Pledge, sponsored by the Independent Women’s Voice and American Majority Action. Obamacare is such a massive and complex power grab of a law that there are countless specific reasons to oppose the law.
But as I was signing the repeal pledge, I reflected upon three big reasons that Obamacare must be repealed:
It’s Unconstitutional. Period. As Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has argued, if the federal government has the power to force you to purchase a product or service, there is no end to its power.
As I argue in my forthcoming book, A Nation Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters and show in Callista's and my documentary, A City Upon a Hill: The Spirit of American Exceptionalism, Obamacare’s mandate to purchase health insurance is an assault on our country’s founding principles of limited, clearly delineated federal powers and an erosion of the rule of law.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly spells out the powers of the federal government. When the Democratic Congress passed Obamacare, the bill’s supporters argued that the individual mandate was constitutionally justified under the Commerce Clause, a provision that gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce…among the several States.”
This is a gross misinterpretation of the Commerce Clause. The Founders designed this clause to prevent American states from imposing tariffs on each other or engaging in other restrictive trade practices that would hamper the economy. But in the last century, big government advocates have misused this stipulation to justify federal regulation of energy, trucking, financial services, and other assorted activities.
Obamacare takes this overly-broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause to an absurd extreme. If the federal government can force us to buy health insurance, what is stopping it from forcing us to buy other products?
This is why dozens of state attorneys general have filed suit against Obamacare, charging that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.
A Corrupt, Bureaucratic Power Grab
Aside from this mammoth expansion of federal power, Obamacare also violates the rule of law by granting vast discretion to administrative agencies. In fact, Obamacare grants 1,968 new powers to government agencies and bureaucrats, most of them to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who administers Obamacare. You can see all these powers spelled out on a massive wall chart at healthtransformation.net.
This discretionary power wielded by unelected bureaucrats presents an enormous danger for corruption. Indeed, we have already seen how they can be abused.
Obamacare empowers the Secretary of HHS to issue waivers that exempt companies and organizations from the law’s many expensive and onerous requirements. To date, HHS has issued over a thousand waivers, including ones to Big Labor and other powerful supporters of the Democratic Party. This is all profoundly unfair to the millions of small businesses who lack the money and resources to influence Washington.
Yesterday, a report emerged that showed nearly 20% of the new waivers issued by HHS are in Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district.
This arbitrary “rule by waiver” is a fundamental violation of the rule of law. In fact, it absolutely negates the rule of law, replacing it with the rule of HHS Secretary Sebelius, Obama, and the Democratic Party.
The Wrong Model
Finally, Obamacare’s big government model, with its mandates, new bureaucracies and regulations, is simply the wrong way to lower costs and achieve better health outcomes. It is Washington centered instead of individually centered.
The current market for health care is broken because consumers do not shop based on price and quality. We have to redesign the system into one that responds to these downward cost pressures, like every other functioning market does.
We can’t do that by empowering bureaucrats and lawyers. Instead, you need to empower patients with access to quality information, including the real costs of the care they receive and give them the freedom to choose their providers based on that knowledge.
This will create a true healthcare marketplace where providers compete to provide the best care at the lowest cost. In this free market model, the 71 million baby boomers entering retirement would represent a boom, not bust, for healthcare.
Will You Sign the Pledge?
The Obamacare Repeal Pledge is not just for lawmakers and candidates.
There is a space for citizens to sign as well to show support for repealing Obamacare.
So will you sign the pledge? Click here to sign.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Which is harder, keep track of Newt's stance on issues or which wife he's on?
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FWIW I don't think we should write off Newt. He needs handlers just like the Bamster. He is far more a visionary than Obama ever was. Has anyone ever heard any original thinking out of Bamster???
Newt needs people to keep a leash on him and probably should have a telepromter like the progressive's spokesperson.
IMO Newt is right. I think Rush is somewhat off in his thinking. Reagan is over. Conservatism is not. The two are not incapatable.
We can build on Reagan but lets not simply rehash it.
You know. The closest one to my thinking is get ready ---- John Stossel. This guy who may be too libertarian for me overall is the ONLY one I see who goes after the freeloaders who are both rich AND poor. THAT is what I am talking about. We need a level playing field. One in which we don't get people cheating from whatever socioeconomic class they are from.
NO ONE is speaking to this. I know I am right. Most Republicans still don't get it. Neither do Democrats. The former care the latter don't give a crap IMO.
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I go with Doug's analysis of Newt.
"Smarts includes both book smarts and street smarts/common sense. Lacking of either is a lacking in smarts."
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", , , freeloaders who are both rich AND poor. , , , We need a level playing field. One in which we don't get people cheating from whatever socioeconomic class they are from."
Quite right, and quite right that the Reps don't get it.
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Woof,
The Republican Party has been in trouble because of its leadership since Reagan left office, I'm glad others are finally taking notice but I fear it's too late. :-P
P.C.
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Well, to be precise, it did rather well for a while in the mid-90s , , , thanks to Newt and the "Contract with America".
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Woof,
You're correct they accomplished getting a majority, then they used it to be one of the most medicore Congress's in history and pissed it away. When Bush II went in he could have gotten control of illegal immigration, brought the Assault Weapons ban to an early end and gotten rid of most of Clinton's buddies in the government, buddies that just kept on doing what Clinton had them doing, like using the CIA to track down black market CD's and movies for his Hollywood pal's. They got in and they sat on everything and here we are. I'm not at all happy with that; of course it was still ten times better than letting the Dems keep control. What a sorry state we are in right now. :-P
P.C.
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The way I remember it the Gingrich Congres exercised control over Clinton spending, cornered him into a major welfare reform, cut the capital gains tax rate, and ran a budget surplus , , ,
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"The way I remember it the Gingrich Congress exercised control over Clinton spending, cornered him into a major welfare reform, cut the capital gains tax rate, and ran a budget surplus"
----
All true, and more. Obviously the electoral success of 1994 was based on his vision and direct leadership. The hemisphere wide free trade agreement (Reagan's vision) was an accomplishment of Clinton with the majority of Republicans and a minority of Dems while Newt was whip. The capital gains cut was hugely important in the economic growth that employed the nation and balanced the budget, overcoming the slow growth of Clinton's earlier tax hike. Welfare reform brought pride to the inner city and temporarily changed the direction of the role of government. Also the telecom deregulation act of 1996 spurred phenomenal growth in conjunction with a friendlier investment environment. Reelection of those congresses 5 times (even after Gingrich) bolster the point of his success. The ethics charges forcing him out I believe proved to be bogus and unfair, like what Palin faced after drawing attention in Alaska.
If the Presidential race comes down to who has done the most so far for the conservative movement, Gingrich has already won and there is no second place. If he is the nominee, I am his supporter.
Jay Cost, not talking about Gingrich, says the party is seeking conservative, authentic and exciting. Gingrich is now trying to prove he is still conservative. He has problems with authenticity. The excitement he is stirring unfortunately is from Democrats. He quickly clarified and reversed the remarks made Sunday, but damage is already done (and it isn't the first time). http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/05/19/gingrich-will-star-in-democrats-anti-ryan-medicare-attacks According to [Dem] party sources, they plan to use Gingrich's assault on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan in a bid to knock down every Republican who voted for it, and every Republican voted for it.
Figuring out Newt's positions is too hard. I still see him now as more of a strategy and policy guy behind the scenes than as the candidate and the face of the movement. (I prefer lower key and less excitement, but I'm the midwesterner here.) You can't govern effectively with high disapprovals. You can't lead effectively without building up your teammates. You can't win the general election without support from independents, and for sure you don't win by splitting the conservative movement.
His openness for ideas in the American Solutions project was extremely admirable. Maybe I am too early on this but I say the time for brainstorming is over. It is time to tell us what you came up with - in crystal clear clarity.
Here he is explaining the Meet the Press fiasco on the Rush L show. It is for the newcomers IMO (Palin with Charlie Gibson/Couric, Bachmann on Chris Mathews) to fall into a media trap. The seasoned professional like Newt should instead have led the Meet the Press host into a conservative trap.
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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051911/content/01125106.guest.html
RUSH: ... Let's try to cut to the chase here. There seems to be some confusion over your position -- or people's understanding of your position -- on the individual mandate, and it goes back to Meet the Press on Sunday where you seemed to say that you were for a mandate, then later said you weren't; and it sounded to some people like you were being critical of Paul Ryan when you used the term "social engineering" to describe parts of his Medicare solution in his budget. What is "social engineering"? What does that mean to you? I'm not sure I understand.
GINGRICH: Well, can I just take the two one step at a time?
RUSH: Yeah.
GINGRICH: David Gregory brought up an 18-year-old interview, in 1993, on Hillarycare, which we were in the process of defeating. And in 1993, the conservative alternative to government-run health care was you buying your own insurance. Now, I still have not seen the total interview. What I should have said to him is, "Gee, why don't you play the rest of the interview? Let's see the context of that conversation," but that was an 18-year-old tape about a totally different fight when we were trying to stop Hillarycare from taking over health care.
RUSH: But, Newt, I've got some quotes from you from 2004 and 2006, I think, basically advocating the same principle that it's not fair that somebody should be treated if they don't have insurance.
GINGRICH: (garbled) I'm giving a speech in New Hampshire next week outlining how we can apply the Tenth Amendment to solving health problems and how we can use patient power and do it with zero mandates. No federal mandate, no state mandate. This is a topic [John] Goodman and I worked on now for a decade. He's probably the leader -- you know John well -- of this kind of solution. I'm opposed to any federal mandate. I do not believe any state should adopt a mandate. I think there are ways to solve the problem without a mandate. But we're trying to solve three things: Preserve American freedom; ensure that people can have health care; and have some sense of responsibility that if you do get health care, you ought to pay for it -- which is the opposite of the liberal position that you ought to have free health care and somebody else ought to take care of you. So I think that's a very... That position is very clear.
RUSH: Okay, what was the point of the Republican --
GINGRICH: And by the way, I talked with Paul Ryan about this two days ago and I look forward to very much to continuing to work with him -- and, as you know, I endorsed his budget. I wrote a newsletter endorsing his budget. I think it's a very courageous step in the right direction. He concedes that the Medicare part of it is the beginning of a conversation. It's not a final document; it's not the last bill, and I want us to have an approach which allows everyone in the country to be engaged, to understand that it is a better Medicare system that is fiscally gonna survive and that -- if designed right -- will lead to more innovation, more choices, and better outcomes.
So, I think he and I are pretty much on track. What I was trying to say that day -- and I was answering a very specific question by David Gregory which, by the way, had nothing to do with the budget vote. I would have voted "yes" on the Ryan budget. It had to do with this question -- and I'd be curious, Rush, to hear your answer. "If there was a major change that affected the lives of every American..." and not necessarily in Medicare, "...a major change that affected the lives of all Americans, and the party in power had failed to convince the American people that it was the right thing to do, should that party impose that change against the will of the American people?"
RUSH: No, but you've just described the entire Obama administration agenda.
GINGRICH: Right, and all I was trying to say that day was: It's fundamentally wrong for Obama to try to impose a left-wing America against the will of the American people. I believe as a center-right majority we are the will of the American people. I believe we can get a majority for what we want --
RUSH: (sigh)
GINGRICH: -- but that's not what David Gregory asked me. He said, "Would it be okay for us to impose against the will...?" It was a very specific question he asked.
RUSH: Newt, this is very difficult. You're on a cell phone, and because of that you can't hear questions I'm trying to ask you. So this is a bit frustrating for me 'cause I want to go back to three or four answers ago. You yourself said that it was the conservative position in '93 to support a mandate. The Heritage Foundation even had a paper back then supporting a mandate in opposition to Hillarycare, as you said, 'cause they were trying to eventually get to single-payer. Heritage later said: You know, it's not workable; it's not constitutional; it doesn't work out.
I know that's what Gregory was asking you about, but still: People can produce quotes from more recently than 1993 of you advocating posting a bond or having a mandate that people buy insurance, under the premise that it's not fair that somebody not buying insurance should be able to waltz into an emergency room and get treated. So the question is: Why, back in 1993, was it the conservative position to support a mandate in opposition to Hillarycare?
GINGRICH: I think we went through a long evolution, and I've been part of that. I mean, I'll be clear: I think I've reached conclusions different over an 18-year period than I would have in 1993. In '93, we were narrowly focused on trying to beat Hillary, the Hillarycare project. We weren't thinking fundamentally about resetting the country, and I give Heritage a great deal of credit, and I give John Goodman at the National Center for Policy Analysis a great deal of credit.
They, more than anybody else, began the process of thinking through: "If you were not gonna mandate because it's wrong -- at either the federal or state level -- to impose that on people, how could you design a system that encouraged people to be fiscally responsible, to pay for the things they got, and at the same time enable them to buy health insurance if they wanted to? I've consistently said all along: You could never impose a universal mandate. You'd have to have alternatives that allowed people to find ways to not be forced into buying insurance, because I'm very aware of the fact that there are substantial number of people...
I have a good friend who's a Christian scientist, and she said to me, "You know, it would violate my religious freedom for you to impose on me health insurance since I don't believe in using it." Now, I thought... That, frankly, I thought was a very compelling argument. That was part of the evolution as we thought this through, and in the speech I'll give next in New Hampshire I'm gonna outline the patient power model that John Goodman has been building; and I'm gonna suggest that we want to apply the Tenth Amendment to return most of these decisions back to the states and to recognize that Washington has been a grand failure at trying to solve health care in a centralized way.
RUSH: Now, look, this is really uncomfortable for me because you know that we've known each other a long time and I've had such -- and still do -- profound respect, admiration, and even envy for your intellect at times. But there's just some things that are confusing me. There's a June 2007 op-ed in the Des Moines Register, and you wrote, "Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it."
An "individual mandate," you added, should be applied "when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed." The reason why all of this matters now is that 26 states are suing the Obama administration over the Commerce Clause violation of an individual mandate, and yet it appears that there are some on our side who have also supported this, and your appearance on Sunday with Gregory... I know he was going back to 1993, but when you answered it also with the "social engineering" side of it. I don't think it's good left or right, that's why people thought that it was a slam at Paul Ryan.
And so that's why this stuff is there and is not going away, because it seems that they can go back into archives and find where you have continually supported it even since 1993, and in the current context of us opposing all of Obamacare because we think the fastest way to beat it is to knock down the unconstitutionality of a mandate it just offers confusion here -- and that's why people are constantly asking you about this. What they want is a satisfying, reassuring answer. They just don't want to think you're not conservative anymore, Newt.
GINGRICH: Well, look, let me say a couple things that you can verify. When Bill McCollum as attorney general took the lead in the 26-state suit, I actively personally supported him. I encouraged him. I spoke out in his favor. I helped him get coverage. When [Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli took the lead was the first person to file a lawsuit, I actively encouraged him and supported him. At the Center for Health Transformation we have been wrestling for nine years with the question: How do you have an affordable health system when you realize if you talk to hospital administrators, people have been taught over the last half century that health is their right, and they don't have to pay for it. So you have people who earn 75 or a hundred thousand dollars a year who won't pay their hospital bills. They just say, "I'm not doing it," and we were wrestling with what's the technique? How do you find personal responsibility without infringing on people's liberty.
RUSH: Right.
GINGRICH: As I said, my conclusion ultimately was that these various efforts were going to work -- and I have opposed the Obamacare proposal largely from the Center for Health Transformation for two and a half years. The three best charts destroying Obamacare's credibility all exist at HealthTransformation.net, and they combine, have 115 square feet of charts that you put up a wall. They're amazing. We did all that work, and we actively, aggressively have opposed Obamacare at every stage.
RUSH: All right. Newt Gingrich is with us.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We're back with Newt Gingrich here on the EIB Network. Okay, we want everybody to be responsible for their health care, but you now oppose mandates. So how do we solve that?
GINGRICH: Well, John Goodman has developed an entire approach in which he would give everyone the same tax break if they wanted to buy insurance, and the people who didn't want to buy insurance wouldn't be compelled to. Their share of the tax break would go into a high-risk pool. And if something did happen to them, they would then be eligible for the high-risk pool, but they would also be limited to the high-risk pool. And so they wouldn't have -- you wouldn't have -- an automatic assumption that you would be able to go be taken care of except through the high-risk pool because you'd made the voluntary decision you wanted to live at risk. He wrote a book several years ago called Patient Power and we began meeting at the American Enterprise Institute about these ideas in about 2001 -- and he's really, I think, probably the leading student of developing a personal freedom approach to how you solve the health problem.
RUSH: "The health problem" in a lot of people's minds exists precisely because of government, and therefore to a lot of people -- and I'll throw myself in with them -- the government's the last place the solution to this problem should be. The government messed it up; the government continues to mess it up. There's no evidence or proof that people in government are any smarter than people in the health care business to fix what's wrong. Why do we continue to accept the premise?
I mean, you're in a little bit of a trouble here simply because everybody's accepting the premise put forth by the liberals that government must fix, must police, must control health care because only they can do it fairly. We've gotten ourselves into a circumstance... I saw a statistic the other day that explains why we're in this mess. Of every $1 spent on health care, only 12¢ is paid for by the patient. Imagine, Newt, if you only had to pay 12% of every meal you ate. You wouldn't care what it costs, and that's where we are now, and government has created that circumstance.
GINGRICH: You're right.
RUSH: Getting government out of this is the solution to it.
GINGRICH: Right, and that's why my program will be among the most bold in American history at saying -- not just on this topic, but of many other topics -- we have to have a fundamental break with the last 80 years going back to 1932; that we've had a steady migration towards Washington and a steady migration towards bureaucracy, and a steady migration towards redistribution -- and if we're serious about stopping it, this will be the most decisive break since 1932. I wrote a book in 2002 called Saving Lives & Saving Money, which made exactly your argument.
It said: No third-party payment model ever works because you'd never have the buyer-seller relationship, and you only get satisfaction when the person getting this good or service is paying something and the person who's providing the good or service is getting something and they're looking each other in the eye and the system works. Now, how you migrate back to that is very complicated and you have to do it in a way that the country understands it and will accept it. So in Medicaid I will be proposing that we implement the Tenth Amendment by block granting all Medicaid back to the states, letting the states figure out what to do with it and recognizing that Washington has failed and that we need the experiments of the governors and the state legislatures trying to solve health for the poor.
RUSH: Okay, so you're signing on with the Ryan plan, essentially?
GINGRICH: Oh, yeah. I signed on for that part of the Ryan plan from day one. I've advocated consistently from day one, and, you know, I --
RUSH: What did you call to apologize to him for?
GINGRICH: I have talked to him for years; and my wife, Callista, has known him since he was an intern. We're big fans of Paul Ryan. But the second thing I would do, though, is I -- and this is the part of what probably got me in trouble so let me be very open about it. I believe we are better off as conservatives who believe in markets, to design choice for people so people can make the decision that this is better for them.
And when I was chairing the Medicare taskforce in '96, we initially designed Medicare Advantage to be attractive to people, so they would voluntarily go to it. Well, 25% of all seniors have found Medicare Advantage to be something they like. We began building in health savings accounts, 'cause we want people to decide they like controlling their own money. I would like to see Congressman Tom Price's bill, which allows private contracting on a voluntary basis. I mean, one of these we learned in 1996 with extensive focus groups is senior citizens love to be allowed to choose.
They hate to be forced to choose, and so you want to say to them, "If you would like to have private contracting, if you would like to be allowed to spend your own money, if you're in a position where you'd like to do things your own way, why wouldn't we give you that freedom? We don't have the government require you to buy a government house after 65 or go in a government vacation or pick up a government car. So why not liberate Medicare to the point where seniors can choose?" and then the marketplace -- doctors, hospitals, pharmacies -- they've gotta organize competitively. So it's a more desirable future to accept the conservative personal choice option over the government bureaucrat-control option.
RUSH: Okay, now, I need to ask you because this is something you said on Sunday with Gregory that you didn't believe in "left wing or right-wing social engineering." What is that? Define social engineering for me.
GINGRICH: It's very straightforward. It's when the government comes in and tells you how to live your life and what you're gonna do, whether the values that lead it to do that are left-wing values or the values that lead it to do that are right-wing values. I believe in personal freedom. I believe in your right to lead your life. I believe that we are endowed by the Declaration of Independence, by Our Creator with the right to pursue happiness --and I want a government that is much more humble about its ability to tell you what to do, whether it's people on either side of the ideological spectrum. By the way, it was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer.
RUSH: Well, then what did you apologize to him about?
GINGRICH: Because it was interpreted in a way which was causing trouble, which he doesn't need or deserve, and was causing the House Republicans trouble. One of my closest friends -- somebody I truly, deeply respect -- e-mailed me and said, "You know, your answer hits every Republican who voted for the budget." Well, my answer wasn't about the budget. I promptly went back and said publicly, and continue to say: "I would have voted for the Ryan budget. I think it's a very important first step in the right direction," and I have consistently said that from the time that Paul first briefed me on it weeks before he introduced it -- and I've been talking with Paul Ryan about budget matters for the last four years.
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He needs to give up any illusions he will ever be president. It's over, Newty. Write more books, find a new wife, just go away now.
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"Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it"
Good point. There is no easy answer to this.
Some claim health care is a right. Laws mandate Emergency departments treat people no matter what their coverage or lack thereof or ability to pay.
So in the end we pay for those who do not buy their health care and end of with an acute illness that could cost huge amounts. Unless they find the way to pay for it. And we all know how that works.
The only other way is we do go after people to pay their bills and it remains their repsonsibility to get the money. If they declare bankruptcy the rest of us are screwed.
People don't get insurance because they can't pay for it, can't get it (preexisting condition), or take a chance.
But all these groups know they can show up in an ER and they will get treated.
As a society the MSM will have us believe that "we all agree" that we must help people without insurance or not. Indeed, they act as though we are all for covering even illegals. I am not so sure that most people do feel this way but maybe. Then again there are far more people of the "rich should pay crowd" than the latter.
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The way I remember it the Gingrich Congres exercised control over Clinton spending, cornered him into a major welfare reform, cut the capital gains tax rate, and ran a budget surplus , , ,
Woof Guro Craftydog,
That was the ten times better part. :-D
P.C.
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I'm still digesting the interview by Rush there , , , what do we make of it?
In the meantime, here's these examples of what he will need to deal with:
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When Newt Gingrich launched his bid for the GOP presidential nomination last week, we knew there would be some Sturm und Drang added to the race. Newt's brain is always running, but sometimes his mouth runs even faster. That became painfully obvious just four days later.
During a discussion on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday about Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan, Gingrich declared that such reforms were "too big a jump." If he had stopped there, we may never have heard about it. Instead, he proceeded, "I'm against ObamaCare, which is imposing radical change. And I would be against a conservative imposing radical change." Furthermore, "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering."
And that's when the fight started.
Some wondered for which party's nomination he's running, while others simply declared his campaign toast. Dick Armey, now the chairman of FreedomWorks, but a co-writer of the "Contract with America" made famous by Newt, said he doesn't understand why Gingrich thought "he helps himself by attacking the one guy [Ryan] that [conservatives] see as being courageous" about getting "government spending under control." Brendan Steinhauser, director of Federal and State Campaigns for FreedomWorks, says the Tea Partiers he's talked to are "irate" at Gingrich, because "For them, this is the fourth or fifth time he's done something that has made them mad." In fact, Steinhauser concluded, "I never met a single Tea Party activist that supported Newt Gingrich for president." Ryan himself laughed it off, saying, "With allies like that, who needs the Left?"
At first, Gingrich dug in and argued that his "establishment cocktail party" critics were taking his remarks out of context. Then he signed a pledge to repeal ObamaCare if elected. Tuesday, he cried uncle and called Ryan to apologize. But then he jumped the shark, saying, "It was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer," and he only apologized because "it was interpreted in a way which was causing trouble which he doesn't need or deserve." Has he been taking lessons from John Kerry? Gingrich has spent the better part of his first week on the campaign trail mopping up a mess that he should've known better than to make in the first place.
Medicare is one of the biggest pieces to the federal spending puzzle. If we are ever to solve the debt crisis (more on that below), we must address Medicare. Ryan's proposal, which includes moving future recipients (age 55 and under) to a "premium support" model for Medicare, will be debated by conservatives, savaged by liberals and ultimately modified -- though it's doubtful it will be any better for it. It isn't gospel, and it isn't the test by which all candidates must be measured, but criticism by fellow Republicans should at least be accompanied by better ideas. As National Review's Jonah Goldberg put it, "Newt's immediate policy proposals on Meet the Press were twofold: attack fraud and 'start a conversation.'"
"Mr. Ideas" is going to have to do a lot better than assaulting Ryan's plan and sitting on a love seat with Nancy Pelosi to win the GOP nomination. Better yet, he could just "keep up the good work" and lose the nomination.
Gingrich vs. Gingrich
"I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently, where there's some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable." --Newt Gingrich on "Meet the Press" Sunday
"I am completely opposed to the ObamaCare mandate on individuals. I fought it for two and a half years. ... I am against any effort to impose a mandate on anyone because I believe it is fundamentally wrong and unconstitutional." -- Newt Gingrich in a campaign video Monday
Thanks for clearing that up, Newt.
(Hat tip: Wall Street Journal Political Diary)
Quote of the Week
"Debating the issues is perfectly fine. It's the way Gingrich talks about things that is so awful. He is incapable of disagreeing on any matter about anything without creating a whirlpool of negativity that ends up sucking in his own confreres while leaving his partisan and ideological antagonists amazingly untouched. In the end, then, no matter the issue, Gingrich somehow manages to turn the conversation away from the topic at hand and focuses it squarely on him -- what he said, what he meant, what he was doing, why he did it, what's the matter with him. The Ryan apology just added to the psychodrama of the last few days with Gingrich. The havoc generated by his narcissism will not abate. It can't. Alas." --columnist John Podhoretz
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Anyway, what do we make of what he said with Rush?
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I'm still digesting the interview by Rush there , , , what do we make of it?
Ever watch a punch-drunk boxer that is the only one who doesn't know it's over?
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It makes some sense, but being the smartest guy in the room doesn't help if no one can follow you.
In the 90s, his opponents wrongly took his words 'whither on the vine', a statement about some antiquated bureaucracy, to make it look like a death sentence for all seniors. It worked because he had already been painted as enemy of the women, children and the elderly. This is different. It was his allies who blew their fuse. It worked because conservatives are already skeptical about his conservatism.
The clarification is wonkish and vague. "My plan will... " I'm sure he will have his own specific plan for us to judge the merits. Like Romney, he is still talking about increased government involvement in health care and producing sound bites for Republican opponents. He has been in close contact with Paul Ryan for 4 years. If he is the leader of this movement, where was plan then to show the public when Washington was deeming PelosiObamaCare passed and ramming it down our throats?
If Newt ran a perfect campaign and hit all the right notes on every issue with every group, he still faced an insurmountable problem IMO. As a loose cannon, drawing questions on himself and alienating friends, GM unfortunately has this about right.
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Death by Bureaucracy
by Newt Gingrich
Earlier this month, a panel appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services made a recommendation so detached from the good of individual patients it could only have come from government bureaucrats. They recommended eliminating screening for the most common cancer among males nationwide.
The United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) is composed of 16 government-selected experts whose recommendations often influence the reimbursement policies of Medicare and private insurers. The range of members’ backgrounds is narrow considering the group is charged with advising the federal government and other healthcare providers on specific medical procedures: almost all are academics or administrators rather than practicing physicians. The panel includes experts in pediatrics and newborn care, in mental health and geriatrics, but not a single urologist who actually takes care of prostate cancer patients.
Despite lacking any specialist who deals with the issue, the panel issued a recommendation this month to stop using the only available test to screen for prostate cancer. PSA tests, which measure levels in the blood of a marker known to be elevated in men with prostate cancer, are the sole method of screening other than digital examination by a doctor, which cannot detect the most common form and usually identifies those cancers it can much later, when they are less curable.
Without the PSA testing, many men will have no way to know they have the disease until it has developed into a much more dangerous problem. In some cases, it will be a too late by the time they discover it.
What is the basis for the panel’s recommendation to discontinue screening that can save lives?
It has nothing to do with the merits of the test. Instead, these government-appointed experts advised against screening because they disagree with what some doctors and patients choose to do with the information once they have it.
Prostate cancer is a complicated issue, and elevated PSA is not always a sign that a man should enter treatment. In some cases, men can live with benevolent cancers and remain healthy for years. In many other cases, it is simply unclear even from biopsies whether the cancers are benevolent or lethal, as both kinds register on test results.
E
Understandably, many men faced with this information want to do everything possible to make sure they do not have a lethal cancer, and many doctors, as well, recommend curative therapy even when they are not certain the cancer is lethal. There are definitely patients, especially older men, who undergo treatment for prostate cancer they could have lived with if it had gone undetected.
If prostate cancer is over-treated, the sensible response for the USPSTF would have been to call on the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute to help develop a better and more accurate test, and to advise doctors and patients to consider more conservative approaches when the test suggests the presence of prostate cancer.
Instead, the task force’s answer is simply to deny doctors and patients the chance to consider early treatment by recommending they not screen for prostate cancer in the first place.
That is not a reasoned response to the problem. It is a bureaucratic response to the problem, and people will almost certainly die because of it.
This points to the difference between the bureaucratic approach to healthcare, which leads to rationing, and an approach to empower individuals and their doctors to make the best decisions for them.
Bureaucrats cannot comprehend the complicated details of all the individuals for whom they try to make decisions and so they issue one-size-fits-all pronouncements for large classes of people. In this case, when the bureaucratic approach identifies a class that is being over-treated, it calls for the elimination of screening to warn of the disease. That way fewer people will have the information they need in order to be faced with choices involving some options the bureaucrats consider undesirable. Physicians can’t over-treat a prostate cancer they have not detected.
Of course, it is ridiculous to have a handful of government bureaucrats with no expertise in the matter issuing recommendations that influence federal, state, and private health systems in crafting policies. Doctors and patients are in the best position to determine whether individuals should be screened for prostate cancer and to judge the best course of action afterward.
No one should want the government interfering in these very personal medical decisions. Lethal bureaucracy is a disease we can’t afford—and one that is entirely preventable with the right policies.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Passes Perry in the polls!
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Passes Perry in the polls!
Meh.
I wish he were a credible candidate.
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Me too. My wife, who is pretty hardcore Republican loathes him as a man who divorced his dying wife.
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Me too. My wife, who is pretty hardcore Republican loathes him as a man who divorced his dying wife.
And that's just part of a pattern of conduct with him, not just a one time thing.
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http://www.therightscoop.com/newt-gingrich-speech-at-ronald-reagan-dinner/
Newt & Cain:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CainNew
Intro speaker has some VERY good charts but the audio track has an annoying hum until about 14:00. Newt and Cain come on at 15:00. A pleasure to hear serious, unhurried, intelligent conversation at this level. 8-)
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By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings.
"Substance" is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds attending these forums—in their expressions, caught on C-SPAN's cameras, in the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich talk begins. Their disengagement—the tendency to look around the room, chat with their neighbors—vanishes. The room is on high alert.
The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth abortion—a history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located support for his views on the dollar.
Editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz discusses why she thinks Newt Gingrich could win the Republican nomination. Photo: AP.
.There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, "because stupid people are running America." The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else's remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.
He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.
He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.
Mr. Gingrich predicted, too, that late on Election Night—after it was clear that President Obama had been defeated along with the Democrats in the Senate—the recovery would begin, at once. His audience roared with pleasure. No other Republican candidate could have made the promise so persuasive.
Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. "I think I can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total confusion in the economy."
When it came time to answer questions from a panel of journalists, he was asked first about energy, one of those vital subjects that don't tend to yield lively commentary. How would Mr. Gingrich's policies differ from those of the current administration?
Mr. Gingrich launched into a lethal thumbnail description of the Obama administration's energy policy. The president, he said, had gone to Brazil and told the Brazilians he was really glad they were drilling offshore and that he would like America to be their best customer. "The job of the American president," Mr. Gingrich told the panel, "is not to be a purchasing agent for a foreign country—it's to be a salesman for the United States of America."
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
Presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
.The former speaker of the House is a dab hand at drawing listeners in, for good reason—he showers them with details, facts and history in a degree no candidate in recent memory has even approached. Audiences have a way of rewarding such trust.
No one listening that night to candidate Gingrich's reflections on the menace of radical judges from Lincoln's time on down could have ignored the power of his fiery assessment—including the Dred Scott decision, others by courts today that threaten our national security, and much in between.
The Iowa contest ahead is all important for Mr. Gingrich. The same is truer still for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Ms. Bachmann has been looking increasingly aware that her hopes are fading. Mr. Santorum now seems to inhabit a world so nearly exclusive in its focus on family and family values that it's hard to imagine him a successful contender for the presidency of a large and varied nation of Americans with other concerns, the non-family kind included.
Then there's Congressman Ron Paul, who last weekend let it be known that if he doesn't like the views of the person who wins the nomination, he won't support the Republican candidate. This is a good reason—one of many—for Mr. Paul to retire himself from further debates. It's a certainty, to put it mildly, that he's not going to be the nominee.
It would be passing strange to have as a candidate for the presidency of the United States an envenomed crank who regularly offers justification for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the annihilation of 3,000 Americans. It was an act, Mr. Paul explains in these exculpatory sermonettes, to which the terrorists were driven by American policies. Mr. Paul may get all the fond buddy treatment in the world from his fellow debaters, but few Americans outside of his devoted army of isolationist fanatics will forget these views.
That leaves Mitt Romney, and Messrs. Perry, Cain and Gingrich heading the list of competitors for Iowa. Mr. Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from another woman—one who showed up in person, with plenty of detail. Charges of lies, financial motives and conspiracies notwithstanding, it's hard to see how Mr. Cain weathers this disaster. No outsider can know what actually did or did not happen. But all the snorting in the world about Gloria Allred, the accuser's attorney, isn't going to change the impact of this highly specific accusation.
Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There's no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.
His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich's qualifications all 'round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
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Two more positive pieces with references to the 3rd that Crafty just posted. All three make the case he can win by discussing his strengths and mostly skipping over weaknesses.
Steven Hayward regarding the Newt interview Crafty posted: "...Newt at his best, reminding us that then he is on his game there is no one better. (Hayward is author of two volume series 'Age of Reagan'.) He likes very much Newt admitting the mistake of sitting on the park bench with Pelosi (“That was the dumbest single thing I’ve done. . . simply inexplicable), but still... what was that?! I know what it was, Republicans were going to sit down with Democrats in government and figure out how America can learn to produce less and consume less, and they did!
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/11/the-case-for-newt.php
Posted on November 9, 2011 by Steven Hayward in GOP Presidential Race 2012
The Case for Newt
I’ve been meaning for a while now to circle around to Newt Gingrich’s quiet rise from the ranks of the also-also-rans of this campaign. I’ve been pretty hard on Newt here on Power Line over the last few months, most notably back in May after he got tangled in labeling Paul Ryan’s fiscal design “social engineering from the right.”
I noted here last month that with each debate “Newt Gingrich’s ‘it’s-so-crazy-it-just-might-work’ strategy for this race is looking a little less crazy,” but the right analogy might be that Newt’s tortoise and hare strategy is paying off. We know Newt didn’t run in 2008 partly because he thought it would be difficult to compete with Romney’s ability to self-fund a campaign if need be, though Newt might also have perceived, as Nixon did about GOP prospects for 1964, that 2012 would be a more favorable year for both him and the GOP. The same problem—Romney’s money advantage—is here this year, too, so Newt’s live-off-the-land strategy was a long shot, requiring one thing that Newt has often struggled with: discipline and focus. Newt has always had the worst case of political Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder since the beginning of clinical politics.
But lately Newt seems to have hit his stride. Did you happen to catch him on the “Center Seat” segment of Fox News’s “Special Report” last night? It was Newt at his best, and reminding us that then he is on his game there is no one better. Maybe the best part was when Steve Hayes played the infamous TV ad Newt cut with Nancy Pelosi three years ago about the “climate crisis” (about the 6:50 mark of the video). Newt didn’t finesse it: he straight out said, “That was the dumbest single thing I’ve done. . . simply inexplicable. . . it was just dumb.” Not often a politician admits a mistake that straightforwardly. And then he went on to give a concise account of the issue of climate and energy that tracks pretty closely with what I said on this site way back in the spring after Romney botched the issue.
So enter as witnesses Byron York in the Washington Examiner a couple days ago[I will post below], and this morning Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal (“Why Gingrich Could Win”), making the case for Newt even more strongly:
Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There’s no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.
His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich’s qualifications all ’round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.
So as Cain fades from the scene (I like Cain, but I’m sorry, he’s not ready for prime time presidential politics) and Perry continues to perform erratically, there’s a decent chance Newt will emerge as the not-Romney candidate. And then there will be a test to see whether the GOP “establishment,” such as it is, can put Romney over the top, and whether the Tea Party and other conservative grass roots Republicans will put aside their well-founded suspicions of Newt.
But beyond handicapping the primary campaign dynamics, Newt is doing something interesting and maybe profound: he is trying to run for president according to an older model that stresses substance over sound bytes and gimmicky, targeted campaign strategy. (Hence the emphasis on Lincoln-Douglas style debates that de-emphasize the place of the media questioners, among other things.) It is a bid to see whether presidential politics can still be conducted along the line of the old republic that would be more familiar to the Founders, to the style of public argument more akin to what Hamilton had in mind in talking about “refining and enlarging the public view” through “reflection and choice” in Federalist #1.
Footnote: Keep in mind one other thing from one of my previous comments here on Newt:
Whenever I think he is off his rocker, I remind myself that Newt was practically alone in thinking, from the first moment he arrived in Congress in 1979, that Republicans could take a majority in the House if it was sufficiently aggressive. Even as late as the eve of the 1994 election the conventional wisdom among political scientists and most journalists was that Democrats had a permanent majority in the House that the GOP could never break.
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http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/york-gingrichs-wonkish-unconventional-campaign
Gingrich's wonkish, unconventional campaign
byByron York Chief Political Correspondent
DES MOINES - Last Friday, at precisely the moment Herman Cain was basking in applause at a conservative activists' gathering in Washington, Newt Gingrich was in a small conference room at the Marriott Hotel here, discussing cognitive illness with three brain scientists.
"What I am trying to do is initiate the idea that solving health problems is the best way to reduce costs," Gingrich begins. Look at polio, he says. What if it had not been cured? What if one took the high cost of treating polio in 1950 and simply projected it through 2011? The numbers would be enormous. Without even considering the human benefits, curing polio was far, far cheaper than treating it over decades.
Now Gingrich wants to approach Alzheimer's and other brain disorders the same way. "The scale of brain-related problems is so large and so unreported," he tells the scientists, "that if you think of the supercommittee right now, for example -- they're trying to find $1.5 trillion [in savings] over ten years -- the projection the Alzheimer's Foundation gave me was that Alzheimer's alone could cost $20 trillion in public and private funds between now and 2050." Spending billions on curing Alzheimer's -- sums Congress would never approve in today's political atmosphere -- could save astonishing amounts of money in the long run.
It's the kind of wide-ranging and wonkish discussion Gingrich is known for. Indeed, the former Speaker, whose mother spent the last years of her life in a long-term care facility, has devoted a lot of time over the years working on Alzheimer's issues. But now he is in the middle of a presidential campaign. He's in Iowa, with 60 days to go before the caucuses that could decide his future. He is hours away from a crucial speech to the Iowa Republican Party's annual Reagan dinner. And he is spending nearly two hours of his day, behind closed doors, with three doctors, a couple of aides, and one reporter, talking about brain research. The topic of the approaching caucuses does not come up.
Gingrich often says he is running an unconventional campaign. Republicans here in Iowa would probably agree, since they don't see him all that much at traditional stump events. But most have no idea just how unconventional the Gingrich campaign really is.
On this day, Gingrich's plan is to integrate his longtime interest in health issues, and in particular brain research, into his appeal to voters. In an interview after the session, Gingrich says he wants to reach "everybody who's worried about Alzheimer's -- and over 55 years of age, it is a more common fear than cancer." Here in Iowa, the organization Iowa Against Alzheimer's estimates there are 69,000 people over the age of 65 with the disease. Take their spouses and children and relatives and friends, and add other people so far unaffected by the disease but worried about it -- take all of them, and you've got a very large group. They vote, and Gingrich wants to reach them.
Gingrich has test-run the idea in a few recent public forums here and in other early-voting states. "In South Carolina, a Tea Party leader walked up and said, 'My dad died three years ago with Alzheimer's, and I understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish,'" Gingrich says. "People can have a checklist in their head that says on these things, Newt Gingrich understands my world and is trying to make it better." Gingrich plans to work the message into his speeches and discussions with voters more often as voting approaches.
Whatever Gingrich is doing these days, it's working. Thanks in part to impressive performances in several GOP debates, he is moving up in the polls, both nationally and in key early states. He's raising money again after a meltdown -- a massive staff defection and damaging stories about big-spending habits at Tiffany -- that nearly killed his campaign a few months ago. And voters appear to appreciate his sticking with it. In discussions across Iowa in the last week, it is striking how many voters volunteer Gingrich's name as someone they're finding more and more appealing. If either of the current frontrunners, Herman Cain or Mitt Romney, were to falter, Gingrich is in a position to benefit greatly.
And he's doing it his own way. What other candidate would take a large part of a critical day to talk science when the campaign trail beckons, with local officials to meet and hands to shake? "We'll see if it works," Gingrich says with a laugh. "It's a great experiment."
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent
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Several entries today: Please check out the Newt speech and the Newt-Cain "debate".
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Dear Marc,
A poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers this week has Newt surging ahead of Mitt Romney by three points! This is especially important news because the media forces that are terrified of this campaign have been saying that while Speaker Gingrich has steadily risen in the national polls, it didn’t matter because he remained behind in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
The good news, however, does not end in Iowa. In South Carolina, we saw this headline out of CNN: “Gingrich Amasses Largest South Carolina Campaign Footprint.” Our staff in South Carolina now includes nine incredibly talented professionals, and we will also be opening offices across the Palmetto State, starting Saturday with the grand opening of our headquarters in Greenville.
With less than 60 days until the first votes are cast, the path to victory is clear. First, we know that we can count on Newt to win voters with masterful debate performances and substantive speeches. Second, we need to build strong campaign organizations in each of the early primary states to capitalize on Newt’s winning message. Building those winning campaign organizations takes resources, and that is why our fundraising push to raise ONE MILLION DOLLARS this week is so important.
In just the first three days we have raised nearly $300,000 towards our one million dollar goal! I know that we can keep the momentum going and reach our goal if you will join us today by making a generous contribution!
Yesterday, we put out a call for those of you who can afford a larger contribution to join Newt’s List and help us reach our goal. So far 41, people have stepped up and made a contribution of at least $250, and 34 people have secured a spot on Newt’s List by making a contribution of more than $500! That means we still need 159 people to make a contribution of $250 or more and 66 people to make a contribution of at least $500 to complete Newt's List. Please help us reach our goal and secure your spot on Newt’s List by making your contribution of $250, $500, $1000, or even the maximum contribution of $2500!
Thank You,
Michael Krull
Newt 2012
Campaign Manager
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A friend writes me his thoughts on Newt:
To me there are two issues with Newt and firearms.
The first is that he has no issue or problem banning what he thought to be military or assualt rifles. He seems to fall into the Elmer Fudd class on guns , if it is for hunting it is fine but if it is for anything else it isn't fine. If he doesn't understand the 2nd I don't see any reason to think he understands the other amendments or the Constitution itself.
He stated in an interview around 2004 that he voted against the '94 ban because there were a few firearms on the ban list he didn't consider assualt rifles. He seemed to have no problem banning firearms as long as they were not hunting rifles.
2nd issue is that the '94 ban was dead and had no chance of passing into law until Newt came up with the "10 year sunset clause" which added enough support that the ban passed by one vote. Newt voted against the ban but was responsible for it being passed as much as anyone was.
I also liked Newt when hearing his ideas and considered him an intelligent person but after reading up on him I just can't see myself voting for anyone who doesn't understand the 2nd Amendment.
If my information isn't correct please set me straight on Newt. I do consider him one of the more intelligent and capable candidates but the gun issue will keep me from voting for him if what I have read is correct.
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Conservatives, Stop The Insanity: Newt Gingrich Is Horrible
Michael Brendan Dougherty|Nov. 10, 2011, 3:10 PM|8,130|69
Conservatives in the GOP are desperate to avoid a Mitt Romney nomination. Mitt's a flip-flopper who gave Obamacare a test-run in Massachusetts. He used to be pro-choice. Mitt's just a bad show all around.
And so conservatives have given Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain a ride up and down the polls. And now this agony is causing conservative voters to lurch to Newt Gingrich.
This would be a horrible mistake.
Newt has gained traction in debates by attacking the media. Fine, conservatives hate the media. But Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew attacked the character of the media. When Newt gets a question he doesn't like, he starts whining petulantly. He practically faints as if his corset has been pulled too tight. C'mon conservatives, you know this doesn't appeal to you.
Then there is his personal life. Remember when George W. Bush ran for the presidency, he constantly pledged to "restore honor and dignity to the office." People just wanted to get over the personal drama afflicting the Clinton White House. Newt Gingrich cheated on his first wife with the woman who would become his second, and then cheated on her with the woman who became his third wife. He was leading the impeachment of Clinton, while diddling his Congressional aide. And now he makes little documentaries about God. In these films he wears tailored suits, not sackcloth and ashes.
The Obamas are the picture of blue-state family-stability. Gingrich is the face of red-state family dysfunction and hypocrisy. If you somehow nominate this man, say goodbye to "character counts" arguments. You'll have lost them already.
"But," you'll say, "he has ideas!"
Of course he does. Newt Gingrich has all the admirable qualities of an autodidact. He's energetic and occasionally lobs a challenge at weak intellectual orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, he has all the horrible qualities of an autodidact:a tyrannical streak and an egomania that is impervious to the reality of other people.
And, yes, Newt Gingrich always has ideas. He has 5-point plans for fixing everything. He's constantly pitching these "solutions." Ever wonder why Newt Gingrich has so many ideas?
It's pretty simple. Ideas come to you easily when you have no principles to get in the way of your roaming untrained intellect. So what are some of the ideas Newt Gingrich has promoted? Are they even conservative ideas?
He promoted the return of the Fairness Doctrine.
He was for a federal individual health-care mandate, the lynchpin of ObamaCare.
He was practically spooning Nancy Pelosi in commercials about the need for government action on global warming.
He supports green energy projects [Solyndras] and farm-subsidies.
Even as late as this year he was pitching for more government intervention in the health-care system at the progressive Brookings Institution.
How is Gingrich an improvement on Mitt Romney?
When Gingrich was betraying his own Republican revolution in 1998, he lashed out at the conservative congressmen who opposed his leadership. "They're hateful," Gingrich said of the Republicans holding firm. "They're cannibals."
If you grant him high office and complain about what he does with it, he'll be saying the same about you.
Please, conservatives, spare yourselves Newt Gingrich.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/conservatives-please-stop-the-insanity-newt-gingrich-is-horrible-2011-11
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igxgegOSniY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igxgegOSniY&feature=player_embedded
Gotta give Newt props for slapping down the CBS spokesmodel.
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Conservatives, Stop The Insanity: Newt Gingrich Is Horrible
Great Post.
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Super Committee Disaster and Three Alternatives for America
by Newt Gingrich
As the deadline for the so-called "Super Committee" to put forward a deficit reduction plan approaches, officials in Washington are arguing over whether the government or the American people will have to bear the pain.
What they do not realize is that the United States is actually caught between three possible futures:
1. Fantasy and collapse (the Greek model)
2. Pain and Austerity (the Washington establishment model)
3. Innovation and Growth (the Hamilton-Lincoln-Reagan-Thatcher-Gingrich model).
President Obama is wandering around the country promising billions in his bid for reelection. He is spending our children's and grandchildren's money like a teenager with his first credit card.
Such policies are clearly unsustainable. If we continue to pile up $2 trillion a year in debt, we will crush the economy under massive interest payments. We only need to witness what is happening in Greece and Italy to glimpse where that model leads.
The Washington establishment’s reaction to the runaway spending is a policy of austerity and pain.
Democrats would cause austerity and pain on the individual by raising taxes, thereby shrinking family and business purchasing power.
Republicans would cause austerity and pain to government by cutting spending and thereby shrinking the services and income transfers government provides.
Clearly, shrinking government is preferable to overtaxing the American people but we must remember that there is a third alternative to pain. It is the path of innovation and growth. Historically, this has always been the American solution.
Alexander Hamilton was an early advocate of an economic growth model. His first report on manufactures paints the picture of a growing, industrializing America.
Abraham Lincoln spoke for those who wanted transcontinental railroads and other examples of modern innovation and growth.
Both President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher believed that a better future could be achieved through innovation and growth.
The key to today's budget problems is to recognize that there is a world that works (largely but not entirely in the private sector) and there is a world that fails (bureaucracies in both the public and private sectors). With even a little creativity, we should be able to maximize the world that works and eliminate the world that fails.
For instance, if we applied modern private-sector management systems to government they would save up to $500 billion a year. That is three times the goal of the Super Committee. To see the incredible savings such systems can offer take a look at the examples Strong America Now already provides.
If we applied the American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and IBM models of fraud suppression to Medicaid and Medicare to stop paying crooks who are committing fraud, we would save $70 to $120 billion a year. (For a detailed plan to stop Medicare and Medicaid fraud, see the book Stop Paying the Crooks published by the Center for Health Transformation.)
Block-granting Medicaid and returning it to the states, as Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan advocates, we would save $700 billion over the next ten years. That is almost half the goal of the Super Committee.
With just these few examples we have already come up with most of the savings the Super Committee is trying to achieve, with no pain involved.
Adding a training requirement to unemployment compensation would strengthen America’s human capital. Many would probably leave the program if they actually had to do something to earn the money.
History has shown us that innovation, reform, and growth will be better than the pain and austerity being discussed in Washington today on both sides of the aisle.
Your Friend,
Newt
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PS I acknowledge Newt has had some really off key moments along the way, but I'm not sure I'd take that opinion piece's author at his word on his descriptions of them-- and I have no time or energy at the moment to look into it further,.
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PS: The look of utter smugness on the questioner's face before Newt answers him says quite a bit.
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As the debates accumulate, it becomes more and more evident that Newt Gingrich’s intellect, experience, articulateness and depth of knowledge elevate him to the top of the GOP field. Anyone should be happy to pay admission to watch him duel with President Obama in debate! He’s not as charismatic as Herman Cain or as smooth as Mitt Romney, but boy, does he have a brain!
Ever since the campaign started, Newt has always gotten in his own way. Now he has graciously stepped aside and let his creativity and intellect shine through.
Earlier in the debates, he bit the questioners’ heads off in a pique of surly crankiness. No longer. Now he just answers the questions as they come, often hitting them out of the ballpark. His perspective and insights are penetrating and his condescension has vanished (or at least is sublimated).
Unfortunately, he does owe some of his current surge to the unsubstantiated and vague charges against Cain. While Republicans generally dismiss these charges, they worry that they will hurt him in November should he win the nomination. Herman will recover. His positive solutions for our economy will lift him back into the top tier of contention. Michele Bachmann might also come back, lifted by a tide of opposition to any tax increases embedded in the deficit-reduction supercommittee’s recommendations.
But any recovery by Cain or Bachmann will not bump Newt from the top tier. The likely result of the debate process is to bequeath to Iowa three or four contending candidates and leave it to them to sort out.
If Newt is the candidate, will his personal baggage drag him down? It will hurt, no doubt about that. His marriages will be dissected by the media, and his family will be deluged with questions and well-laid traps.
His ratings will decline as the inevitable baptism of fire begins. As with Cain, he will experience a few bad weeks. But, as with Cain, his positive strengths will carry him through the fire and he will come out the other end.
But once Newt survives the process, he will be inoculated against the charges. He will have immunity against the issue.
And here is the core of Obama’s problem. All of the Republican candidates will be so thoroughly vetted — and purified — by the brutal process they are going through that they will be immune to his charges against them in the fall.
John Kerry never went through that process. His quick knockout of Howard Dean and the tepid challenge mounted by John Edwards did nothing to vet his claims of hero status in Vietnam.
Obama, on the other hand, survived the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers charges in the primary. When the general election came, they were old hat and had no electoral punch. Similarly, Bill Clinton got the nomination only after he had survived Gennifer Flowers and the accusations of draft-dodging. In November, those charges were spent bullets.
That’s the good news for Republicans. The nominating process has been so combative and the media scrutiny so searing that the candidates have been pre-screened. The FBI screening process is nowhere near as intense as the negative-research capacities of the media and political opponents.
If nominated, Romney will have survived the accusations of flip-flopping, Cain will have overcome the sexual harassment charges and Newt’s marital history will be yesterday’s news. And then we can get on with the business of winning the election.
And win it we will. Obama cannot survive his 60 percent disapproval rating on his handling of the economy (the highest ever recorded by CBS during his administration). Under his leadership, Gallup reports an almost 10-point edge for the Republican Party on handling the economy. Against a generic opponent, Obama draws only 43 percent of the vote. With the personal negatives on the Republican candidates aired and used up during the primaries, there will be nothing for Obama to hide behind.
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By ALLYSIA FINLEY
Back in May when Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign was imploding, his spokesman Rick Tyler released a statement blasting the "sheep" in the conservative media for unloading "their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods."
Mr. Gingrich at the time was under attack for dismissing fellow Republican Paul Ryan's Medicare premium-support plan on "Meet the Press" as radical "right-wing social engineering."
(Shame on this reporter. This accusation, which I bought into at the time, has been shown to be disingenuous-- read the question to which he was responding when he made this comment and all will be clear.)
Mr. Tyler went on to forecast that "out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead."
It's true that three new polls show Mr. Gingrich has re-emerged from the political rubble, but it's not clear whether he's ready to lead.
A Public Policy Polling survey places the former House speaker in front with 28%. Herman Cain and Mitt Romney trail him at 25% and 18%, respectively. Since June Mr. Gingrich's favorability rating has flipped from 36-49 to 68-23, a 58-point improvement in his spread. A CNN/Opinion Research poll also shows Mr. Gingrich in second-place with 22%, which puts him in a statistical tie with Mr. Romney. Mr. Cain trails both at 14%. But perhaps the best news for the former congressman is a new Polling Company survey that has him deadlocked with Mr. Cain in Iowa.
Mr. Gingrich has staked his campaign on winning Iowa, which would give him momentum going into South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida. He even sold himself to the ethanol lobby, vigorously promoting industry subsidies. The Center for Public Integrity reported earlier this year that Mr. Gingrich had performed consulting work for an ethanol firm at a charge of $312,500.
Now that Mr. Gingrich is rising in the polls, these issues are likely to come back to haunt him. We're also likely to learn more about his marital problems, ethics violations and lucrative work as a consultant for Freddie Mac. Mr. Gingrich has hitherto gotten a pass on these issues because of his irrelevancy. Now that he's getting more traction, he should prepare for heavier fire.
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Gingrich's Freddie Ties Draw Scrutiny
By NICK TIMIRAOS And BRODY MULLINS
Consulting work Newt Gingrich performed for Freddie Mac is drawing new scrutiny, now that the Republican presidential candidate has risen in polls on the backs of tea-party supporters and other conservatives skeptical of Washington institutions.
Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, was hired by Freddie Mac for two stretches after leaving Congress, beginning in 1999 and again in 2006, during periods when the housing-finance company faced growing threats from policy makers who wanted to clips its wings, people familiar with events said.
Mr. Gingrich and his firm gave advice on how to portray Freddie Mac to conservatives, people familiar with his role said.
Freddie and its larger cousin, Fannie Mae, remain deeply unpopular with some conservatives and tea-party supporters. Mr. Gingrich has joined fellow Republicans in blaming members of Congress, Washington lobbyists and Freddie and Fannie for contributing to the decline in the U.S. housing market.
A consulting firm run by Mr. Gingrich was paid more than $1.6 million over seven years by Freddie Mac, according to people familiar with events. The payments were first reported by Bloomberg News.
Mr. Gingrich's campaign said the former House speaker didn't lobby Congress on behalf of Freddie Mac. "I was approached to offer strategic advice," Mr. Gingrich told reporters on the campaign trail in Urbandale, Iowa. "I was glad to offer strategic advice, and we did it for a number of companies, and Gingrich Group was very successful."
People familiar with his role said Mr. Gingrich and his firm were paid to provide advice on how to portray the company to skeptical conservatives who wanted to cap the firm's growth.
Newt Gingrich's effort to cast himself as the big thinker of the 2012 campaign appears to be paying off. While other candidates have stumbled on policy, voters in Iowa say they like Gingrich's policy smarts. Danny Yadron has details on Lunch Break.
.Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond said the former House speaker met with Freddie Mac officials about once a month. "They would present problems, and he would give them ideas and solutions," Mr. Hammond said. "They were hiring him to think about their problems."
In a debate last month, Mr. Gingrich singled out Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the former chairman of the House's financial-services panel, for blame.
"Go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at Freddie Mac," Mr. Gingrich said. "Everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness."
Chip Saltsman, who managed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign, said the issue is likely to prove troublesome for Mr. Gingrich over the next several days. "Obviously, Freddie and Fannie have not been a very popular program among conservatives," said Mr. Saltsman, who isn't affiliated with a presidential campaign this year.
With about seven weeks left before voting begins in Iowa, "even the smallest missteps can turn into big problems for a candidate running for president," he said. "Right now, you should be looking to consolidate your support, not damage it."
Two polls released in recent days showed him contending for the lead in Iowa. Steve Armstrong, the chairman of the Republican Party in Linn County, said it could be problematic for Mr. Gingrich as a candidate if he was advocating for Freddie Mac.
"I would view that negatively," said Mr. Armstrong, who is uncommitted in the 2012 race. "The government should not be in the loan business."
But Mark Lundberg, the chairman of Iowa's Sioux County GOP, who said he was leaning toward Mr. Gingrich, said he was unperturbed, since Mr. Gingrich had no official title in government.
"He had no political power to make legislation," said Mr. Lundberg. "If he can make $20 million on contracts on any business, have at it."
Freddie first hired Mr. Gingrich in 1999, as the Clinton administration raised concerns over the firms' growth. He worked for the company until 2002. At that time, Fannie and Freddie, which had cultivated deep political ties across Washington, faced more critics—including a lobbying group formed by other financial-services and mortgage companies to voice concerns over the expansion of Fannie and Freddie's influence.
Fannie and Freddie were created by Congress and benefited from tax exemptions and implied government support that allowed them to borrow money at rates only modestly higher than the U.S. Treasury.
By 2005, Fannie and Freddie's dominance of the market for pooling mortgages and selling them as securities was eclipsed by big lenders such as Countrywide Financial Corp. More Republican lawmakers and other critics pointed to the changed market as proof Fannie and Freddie weren't needed.
Mr. Gingrich was brought back in 2006 for two years to provide advice to the company on how leaders could present the firm in favorable ways to conservatives who were set on curbing its growth, according to people familiar with the matter. He wasn't registered as a lobbyist and didn't have the job of contacting members of Congress, these people said.
Until the government took over Fannie and Freddie in 2008 to avoid their collapse, the companies regularly offered lucrative jobs to officials exiting the government, such as President Barack Obama's former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who served on Freddie Mac's board of directors. The government rescues have cost taxpayers around $151 billion.
—Danny Yadron contributed to this article.
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"The trouble with Newt" [he is a Republican :wink:]
After Mr Dopey and Mr (too) Friendly, Mr Grumpy gets his turn
Nov 19th 2011 | from the print edition
CAN something inevitable also be highly improbable? That is the question raised by the arrival this week of Newt Gingrich at the front of the pack in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. It was inevitable, after the successive implosions of Rick Perry and Herman Cain, that Republican voters desperate to nominate anyone but Mitt Romney would cast their eyes down the list and alight on one of the last remaining contenders.
And what, after all, is so very wrong with Mr Gingrich? Unlike Mr Cain, the man has been a serious politician—Speaker of the House, no less, and architect of the Republican resurgence of the mid-1990s. Unlike Mr Perry, Mr Gingrich does not go blank in the middle of television debates. If anything he has during the recent debates been a bit of a star, albeit a dark one, sneering contemptuously at the “absurd” gotcha questions posed by the journalists. And although nobody can accuse him of wearing his learning lightly, he does at least have a goodly amount of it, darting apparently effortlessly in discussion from the minutiae of federal social policy to the grand sweep of world history.
In this section
Crying wolf
Keystone cop-out
We will frack you
The efficiency conundrum
Sunshine or colonoscopy?
Many scrappy returns
The Becks effect
What goes around
»The trouble with Newt
ReprintsAnd yet the rise of Mr Gingrich is also improbable. It is improbable, first, in that his campaign got off to such a terrible start that his resurrection at this late stage, just in time for the Iowa caucuses in January, is a minor psephological miracle. In June he suffered what should have been a devastating blow when much of his campaign staff resigned en masse, allegedly in protest at his decision to cruise the Greek islands with his third wife, Callista, instead of raising money and pressing the flesh in Iowa and New Hampshire. He put a brave face on this setback, claiming that he knew how to campaign in a new way, by generating ideas and raising big issues in the televised debates. Unlikely as it seemed at the time, this strategy has now been vindicated: chapeau!
There is, however, another way in which Mr Gingrich’s high standing in the polls is improbable. A whole regiment of skeletons has taken up residence in his closet. Once these rattle back into view, as they surely will, many of the Newtly enamoured Republican primary voters will surely drop their search for an alternative and reconcile themselves to the inevitable nomination of the less exciting but more electable Mr Romney.
A good place to start, since it is what did for Mr Cain, is character. The likeable former pizza mogul faded in the polls when it emerged that a succession of women had accused him of sexual harassment. No charge that grave is laid against the far less likeable Mr Gingrich. The former speaker is, however, a serial adulterer, who divorced his first wife when she was recovering from cancer, when he was already bedding Marianne, the mistress who became his second wife but was ditched in her turn for Callista, his present one. At the same time as he was conducting a secret affair of his own he was pressing for the impeachment of Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Should marital cheating be a disqualification? Not in the eyes of this column. But voters in socially conservative and early-voting Iowa and South Carolina may think so. It is bad luck for Mr Gingrich that one of his former wives has been so willing to disparage his fitness for the presidency. In an Esquire profile last year, Marianne said her former husband “was impressed easily by position, status, money” and believed “that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected”.
Even after allowing for the bitterness of a woman scorned, and for the forgiving propensity of conservative Christians, this is not a testimonial that will help at the polls. He will also have to explain again the $300,000 penalty the House of Representatives made him pay in 1997 for violating tax rules, the first time it had ever disciplined a Speaker for ethical wrongdoing. A new controversy has now flared over $1.6m or so he has earned in fees from Freddie Mac, the government-supported mortgage giant which has since been blamed for pumping up the housing market and helping to cause the financial collapse of 2008. Mr Gingrich claimed in a recent debate that he had been taken on as an “historian” and had warned the organisation that the housing market was a bubble and that its business model was “insane”. But a Bloomberg story this week avers that officials who worked at Freddie Mac at the time deny having received any such advice.
Isaiah versus the management consultant
Few people question Mr Gingrich’s energy or originality. He was the dynamo behind the Republicans’ Contract with America in 1994 and remains a pyrotechnician of ideas: a “21st-century” sequel to the Contract is under construction. The worry is that he lacks the wisdom to distinguish between his occasional good idea and the dozens of duff and sometimes dangerous ones. He offers an odd mixture of pragmatism (he once favoured compulsory health insurance) and demagoguery. It is as if he cannot decide whether he is Isaiah or a management consultant.
Over the past year the demagoguery has got the upper hand. Mr Gingrich prophesies the end of “America as we know it” under a president running a “corrupt, Chicago-style political machine” from the White House. In the summer of 2010 he reacted to plans to build a mosque in lower Manhattan by saying that American Muslims should not be allowed to do so until Saudi Arabia permitted the building of churches and synagogues. He claims that Islamic sharia law is taking over the American legal system by stealth and he wants to abolish the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit because its judges are too liberal. That such a flawed and divisive politician has come to be seen as the shrewd elder statesman of the Republican presidential field is testimony only to the paucity of the alternatives. Unless they are feeling particularly suicidal, the Republicans will reject him, just as they have rejected Mr Perry and Mr Cain.
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Now that Newt's candidacy is rising to the top, expect the brickbats to be aimed at his head. The first to fly is the charge that he was paid off by Freddie Mac to do their bidding as the company, in concert with Fannie Mae, flooded the world with funny money mortgages and brought on the global collapse of 2008.
(By the way, we have a petition to block the $13 million in bonuses Freddie and Fannie execs have voted themselves. Go here to sign the petition. We have gotten a large number of signatures and Congress is holding hearings leading to a possible roll back. Sign up!)
According to Bloomberg News, Newt got between $1.6 and $1.8 million in consulting fees from Freddie Mac over eight years - about $17,000 per month - a not unusual fee these days.
Newt's consulting agreement specified that he would not lobby and the bylaws of his consulting firm bar lobbying by any of its employees. So if he didn't lobby what did he do for the money?
Bear in mind that F and F were paying off everybody they could find. Jim Johnson, Mondale's manager, Jamie Gorelick, Clinton's Deputy AG, Rahm Emanuel, and dozens of others made a mint in consulting fees. Newt was not unique.
Doubtless Freddie hired him to show that it was not an arm of the Democratic Party and to buy some credibility on the right. His contract started after he left office and there is no evidence that he brought any concrete influence to bear on Freddie's behalf.
But this scrutiny gives Newt an incredible opportunity. He can produce memos and e mails that show that he warned Freddie about its mortgage policies. In one of the presidential debates, Newt said that he warned Freddie that they were "creating a bubble" that would burst and have enormous implications when it did.
If Newt can show that he sounded the alarm and had the wisdom and foresight to raise hell about the mortgages, he can put himself in much rarified company. To be exact: alone. Nobody else had that kind of foresight.
This scandal can either hurt or help. But if Newt used his contacts at Freddie to warn them and to try to change the Titanic's course before it hit the iceberg, it could be a good credential for his candidacy.
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I took the time last night to read the entire section "Newt Gingrich" on this Forum. I found member's posts rather insightful and many quit critical of Newt. I especially liked GM"s take. :-D
Now that Newt's the front runner, many of these comments seem forgotten. May I respectfully suggest we all review what has been written before jumping on the latest "anyone but Romney", Newt
Gingrich bandwagon?
Doug, I notice you were a big Cain fan, another conservative favorite, and you say you are an, "unforgiving family values voter" but I notice you are awfully quiet now on the subject of Cain since his withdrawal.
Morality does matter; his lack of it, among other problems, sunk Cain's ship. While you may ignore or excuse or look the other way, heck, you even defended Cain, voters didn't and so he's gone...
No family morals...
And I do think women voters will care about Gingrich in the end...
By the way, you said,
"But we didn't determine whether you are a voter we are trying to attract." :?
What is this, a private club where the membership committee has to approve each applicant? I would think the Republicans would welcome any vote from anyone with open arms.
I predict this will be a close election.
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As much as I'm not a fan of Newt or Mittens, I'll still be quite happy to vote for either one over our first marxist president. No matter what is brought up about whomever ends up running against Buraq, not being Obozo will win the day.
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"Doug, I notice you were a big Cain fan, another conservative favorite, and you say you are an, "unforgiving family values voter" but I notice you are awfully quiet now on the subject of Cain since his withdrawal."
Cain is not relevant to me out of the race. Besides the allegations and perhaps affair and lie about the affair, he did not show even familiarity with many crucial foreign affairs questions. When I defended him against early allegations, there was no indication to me they were true. I also posted that I liked other tax plans better than Cain's and his trademark was the tax plan. I agree, morality matters (!), but Cain was not going to be President anyway, we discovered along the way. The one of greatest disappointment to me is Gov. Perry. I like Romney's marital history over Gingrich's. As a single parent, I also have learned you can't always judge the other person's circumstances perfectly from afar.
"But we didn't determine whether you are a voter we are trying to attract."
That part was not intended negative, just directional. You have been posting economic views IMO more compatible with the other side. That is your right and your choice. The choice for the Republican candidate is for Republicans, in my case we are trying to offer a conservative alternative to the choices normally available and the current fight on the inside is against making our candidate mostly the same as theirs. Since Reagan, we have had Bush Sr. a centrist tax raiser, Dole who had no pro-growth compatibility with his running mate Jack Kemp, a big spending W. Bush, and McCain who made a career out of tearing down Republicans to advance himself as the nominees (from my perspective). That is a LONG drought! It is a wide open club, not at all private one. All you have to do is share some core principles. You, not me, get to decide if you share those principles. Newt speaks quite eloquently about a certain direction for this country, but he disgusts you - an indication we aren't on the same page. I like Huntsman's economic plan. I think you like him in spite of his plan. I tried to flush that out last week.
"I would think the Republicans would welcome any vote from anyone with open arms."
No, I wish for people who favor the other philosophies, a larger controlling redistributive government for example, to vote their own conscience over on the other side of the aisle. Maybe they are right.
My perfect candidate would take qualities pieced together from several of the candidates (and that isn't going to happen so I will vote for one of these). Part would come from Cain, the business, entrepreneurial, executive experience and bold conservative economic views in particular. I like Romney's presentation. He looks and sounds like a President, exudes competence and has a wide range of experience. I thought early the nominee should have at least 2 terms as governor of at least a middle sized state, then Perry jumped in with 10 years successfully running a G13 country equivalent with views ALMOST identical to mine. I have not ruled him out for me, but inability to articulate a view is a killer politically. Newt has passion and substance, won a national election, balanced a budget, and already was next in the line of succession behind the VP to be President. Watch the Huckabee forum - they aren't going to stump Newt by asking for a book recommendation, a supreme court case or a favorite founding father, much less a key issue he never contemplated. (He has other flaws.) He has visualized this and prepared for this job for a very long time. I would take his passion with Romney's focus and Perry's conservatism and Santorum's commitment to family, but it doesn't work that way.
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"My perfect candidate would take qualities pieced together from several of the candidates (and that isn't going to happen so I will vote for one of these)" True, but a pity it cannot be. Still I'm disappointed that the best the Republicans can do is either Mitts or Newt.
I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but Huntsman, albeit is not as conservative as you like, fit's much of what you are looking for. He was governor of Utah for two terms, he did an excellent job. He did balance the budget; he was fiscally conservative. He has foreign policy experience. I don't know, but he seems to have passion and he has a strong commitment to family values. I trust him; that's more than I can say at this moment about Mitts and Newt. And somehow I think he has a heart. And he's practical - realistic; I like that too. He doesn't pander to the hard core right. Sign stupid pledges. Again, I like that. And, while you and I disagree, I like his take on Afghanistan and Iraq. Time to move on...
Huntsman, IMHO is the best conglomeration of what I am looking for in a President.
You've asked me about how can I support his tax plan. Well, it's not perfect, but I like the idea that he is doing away with nearly ALL the deductions. Under his plan, there are NO sacred cows; even mortgage and charity would be taxed.
The rich don't seem to care about the tax rate; they have their multitude of deductions unavailable or unused by the middle class, so in essence the rich's net tax rate is often lower than the middle class. Take away these deductions and I think the rich will end up, net, paying more even though the tax rate is lower.
I find polls that GM posted misleading. I think a lot of people are unhappy with Obama. But until the Republicans choose a candidate and we compare that individual to Obama, well, I think polls are misleading. It's not a popularity contest, it's a contest between two men. While the perception is that Obama is not doing a good job, the question then becomes whether he will do a better job and be more trustworthy than the Republican nominee.
In that kind of race, I think Huntsman would do very well. He would attract a lot of people, including myself who are in the middle. And as GM said, and I think most conservatives agree, they would vote for him, heck as GM said, they would vote for anyone rather than Obama. Huntsman could win.
But with Mitts or Newt, I think it will be an interesting race. Newt's past, and his lack of morals and family values will come back to haunt him in a general race. Just my take.
PS What "national election" did Newt win? Wasn't he just a congressman from a small district? That said I acknowledge he was Speaker of the House and is a brilliant man.
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Obama rode in as a blank canvas for people to project their fantasies onto. Now, the ugly reality is he's both inept and corrupt and "hope and change" is nothing but a punchline.
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At least Newt is creative; he might stick foot in mouth or..... :-) but sometimes he has good ideas.... I don't necessarily like him, but I admire his intellect, practicality and creativity. I fall asleep listening to Mitts.
"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works," Gingrich explained recently in Iowa when asked to clarify his position. "So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash,' unless it's illegal."
Sad, but true...
"Gingrich thinks compassion should be measured not by inputs but outputs. Spending trillions on poverty is beyond simply uncompassionate if you waste the money and make things worse. It's evil."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg-newt-20111206,0,1751203.column
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BTW I note with satisfaction JDN's suggestion about going back and reading through this thread. This is exactly the sort of thing I have in mind with the way we do things around here-- posts are organized by subject matter. The ability to go back and read on a given subject (Afpakia, Newt, whatever) over time is invaluable on many level.s
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By JAMES TARANTO
Bye-Ku for Herman Cain
Cheater at haiku
Instead of 5-7-5
It was 9-9-9
Strange Newt Respect
Will Newt Gingrich be the next president of the United States? Back in the spring, when his campaign seemed to be imploding in hilarious fashion (if you go to the link, be sure to read the last item as well as the first), it was a question nobody was asking. Over the past few weeks, however, Gingrich has become either the main GOP challenger to front-runner Mitt Romney or the front-runner in his own right.
Among the four states with the earliest nomination contests, Romney leads only in New Hampshire. (As Nate Silver notes, Romney also had a comfortable Granite State lead a month before the 2008 Iowa caucuses, but he went on to lose to John McCain.) Gingrich is now up in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida. Let's focus on the last, since it's a crucial swing state with 29 electoral votes.
Last week a survey of likely Republican primary voters from Public Policy Polling, a respected Democratic firm, found Gingrich ahead in Florida with 47%, to just 17% for Romney. Herman Cain, now an ex-candidate, took 15%, and nobody else topped 5%.
The same firm's general-election poll of registered voters, however, gives Romney the advantage as an opponent to President Obama. The president leads the former Massachusetts governor by just 45% to 44%, "and given that the undecideds skew largely Republican he'd probably lose to Romney if the election was today," declares the PPP press release. But Obama leads Gingrich 50% to 44%. Among independents, Romney leads Obama by a point, whereas Gingrich trails the president by seven.
PPP declares: "This Florida poll is just one more piece of evidence: if the Republicans actually want to beat Obama they need to nominate Romney, love him or not."
That seems to us wildly overconfident, both in Obama's political strength and in the predictability of an election that is still 11 months off. Even so, we agree with PPP to the extent that we would say Romney is the safer candidate for the GOP because more independents see him than Gingrich as an acceptable alternative.
To be sure, Gingrich convinced many Republicans to give him a second look, mainly by performing very well in debates as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain were flaming out, and Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry failing ever to ignite. Why? The answer is not entirely obvious.
The main Republican objection to Romney is that he is inconstant, and thus not a true conservative. But is Gingrich really any better in this regard? In the past he has endorsed the individual mandate for medical insurance and even made a global-warmist video with Nancy Pelosi in which the two ex-speakers share a love seat!
Gingrich has cited his record as speaker, during which he led the House in producing welfare-reform legislation, balanced budgets and a cut in capital gains taxes. But Gingrich was the beta to Bill Clinton's alpha, and all of these measures were in the service of Clinton's positioning himself as a centrist. When Clinton and Gingrich clashed over the budget in 1995-96, Clinton won handily (unlike the much weaker Obama, who started losing confrontations with Congress before the GOP even took over the House).
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The next president? Just maybe.
.It seems to us that Gingrich's appeal to the primary electorate is best explained by reference to an earlier period in his career: 1989-94, when he was House minority whip. He was an extremely effective insurgent leader, helping to bring down two Democratic leaders, Speaker Jim Wright and Majority Whip Tony Coelho, by calling attention to their ethical problems.
As the Orlando Sentinel reported in May 1989, just after the latter announced his departure: "House Democratic whip Tony Coelho said Sunday that Republican whip Newt Gingrich was trying to destroy the Democrat-controlled House in order to rebuild it with a GOP majority." Five and a half years later, mission accomplished.
Podcast
James Taranto on the Gingrich surge.
.It seems to us that what has appealed to Republicans about Gingrich in this year's debates has been his willingness to challenge the assumptions of the (usually) liberal moderators. In one of the best examples, noted by NewsBusters.org, the ex-speaker "schools" Scott Pelley of CBS on the laws of war.
As it happens, Gingrich was defending the Obama administration for having killed al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. The point, however, is that he was aggressive in refusing to accept Pelley's smug presumption of moral and intellectual superiority--a left-liberal presumption that rankles conservatives, that is very common among the leaders of cultural institutions, and that Obama very much personifies.
Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller summarizes it as well as we've seen anybody do:
A lot of people I talk to can't fathom why Newt Gingrich is actually winning. The latest narrative--and I think there's truth in it--is that voters are hungry for someone who will "take it to Obama." Clearly, Gingrich's debating ability is key. Republicans are champing at the bit to see him debate Obama. But I think this urge is deeper than a desire to simply watch him beat up or attack the president rhetorically--they also want him to intellectually flatten him--to out-debate him.
The left has a different set of explanations for Gingrich's rise. Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman says it's because GOP voters are "totally clueless" and "committed to demonstrably false beliefs." E.J. "Baghdad Bob" Dionne says the "Republican establishment" has "sold its soul to the Tea Party" and "sat by silently as extremist rhetoric engulfed the GOP." Krugman colleague Charles Blow says it's because the GOP is "bankrupt of compassion and allergic to accuracy."
While these statements are all foolish and obnoxious, they fit right into our thesis. Gingrich is popular among conservatives because he refuses to be browbeaten by liberal bullies. One can easily imagine him bringing out the least attractive qualities of Obama, who does not like to be challenged.
On the other hand, it could backfire. Gingrich has a tendency to bully back rather than respond with weary condescension à la Ronald Reagan ("there he goes again"). He may need to modulate his tone if he is to win over those skeptical independents
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/beck-doesnt-hold-back-in-gingrich-interview-tough-questions-on-mandates-big-govt-and-global-warming/
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Why is the Obama Administration So Devoted to Criticizing Israel?
by Newt Gingrich
At a fundraiser in New York last week, President Obama said his administration "has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration."
Is the President looking at the same record we are? Last week's news abounded with evidence that his administration often coddles forces opposed to Israel's very existence while his officials publically brutalize Israel in the diplomatic arena.
Hostility towards Israel has become a habit for members of the Obama administration. His ambassador to Belgium argued last week in a speech to the European Jewish Union that pervasive anti-Semitism among Muslims was Israel's fault. "A distinction should be made," he said, "between traditional anti-Semitism, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians." This outrageous attempt to dismiss "hatred for Jews" as a political problem should have immediately disqualified the ambassador from continuing to serve in President's administration.
Also last week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared that Israel needed to "just get to the damn table" with Palestinians, implying that Israel is the primary obstacle to Middle East peace.
Who is it, exactly, that Israel needs to "get to the damn table" with? Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has stopped short of even recognizing Israel's right to exist. He has also repeatedly insisted that Israel abandon its right to defend its borders even after a Palestinian state is created.
Other high level members of Abbas's government have been even less coy. One declared earlier this year that Abbas's Fatah party "has never recognized Israel and will never do so." And last month, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to India wrote in the PA newspaper:
"[Israelis] have a common mistake, or misconception by which they fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist, and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them and does not recognize the right of this state to exist. They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never had any shred of a right to exist..."
These are the people with whom Secretary Panetta claims Israel must "get to the damn table"?
While administration officials publically criticize Israel, they welcome into their offices Islamist groups that express ideologies counter to free societies and the existence of an Israeli state. Just days after chastising Israel for "unfair" treatment of women, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will welcome a Saudi-based Islamist group, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to Washington for a conference on "tolerance." Far from a tolerant organization, however, a primary mission of the OIC is to restrict free speech critical of Islam. As Nina Shea and Paul Marshall wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday:
In 2009, the "International Islamic Fiqh [Jurisprudence] Academy," an official OIC organ, issued fatwas calling for free speech bans, including "international legislation" aimed at protecting "the interests and values of [Islamic] society," and for judicial punishment for public expression of apostasy from Islam. OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu emphasizes that "no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs."
In one example of policies advocated by the OIC, they report that "In Afghanistan, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, editor of "Haqooq-i-Zen" ("Women's Rights") magazine, was imprisoned by the Karzai government for publishing "un-Islamic" articles criticizing stoning as a punishment for adultery."
Entertaining Islamist organizations is not restricted to the State Department, either. In October, the Department of Justice removed all references to Islam from its terror training materials after what were described as "complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial."
All of this happened in just one week: One of the President's ambassadors said Israel was to blame for anti-Semitism, his Secretary of Defense said Israel needs to "just get to the damn table" with negotiating partners who refuse to recognize its right to exist, and his Secretary of State criticized Israeli treatment of women as occasionally "unfair" while welcoming to Washington an organization which promotes censorship of speech about Islamism.
And this is the administration that has "done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration"?
We aren't fooled.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Good points from Newt. The propaganda and outright lies from this president never end. He obviously thinks he can get up there and say whatever he wants and his charm will simply blow us over. The MSM is letting him get away with it and indeed mostly enable him to do it.
The other point is who are we in the US to lecture ANYONE about negotiating with one's enemies with our record in shambles.
It is just as absurd and offensive to see Brock lecturing Europe on its' debt issues. Who are we to give such lectures.
This pompous arrogant guy in the WH has to go.
To see the libs calling Newt pompous and arrogant.
BTW, Newt keeps mowing his obstacles down. I would rather have an immoral Newt than moral Mitt if otherwise Newt will be better at saving the country from Brockster and the liberal socialist hordes.
My concern now is can Newt keep it up and not self destruct?
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I think the Taranto piece I posted yesterday in this thread captures something important.
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**He keeps this up, the coveted G M endorsement could go his way. :-D
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/7/gingrich-john-bolton-will-be-my-secretary-state/
Newt Gingrich promised conservatives on Tuesday he would ask former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to be his secretary of state if he’s elected president next year, according to several of those who met with him
Hours later he repeated that vow publicly to the Republican Jewish Coalition, winning a round of applause.
“If he accepts it, I will ask John Bolton to be secretary of state,” the former House speaker said.
During the closed-door meeting in Arlington, Mr. Gingrich spoke and fielded questions for about two hours from 70 conservatives, and they said afterward that they came away impressed.
One questioner asked Mr. Gingrich how he could assure conservatives he would be trustworthy, which is when he replied that he would tap Mr. Bolton, a hero to conservatives whom President George B. Bush named as a recess appointment to the U.N. ambassadorship after the Senate refused to confirm him.
Mr. Gingrich’s statement that Mr. Bolton would be his pick to head the State Department drew applause from the Jewish Republican group, which was hearing from virtually all GOP presidential hopefuls in a daylong session in Washington.
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"**He keeps this up, the coveted G M endorsement could go his way."
Tis not lightly given and with good reason :lol:
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GINGRICH SURGES JUST IN TIME
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on December 6, 2011
Printer-Friendly Version
But Gingrich is no Obama. He is far from a flash in the pan and about as much the opposite of an empty slogan or sound bite as you can get. He is an intensely creative man with key insights and a very keen, sharp mind. He knows the issues backward and forward and knows their history as well.
In a larger sense, we are blessed as a party to have a choice between two such highly qualified and able candidates as Newt and Mitt.
Why the enthusiasm for Gingrich?
His intellect and creativity are driving his candidacy. When Ron Paul cited our arrest and conviction of Timothy McVeigh as a success in the fight against terror and Newt came back at him and pointed out that McVeigh succeeded in killing more than 100 Americans, it was one of the great moments in political debate.
When Newt was asked what he would recommend to replace ObamaCare and he spoke of the fundamental importance of brain science and its potential to leapfrog our medical capabilities far ahead, it was a brilliant, creative moment.
And when Gingrich defined the ground rules on which he would insist for remaining in Afghanistan -- hot pursuit, no sanctuaries and no aggressive attacking -- he was saying what most of us are feeling.
Romney has certain key advantages. He runs better than Newt among women. The Fox News poll has Gingrich beating Mitt among men by 6 points and losing among women by 4. Romney is perceived as more electable by Republican voters. And he is cool and balanced in debate. And polling also shows that voters trust him more to solve our economic problems.
But there is a passion behind Gingrich, the white-hot intensity of a crusade. And that kind of support can go a long way toward compensating for a lack of money or organization -- look at Huckabee in Iowa!
And Gingrich bests Romney in the competition for three key segments of the Republican electorate.
Social conservatives and evangelicals distrust Romney for his prior support of abortion -- a legitimate beef. And, disgustingly, they are turned off by his religion.
Tea Party voters are fiercely opposed to ObamaCare and are very distrustful of Romney for passing his version of the program in Massachusetts. They see Romney as representative of Wall Street and big business. They embraced Herman Cain because he was the candidate of small business and now turn to Newt for similar reasons.
National-security conservatives know of Newt's long and deep interest in protecting America's strength and trust him to keep the military strong. They worry that support for defense spending is an acquired taste for Romney -- but it is part of Newt's essence.
And, finally, Newt has his timing just right. He didn't surge in July as Bachmann did. He didn't surge in August as Perry did. Nor in October as Cain did. He is surging in late November and early December just as Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses approach.
But, of course, the process won't end in Iowa. It will only begin there. Newt is not about to knock Romney out. Mitt is too well-funded and has too solid a base of support from economic conservatives to go down so easily. This contest will go the distance and probably not be over until Super Tuesday in early March. Republican Party rules require proportional representation in delegate selection in the early going and then require winner-take-all primaries down the road. These rules assure that there will not be a quick nomination, but there will not be a long, drawn-out, draining battle all spring. And either man can win.
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Newt Gingrich has risen from nowhere to lead in the early GOP primaries, and many voters seem to be gravitating to the former Speaker for his reform platform. In Mr. Gingrich's telling, his ideas are bold and even radical, but the irony is that they're often much less revolutionary than his rhetoric suggests.
Take Mr. Gingrich's 49-page manifesto on entitlement reform, which his campaign rolled out shortly before Thanksgiving. It is a fundamentally Newtonian document, both in its ambition—it promises to "reduce federal spending by half or more"—and in its lack of discipline. Oddly, Mr. Gingrich is promoting the more radical reform for the less urgent fiscal problem (Social Security) even as he hedges on what's needed to reform the main driver of spending growth (Medicare).
Unlike President Obama, Mr. Gingrich is right that these automatic spending programs must be modernized. Social Security was created in 1935 and the country has since undergone vast changes in the economy, the labor force, life expectancies, health care, retirement, consumption and government. Why should we want the same type of system in 2035, or for that matter in 2012?
So Mr. Gingrich wants to let younger workers divert the 6.2% employee half of the Social Security payroll tax into private accounts, much like 401(k)s. Not only could Americans build retirement nest eggs that they would own, some portion of the 6% of GDP that government takes in social insurance taxes would become savings and investment.
The Gingrich accounts would be voluntary, allowing anyone to remain on traditional pay-as-you-go Social Security. This is what Republicans are talking about when they invoke "the Chilean model." In 1981 Chile decided to give taxpayers the option of remaining in the traditional state retirement system or contributing payroll taxes to accounts. As Mr. Gingrich notes, within 18 months 93% of workers became investors instead of pensioners.
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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney
.Yet the irony of Social Security is that its slow-motion solvency crisis is relatively easy to resolve—and the political system is moving toward consensus, if haltingly. Mr. Obama's own deficit commission recommended making the benefit formula more progressive, so that payments to higher income workers grow more slowly, and gradually raising the retirement age over the next half-century to adjust for longer lives.
Personal Social Security accounts are desirable, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to reject compromises that reduce future liabilities. Yet Mr. Gingrich proposes no such changes in his plan, perhaps because they are politically unpopular. But such an abdication opens him up to charges that he's not serious about reform and that he has no plan to pay for the transition costs of going to personal accounts (that is, when younger workers put their money in their own accounts, rather than funding current retirees).
Given his Social Security dreams, Mr. Gingrich's timidity on health care is especially puzzling. Medicare is a much more urgent fiscal nut, which will double in size by the early 2020s to more than $1 trillion annually even under Mr. Obama's artificial baseline that hides the true spending. The budget can't be fixed unless health costs rise more slowly, and that can't happen without changing Medicare.
After denouncing Paul Ryan's premium support Medicare reform as "right-wing social engineering" in May, Mr. Gingrich now says he supports it as long as it is only voluntary. As with Social Security, people could continue to receive today's unreformed, open-ended benefits if they preferred. This model may be politically safer and perhaps more saleable to voters, but it also does little to improve the status quo. Why would anyone leave the all-you-can-eat buffet without an incentive to choose cost-conscious options?
Mitt Romney also says he'll leave fee-for-service Medicare untouched, but the key difference is that under his plan all seniors would receive the same defined contribution. They'd pay the marginal cost above this fixed subsidy, increasing competition for the health-care dollar among insurers and hospitals, doctors and other providers.
Mr. Gingrich's plan is merely a gloss on Medicare Advantage, which has done some modest good as one out of four beneficiaries have moved to private options but without turning the fiscal battleship. At least on Medicare, Mr. Romney is the bolder reformer.
The Georgian also argues that health savings accounts will redeem the rest of the private market, but we recall that the former Speaker told us the same thing when he tried to get us to support the 2003 Medicare prescription drug expansion. We declined, and Medicare costs have kept on rising.
The contradictions of Mr. Gingrich's entitlement plan reveal part of his political character, which is that his policies often don't match the high-decibel, sometimes grandiose nature of his rhetoric. This can make it easier for his opponents to stigmatize his policies as more radical than they really are because Mr. Gingrich tells everyone they're radical. He might achieve more if he spoke more softly and carried a bigger stick.
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The previous post does highlight another concern I have for Newt.
That is he is full of ideas. But do we have any clue his ideas work?
He was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer a day or two ago and his ability to just blow away all questions and challenges was/is astonishing. No one else is even close. Wolf was left dumbfounded.
I want Newt to go on Dick Gregory and watch him sweep the gotcha liberal aside as well.
Brock sounds like a desparate struggling broken record and Newt sounds like a genius.
The liberal onslaught is only just beginning but so far their efforts at trying to dismantle Newt with "remember....."
The Republican establishment is in an obvious panic that their chosen one Mitt seems to be in decline.
Both are hopint to paint Newt as the asshole./ So far he is shoving it their faces. :-D
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"He was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer a day or two ago and his ability to just blow away all questions and challenges was/is astonishing. No one else is even close. Wolf was left dumbfounded."
Exactly so :-D
The fact that I am the one who posted the Newtitlement piece shows that I am not blind to the risks of a Newt candidacy, but I would offer for consideration that this was the man who got Clinton to sign off on changing welfare as we know it (a HUGE success I submit and definitely an example of an idea of his working) and cutting the capital gains tax rate--another success and put the budget into SURPLUS. These are no small accomplishments!
If we look at President St. Reagan's presidency it too had compromises. On his behalf I submit the proposition that some of Newt's most worrisome statements need to be seen as seeing the need to SYNTHESIZE the worthy elements of the other side so that they do not feel that our success is their utter defeat.
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DAVID not 'Dick' Gregory - of meet the jerks (I mean the press) :-o
Sorry Dick.
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I'd call him a dick. Easy mistake to make.
Just saying.....
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I trust we all know who Peggy Noonan is.
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I had a friend once who amused herself thinking up bumper stickers for states. The one she made up for California was brilliant. "California: It's All True." It is so vast and sprawling a place, so rich and various, that whatever you've heard about its wildness, weirdness and wonders, it's true.
That's the problem with Newt Gingrich: It's all true. It's part of the reason so many of those who know him are anxious about the thought of his becoming president. It's also why people are looking at him, thinking about him, considering him as president.
Ethically dubious? True. Intelligent and accomplished? True. Has he known breathtaking success and contributed to real reforms in government? Yes. Presided over disasters? Absolutely. Can he lead? Yes. Is he erratic and unreliable as a leader? Yes. Egomaniacal? True. Original and focused, harebrained and impulsive—all true.
Do you want evidence he's a Burkean conservative? Start with welfare reform in 1996. A sober, standard Republican? Go to the balanced budgets of the Clinton era. Is he a tea partier? Sure, he speaks the slashing lingo with relish. Is he moderate? Yes, that can be proved. Michele Bachmann this week called him a "frugal socialist," and there's plenty of evidence of that, too.
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.One way to view this is that he is so rich and varied as a character, as geniuses often are, that he contains worlds, multitudes. One senses that would be his way of looking at it. Another way to look at it: In a long career, one will shift views, adapt to circumstances, tack this way and that. Another way: He's philosophically unanchored, an unstable element. There are too many storms within him, and he seeks out external storms in order to equalize his own atmosphere. He's a trouble magnet, a starter of fights that need not be fought. He is the first modern potential president about whom there is too much information.
What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington.
Those who've known and worked with Mitt Romney mostly seem to support him, but when they don't they don't say the reason is that his character and emotional soundness are off. Those who know Ron Paul and oppose him do so on the basis of his stands, they don't say his temperament forecloses the possibility of his presidency. But that's pretty much what a lot of those who've worked with Newt say.
Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
Sen. Lindsey Graham told a reporter that Mr. Gingrich could be a historic president if he has "matured as a person and is, for lack of a better word, calmed down." That is as close as most of those who've worked with him get to a compliment.
Yet the reservations and criticisms of the politico-journalistic establishment are having zero effect on Gingrich's support. In a Quinnipiac poll this week he moved into a double-digit lead over Mr. Romney in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The antipathy of the establishment not only is not hurting him at this early date, it may be helping him. It may be part of the secret of his rise. Because establishments, especially the Washington establishment, famously count for little with the Republican base: "You're the ones who got us into this mess."
Republicans on the ground who view Mr. Gingrich from afar, who neither know nor have worked with him, are more likely to see him this way: "Who was the last person to actually cut government? Who was the last person who actually led a movement that balanced the federal budget? . . . The last time there was true welfare reform, the last time government was cut, Gingrich did it." That is Rush Limbaugh, who has also criticized Mr. Gingrich.
More Peggy Noonan
Read Peggy Noonan's previous columns
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.And that is exactly what I've been hearing from Newt supporters who do not listen to talk radio. They are older voters, they are not all Republicans, and when government last made progress he was part of it. They have a very practical sense of politics now. The heroic era of the presidency is dead. They are not looking to like their president or admire him, they just want someone to fix the crisis. The last time helpful things happened in Washington, he was a big part of it. So they may hire him again. Are they put off by his scandals? No. They think all politicians are scandalous.
The biggest fear of those who've known Mr. Gingrich? He has gone through his political life making huge strides, rising in influence and achievement, and then been destabilized by success, or just after it. Maybe he's made dizzy by the thin air at the top, maybe he has an inner urge to be tragic, to always be unrealized and misunderstood. But he goes too far, his rhetoric becomes too slashing, the musings he shares—when he rose to the speakership, in 1995, it was that women shouldn't serve in combat because they're prone to infections—are too strange. And he starts to write in his notes what Kirsten Powers, in the Daily Beast, remembered: he described himself as "definer of civilization . . . leader (possibly) of the civilizing forces."
Those who know him fear—or hope—that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, "Watch this!"
What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination. And then, in the fall of 2012, once party leaders have come around and the GOP is fully behind him, he will begin baying at the moon. He will start saying wild things and promising that he may bomb Iran but he may send a special SEAL team in at night to secretly dig Iran up, and fly it to Detroit, where we can keep it under guard, and Detroiters can all get jobs as guards, "solving two problems at once." They're afraid he'll start saying, "John Paul was great, but most of that happened after I explained the Gospels to him," and "Sure, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize, but only after I explained how people can think fast, slow and at warp speed. He owes me everything."
There are many good things to say about Newt Gingrich. He is compelling and unique, and, as Margaret Thatcher once said, he has "tons of guts."
But this is a walk on the wild side.
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Rush explains Newt's rise as thus,
the Republican voters are saying to the establishment - we are not going to simply except YOUR candidate this time. You gave as Dole, Bush, McCain and now Mitt. We are going to take the one we like. Newt is clearly not afraid to stick it to the "establishment". Take that Rove, take that the Bush clan. Take that Scarborough, take that Sununu and the rest of the ones who know what is best.
Rush is exactly right. I want someone to take it to Obama and liberal onslaught. Mitt is njust too vanilla (using Ed Schultz's word).
That said I don't take lightly the track record Newt has and the very legitimate concerns about his erractic personality.
We will se if Mitt can overcome this AND if Newt can continue to dazzle with sparks flying yet without short circuiting the whole campaign.
I still sit on the side lines and am queitly rooting for Newt to be OUR ONE.
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http://www.agi.it/english-version/world/elenco-notizie/201112092129-pol-ren1106-palestinians_do_not_exist_they_are_terrorists_gingrich
PALESTINIANS DO NOT EXIST, THEY ARE TERRORISTS: GINGRICH
21:29 09 DIC 2011
(AGI) Washington - The Republican White House candidate Newt Gingrich has accused Obama of taking sides with the Palestinians. The former Speaker and election front-runner also said that the Palestinians are 'an invented people.' Gingrich said that were he to be impartial between a civil law-abiding society and a group of terrorists shooting missiles every day, this would not in fact constitute being impartial but would mean favouring the terrorists. Mr Gingrich does not differentiate between the ANP and Hamas. Interviewed on Israeli TV, Gringrich said 'I believe that the Jewish people have the right to have a state,' while 'we have invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. [That's why] they had a chance to go many places.' . .
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He has that effect doesn't he GM :-D
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He has that effect doesn't he GM :-D
I double-dog dare Mittens to address this topic.
Hooray for Newt for having both the right position on this topic and the balls to so clearly articulate it.
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And the ability and confidence to back it up if/when challenged.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/285439/eye-newt-gaza-mark-steyn
Eye of Newt in Gaza
December 10, 2011 3:42 P.M.
By Mark Steyn
Like others round these parts, I’ve been reviled as a Rino squish and Romney shill for expressing a few misgivings about Newt, so credit where it’s due: One thing I like about him is that he knows so much more about so many more things that once in a while he can’t help blurting out something that no poll-tested, focus-grouped, finger-in-the-windy frontrunner would ever say in a thousand years. For example:
Senior Palestinian leaders on Saturday strongly criticized comments by Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich that the Palestinians are an “invented” people, calling the comments ignorant and racist.
I wouldn’t disagree with that – “Palestinian” as a national identity is entirely invented – and it’s heartening to have it said out loud. But the Palestinians are hopping mad:
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the Gingrich remark was “the most racist statement I’ve ever seen…”
An executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hanan Ashrawi, said Gingrich has “lost touch with reality.”
The statements show “ignorance and bigotry” and are “a cheap way to win (the) pro-Israel vote,” Ashrawi told Voice of Palestine radio, in comments reported by the Palestinian Authority-controlled WAFA news agency.
To be honest, I had no idea “top Palestinian negotiator” Erekat and Mrs Ashrawi were still in business. They spent years serving as the bespoke western media frontmen for the kleptocrat Arafatists. Good to know that, even in the Hamas era, some things never change in the CNN and BBC rolodexes.
So, if you’re keeping score of who’s who on the Rino Squish list, it’s me, Krauthammer, Coulter, Tom Coburn, and the Fatah Revolutionary Council.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWsE9jvwjLA&feature=player_embedded
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Obviously all context has been edited out, but with that said , , , :-o
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/gingrich-flashback-progressive-fdr-was-greatest-president-of-the-20th-century-plus-seius-andy-stern-is-visionary-union-leader/
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By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Newt Gingrich built a reputation for playing partisan hardball during his quest to bring Republicans a House majority. But before the 1994 Republican Revolution, the future House speaker teamed with some of the most prominent Democrats of his time to build a legislative record that carried a bipartisan cast.
Before the 1994 Republican Revolution, Newt Gingrich teamed with Democratics to back the Endangered Species Act and American Heritage Trust Act. As Joanthan Weisman explains on The News Hub, those positions are causing him trouble today. He teamed with Democrats to back amendments to the Endangered Species Act. He co-sponsored then-Rep. Patricia Schroeder's Violence Against Women Act, which toughened laws against domestic violence, and he pushed for Rep. Morris Udall's plan to spend $1 billion a year on federal land acquisitions.
Mr. Gingrich joined Rep. Charles Rangel to press for the Low Income Housing Credit Act over the objections of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, a Republican. And he was one of only a handful of GOP co-sponsors for a water quality bill in 1987 that was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan as a "budget buster."
Associated Press
Newt Gingrich, then a GOP minority whip, on the Capitol steps in 1990.
.Gingrich campaign officials didn't return requests for comment on the candidate's current positions on the legislation.
Mr. Gingrich's record was, in part, a sign of the times: Bipartisanship was common, and Republicans—seemingly stuck in a permanent minority—had to team with Democrats to pass anything. Gingrich aides and allies say his record also points to areas where he strived for compromise, especially on the environment—positions that could help him appeal to independents should he win the GOP nomination for president.
For now, though, some of those bills are causing Mr. Gingrich trouble among conservatives. Last week, at a private meeting with conservative leaders in Northern Virginia, Mr. Gingrich was pushed especially hard on his support of the Endangered Species Act, which conservatives view as an attack on private property rights.
The Violence Against Women Act, which passed the House unanimously when Mr. Gingrich joined 225 lawmakers as a co-sponsor, today is denounced by the conservative Concerned Women for America as "a big government boondoggle" that "provides a federal trough at which leftist activist organizations feed." The law provided grants for law enforcement efforts to prosecute and prevent crimes such as rape, and made interstate stalking a federal crime.
In the Running
Read more about the president and the GOP hopefuls
.."Newt has always been improperly described as more or less a conservative ideologue, and that's never been the case," said Vin Weber, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House but is a senior adviser to GOP candidate Mitt Romney. "He's certainly a right of center guy, but to pin him down ideologically is more difficult than the current campaign would have you believe."
On Wednesday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney released an Internet video pressing his charge that Mr. Gingrich is an "unreliable leader."
But most Republican voters aren't buying the challenge to Mr. Gingrich's conservative credentials. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Tuesday, 57% of GOP primary voters identified him as conservative; 28% called him a moderate. Mr. Romney was identified as conservative by 29% of GOP primary voters.
"Conservatives have worked with Newt Gingrich for three decades. To go out and try to define Newt Gingrich as anything other than a conservative is a fool's errand," said Robert Walker, a senior adviser who served with him in the House.
Mr. Gingrich signed his name to dozens of Democratic bills during his 20 years in the House, most of them non-ideological and non-partisan. But some were signature pieces of liberal policy-making. Vice President Joe Biden still points to the Violence Against Women Act of 1993 as one of his proudest accomplishments as a senator.
In 1993, Mr. Gingrich backed an extension of the Endangered Species Act, written by then-Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts. It would have protected species that may become endangered in the future and offered private landowners incentives to help preserve species.
Louisiana Rep. Bill Tauzin, a conservative Democrat who would switch parties after the 1994 election, drafted an alternative that would require compensation for impacted landowners. His version attracted the co-sponsorship of most of Mr. Gingrich's colleagues in the House GOP leadership. The Studds bill died after the 1994 election.
Journal Community
..In 1989, Mr. Gingrich backed the American Heritage Trust Act, sponsored by Mr. Udall, which would have slowly built up a $30 billion trust whose interest would be used for federal land acquisition. Republicans that May stormed out of a committee session to draft the bill after their amendments were rejected en masse.
That same year, Mr. Gingrich signed on to the Stratospheric Ozone Protection Act, joining Sen. Al Gore on an effort to control ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. President George H.W. Bush would later mock Mr. Gore as "Ozone Man."
"The Democratic margin was such that partisanship and screaming and hollering wasn't going to get you anywhere," said Tom Bliley, a senior House Republican in the 1980s and 1990s. But both he and Mr. Walker said Mr. Gingrich was less conservative than many of his colleagues on environmental issues. "I would say he has a soft spot on issues of the environment," Mr. Walker said.
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.) recalled working with Mr. Gingrich in 1989 on the Global Warming Prevention Act, at the same time Mr. Gingrich was pounding House Speaker Jim Wright for alleged ethical transgressions. Mr. Wright resigned that year. "He was a little bipolar," Mr. DeFazio said.
Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com
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This could have gone many other places: foreign Policy, Iraq, RIP etc.
Memorable discussion during historic times:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OET1UGhJIYI&feature=player_embedded
1/2 hour program. Many things discussed including the deposing of Saddam Hussein.
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Newt Gingrich's opponents aren't letting up in their criticism of his lucrative ties to the failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac after he resigned as House Speaker in the late 1990s. More damaging to his Presidential candidacy is that Mr. Gingrich doesn't seem to understand why anyone is offended.
In his first response after news broke that he'd made $300,000 working for Freddie, Mr. Gingrich claimed he had "offered them advice on precisely what they didn't do." As a "historian," he said during a November 9 debate, he had concluded last decade that "this is a bubble," and that Freddie and its sister Fannie Mae should stop making loans to people who have no credit history. He added that now they should be broken up.
A week later Bloomberg reported that Mr. Gingrich had made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in two separate contracts with Freddie between 1999 and 2008. The former Speaker stuck to his line that "I was approached to offer strategic advice" and had warned the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) to stop lending to bad credit risks.
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Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich
.Then on December 2 our colleagues at the Journal reported that as late as April 2007 Mr. Gingrich had defended Fannie and Freddie as examples of conservative governance. "While we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself," Mr. Gingrich said in an interview at the time.
Mr. Gingrich added in that interview that there are times "when you need government to help spur private enterprise and economic development." He cited electricity and telephone network expansion. "It's not a point of view libertarians would embrace, but I am more in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservatism," he said, adding "I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today."
Related Video
Dan Henninger on Thursday's GOP presidential debate in Iowa.
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.Where to begin? One problem is the lack of candor. In Thursday's Sioux City debate, Mr. Gingrich repeated his claim that he had never done a favor for Fan and Fred. But as Speaker in 1995, according to news reports at the time, Mr. Gingrich helped to kill an effort by then House Budget Chairman John Kasich to impose user fees on Fannie and Freddie. The fees were intended to offset the cost advantage provided to the companies by their implicit government guarantee.
Mr. Gingrich also knows that many Republicans were fighting against furious opposition, and at great political risk, to reform Fan and Fred in the early and mid-2000s. The heroes included then Congressman Richard Baker, Senator Richard Shelby and Bush White House aide Kevin Warsh. We were at the barricades too, and Mr. Gingrich was never seen in the rear of the reform camp, much less on the front lines. The Georgian could only have been on the payroll because Freddie thought he could help influence other Republicans against reform.
As for the destructive duo's business model that Mr. Gingrich said he didn't want to change, this was precisely their problem. Far from a private-public partnership, they were private companies with a federal guarantee against failure. Their model was private profit but socialized risk. This produced riches on Wall Street and for company executives. But taxpayers bore the risk of loss—to the tune of $141 billion so far. Why does the historian think they were called "government-sponsored enterprises"?
The real history lesson here may be what the Freddie episode reveals about Mr. Gingrich's political philosophy. To wit, he has a soft spot for big government when he can use it for his own political ends. He also supported the individual mandate in health care in the 1990s, and we recall when he lobbied us to endorse the prescription drug benefit with only token Medicare reform in 2003.
As late as Thursday night's debate, Mr. Gingrich was still defending his Freddie ties as a way of "helping people buy houses." But that is the same excuse Barney Frank used to block reform, and the political pursuit of making housing affordable is what led Freddie to guarantee loans to so many borrowers who couldn't repay them. Yesterday's SEC lawsuit against former Fannie and Freddie executives for misleading investors about subprime-mortgage risks only reinforces the point.
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If Americans elect a Republican in 2012, it will be someone who can make the case for reviving economic growth, but also for restraining and reforming government so it doesn't bankrupt the country. If Americans want more "bold" government experiments, they'll re-elect Barack Obama.
Mr. Gingrich would help his candidacy if he stopped defending his Freddie payday, admitted his mistake, and promised to atone as President by shrinking Fannie and Freddie and ultimately putting them out of business.
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WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich arrived in Washington in January 1979 as a brash congressman dreaming of a Republican revival. Not quite four years later, frustrated at the pace of change, he quietly sought counsel from a man he had once worked to defeat: Richard M. Nixon.
Mr. Gingrich entered national politics in his party’s liberal wing; as a young graduate student in 1968, he campaigned for Nixon’s opponent, Nelson A. Rockefeller. Now, over a dinner in New York, the disgraced former president instructed the impatient lawmaker to build a coalition — the noisier the better.
“He said, ‘You cannot change the country unless you are interesting and attract attention,’ ” Mr. Gingrich recalled in a speech years later. “And to do that, you have to have a group.”
Mr. Gingrich promptly founded the Conservative Opportunity Society, a band of activist lawmakers who helped usher in the 1994 Republican revolution that made him his party’s first House speaker in 40 years.
But many of the conservatives who rode to power with Mr. Gingrich ultimately deserted him, while he denounced them as “petty dictators” and “the perfectionist caucus” in the waning days of his tumultuous four-year speakership.
Today as he seeks the Republican nomination for president, Mr. Gingrich, 68, remains a paradoxical figure for conservatives to embrace — a man who can “bring us together, and alienate the hell out of us,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who as a House member tried to oust Mr. Gingrich in an unsuccessful 1997 coup. Many credit him with advancing their cause, yet many are deeply suspicious of him.
A look at Mr. Gingrich’s earliest days in politics, and the evolution of his thinking, helps explain the rocky relationship between Mr. Gingrich and the movement he once led. He emerges as more of a pragmatist than a purist, a believer in “activist government” whose raw ambition made colleagues uneasy, provoking questions about whether he was motivated by conservative ideals, personal advancement — or both.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Gingrich calls himself the “conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.” As he seeks to appeal to Tea Party voters, he often invokes a conservative icon, Ronald Reagan. But some say he more closely resembles another Republican president.
“Gingrich is more Nixonian than he is Reaganite,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman and the first chairman of the Conservative Opportunity Society, who is on good terms with Mr. Gingrich but supports Mr. Romney. “Not in the Watergate sense, in the strategic sense. He is not an ideologue.”
A Man With a Plan
From the moment he entered politics, Newt Gingrich was a man with a plan to remake the Republican Party — with himself at the top.
He made little secret of his ambitions when, as a 25-year-old graduate student at Tulane University in New Orleans, he signed on with the 1968 Rockefeller campaign. One night, the man who would go on to describe himself as a “transformative figure” and “definer of civilization” stunned fellow volunteers by telling them he thought he could one day be president.
“He was very into himself,” said Kit Wisdom, a leader of the Rockefeller Louisiana campaign, “and in charge of everything.”
His political philosophy was “in the middle,” Ms. Wisdom said. He was antitax, and hawkish on defense, but a strong environmentalist and advocate of civil rights. He courted black supporters and later told his biographer, Mel Steely, that he felt “a moral obligation to support the candidate who was intensely for integration.”
But while he may have felt a moral obligation, Mr. Gingrich also saw political opportunity as a Republican in a South dominated by conservative Democrats. He believed the future of the party in the South was to be “the moderate, progressive alternative to the old-line Dixiecrats,” Mr. Weber said. And he saw a chance to move quickly up the party ranks.
He made his first bid for office in 1974, while a history professor at West Georgia College, now the University of West Georgia, by challenging Representative John J. Flynt Jr., a conservative Democrat. Mr. Gingrich knew he could not “out-conservative” Mr. Flynt, one former aide recalled. So he sought to paint his opponent as corrupt, a tactic he would later use against Democrats like the House Speaker Jim Wright.
He lost that year, and again to Mr. Flynt in 1976. But two years later, when the seat opened up, Mr. Gingrich tacked right, ran on a traditional antitax Republican platform and won. His disdain for the Republican leadership was evident; in a speech to College Republicans that year, he railed against Nixon and Gerald R. Ford for their failure to build a majority.
“They have done a terrible job, a pathetic job,” Mr. Gingrich thundered, unaware that his words were being recorded. “In my lifetime, literally in my lifetime — I was born in 1943 — we have not had a competent national Republican leader. Not ever!”
Mr. Gingrich went on: “I think that one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire, but are lousy in politics.”
Ideas, Yes. Theories, No.
In Washington, Mr. Gingrich quickly became known as an ideas man. He aligned himself with Jack Kemp, the New York congressman whose advocacy of tax cuts and civil rights fit with Mr. Gingrich’s own brand of Republicanism, and he backed Reagan in 1980.
Even so, Mr. Gingrich’s ideas made some in his own party nervous.
In 1979, his first year in office, Mr. Gingrich was among a handful of freshman Republicans to vote to create the federal Department of Education, a vote that many conservatives, who want to abolish the department, still hold against him. (Today Mr. Gingrich says he wants to “dramatically shrink” the agency.)
Ever the history professor, he gave long, meandering speeches on the House floor, calling himself a “Teddy Roosevelt Republican” and extolling the virtues of “activist government.” When President Jimmy Carter proposed an Alaskan wildlife reserve, Mr. Gingrich voted in favor, breaking with his party.
His support for more federal investment in transportation, science, space programs and technology rattled libertarians and free market conservatives; the Club for Growth, an advocacy group, complains that Mr. Gingrich has “a recurring impulse to insert the government in the private economy.” In a 1984 interview with Mother Jones Magazine, Mr. Gingrich was unapologetic.
“I believe in a lean bureaucracy,” he said, “but not no bureaucracy.”
In intellectual circles, Mr. Gingrich raised eyebrows; he drew inspiration not from theorists like Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek, but from futurists like Isaac Asimov and Alvin Toffler.
“I call Newt an experiential conservative, as opposed to a deeply philosophical conservative,” Paul M. Weyrich, a conservative activist, once told the PBS program Frontline. “He does not have a deeply held philosophy, say, biblically based philosophy as some of us do.”
The culture wars that energized Christian conservatives held little interest for the new congressman from Georgia. “Newt’s basic inclination is to let people be people — if it’s not against the law then it’s none of our business,” said Mr. Steely, who taught history alongside Mr. Gingrich and later worked in his Congressional office.
Over time, Mr. Gingrich would develop what his campaign now calls “a consistent pro-life record” on abortion. But early in his career, when his aides pressed him to take a position, he resisted, said Steven M. Gillon, a University of Oklahoma historian who examined Mr. Gingrich’s Congressional papers while researching a book, “The Pact.”
“I would never vote against my conscience,” the book quotes Mr. Gingrich as telling his staff in 1983. “On the other hand, I also make it a habit to have relatively few things I feel bitterly moral about.”
The year 1982 was dismal for Republicans; with unemployment topping 10 percent, the party lost 26 seats in the midterm elections. Mr. Gingrich feared the Reagan revolution was slipping away, and along with it his dreams of building a Republican majority — and becoming speaker.
He had already spent considerable time trying. In 1980, Mr. Gingrich staged an event on the steps of the Capitol for Republicans to publicly commit to a “G.O.P. National Contract” that pledged tax and spending cuts, much like the Contract With America later would in 1994. He wanted a national strategy for Republicans, a novel thought at the time. But the event gained little traction.
Mr. Gillon, the University of Oklahoma historian, sees Mr. Gingrich during this period as going through a kind of “identity crisis, looking for some way that he could emerge from the pack.”
His dinner with Nixon in the fall of 1982 was an attempt to do just that. Even in exile, the former president remained a savvy political observer and kept in touch with Republicans in Washington. That night, the two men spent three hours together, along with Mr. Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne. (They met again in Washington in 1984 when Mr. Gingrich arranged for Nixon to talk about policy with House Republican freshmen.)
Mr. Gingrich later recounted the New York dinner in his book “Lessons Learned the Hard Way.” “I told him I thought the Republicans at long last ought to become the majority in the House,” Mr. Gingrich wrote. “He shook his head and said that the House Republican Party had little impact and received little attention from the press because it was so boring.”
Back in Washington, Mr. Gingrich asked a Republican pollster, Robert Teeter, to test public reaction to the phrases “conservative opportunity state” and “liberal welfare state,” said Frank Gregorsky, then Mr. Gingrich’s chief of staff. The responses came back three to one in favor of the first. Mr. Gregorsky remembers his boss as ecstatic, convinced he had found a winning formula.
“The essence of Newt,” Mr. Gregorsky said, “is that he’s a marketing genius. He’s not a philosopher or an ideologue.”
For Mr. Gingrich, it was an important turning point. He quickly began recruiting members for his new “Conservative Opportunity Society” — he later called the group a “direct descendant of Richard Nixon’s advice” — and put together a companion coalition of like-minded outside activists. They met every Wednesday to plot strategy. Participants remember him as a man in motion, always searching for the perfect catchphrase or issue for Republicans to exploit.
“He was constantly probing with bayonets,” said Grover Norquist, the antitax advocate, who attended those sessions, “constantly trying to figure out what would work.”
Over the next decade, Mr. Gingrich established himself as a partisan firebrand and the undisputed leader of a bold new conservative movement. “Conservatives liked him because he was so bombastic, so willing to take on the liberals,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former Capitol Hill aide. But some had nagging suspicions, Mr. Feehery said, that Mr. Gingrich was “more moderate personally than he lets on.”
His fascination with tactics, his past as a Rockefeller Republican and his grandiose statements bred mistrust. Some wondered if he was interested in advancing conservative ideals, or his own political future. “I have an enormous personal ambition,” he told The Washington Post in 1985. “I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it.”
‘The Ultimate Pragmatist’
Page 4 of 4)
Nearly a decade later, on the morning after election night 1994, the soon-to-be House speaker could barely contain himself. He vowed to stamp out the “Great Society, counterculture McGovernick” legacy of Democrats and to put his own conservative imprint on American society.
The Long Run
The House Years
Articles in this series are exploring the lives and careers of the candidates for president in 2012.
Nixon, who died earlier that year, did not live to see his unlikely protégé’s triumph. But he approved of Mr. Gingrich’s fiery tactics, according the book “Nixon Off the Record,” by Monica Crowley, the conservative commentator and onetime Nixon research assistant. “He’s a bomb-thrower — and we need him,” Ms. Crowley quoted the former president as saying.
Yet for all his relentless promotion of the right, Mr. Gingrich had also demonstrated his cool calculus in his climb to the top. In 1989, in a hard-fought race for Republican whip, Mr. Gingrich challenged Ed Madigan, who had the backing of another prominent conservative, Tom DeLay, the future Republican leader. Sherwood L. Boehlert, a moderate Republican from upstate New York who is now retired, remembers Mr. Gingrich courting moderates, and promising them a role in leadership if he won. He did, by two votes.
“I always thought of Gingrich as darn near the ultimate pragmatist,” Mr. Boehlert said.
Those close ties with moderates, and Mr. Gingrich’s willingness to compromise with President Bill Clinton, ultimately caused him trouble with his party’s right flank, especially the zealous revolutionaries he brought to Washington — a group much like the Tea Party lawmakers of today. Many found him dismissive and condescending, and viewed his management style as chaotic.
“Gingrich talked a lot about the importance of listening, but he was often not interested in discussing our ideas,” one member of the freshman class of 1994, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, now a senator, later wrote in a book about his years in Washington, “Breach of Trust.”
Beyond complaints about style, there were issues of substance. Within Mr. Gingrich’s fractious Republican caucus, deficit hawks repeatedly accused him of abandoning their top priority, cutting federal spending. His decision to end the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 proved a particular sore point; conservatives said Mr. Gingrich had caved in to a White House that outmaneuvered him.
“He was like a whipped dog who barked, yet still cowered, in Mr. Clinton’s presence,” Mr. Coburn wrote.
In 1997, Mr. Gingrich proposed backing away from a promise he had made in the Contract With America to cut spending on Congressional committees by one third. He said the money was necessary for Congressional oversight of the White House. The rebellious lawmakers balked. Some, including Mr. Graham and Joe Scarborough, now an MSNBC host, demanded that Mr. Gingrich stick to the contract — or step down. “Newt’s never been a conservative,” Mr. Scarborough said. “He is an opportunist.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Gingrich has said the notion that he is not conservative is “laughable.” (The American Conservative Union, an advocacy group, says that during his two decades in Congress Mr. Gingrich voted conservative 90 percent of the time.) His defenders say he was simply engaged in the difficult, sometimes messy, business of governing.
“The reality is that Newt was trying to hold together a very close majority,” said Bob Walker, a former Republican congressman who remains a close ally of Mr. Gingrich, “and that meant sometimes you had to do things that were popular across the whole conference, and not just the things that a handful of conservatives wanted.”
But by November 1998, when Republicans lost five seats in the midterm elections, House conservatives were threatening to vote against Mr. Gingrich’s re-election as speaker. Concluding that he had become too polarizing to lead, he announced he would quit the speakership, and Congress.
In his headier moments, Mr. Gingrich had boldly proclaimed himself “the most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times.” Now, in his final days on Capitol Hill, he sounded bitter. On the day he announced his resignation from Congress, Mr. Gingrich convened a conference call with fellow Republicans. In it, the leader of the 1994 conservative rebellion blamed the conservatives he had brought to power for his political fall.
“Cannibals,” Mr. Gingrich called them.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286068/gingrich-gestalt-mark-steyn?pg=1
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286068/gingrich-gestalt-mark-steyn?pg=1
Steyn is the Bruce Lee of the written beatdown.
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From Constitutional Issues, Crafty wrote: "I get that there is serious legal discussion to be had here, and I very much like that Newt had the courage to go into a deep and difficult issue. What I'm not so sure what I like is the possible lack of judgment in doing so. Is this really the sort of issue for a presidential to raise now essentially out of the clear blue as far as the American people are concerned? Does he not appreciate how dangerous this subject is and how easy it is for him to be painted in a terrible light?"
True. He is showing off his knowledge of history, empowering opponents and scaring us with his drift, instead of narrowing his focus.
Reagan had only 3 things IIRC that he could not be pulled away from, reducing tax rates to grow the economy, increasing defense spending to win the cold war and reigning in the size and scope of big government. Just 3 things and he only succeeded at two of them.
We have all studied Newt at length. What are his 3 things?
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We have all studied Newt at length. What are his 3 things?
We talking wives/mistresses here? Oh look, a shiny orbital mirror!
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Some great posts with good insight into Gingrich on this board. Thanks to all.
He certainly does sound like he is more akin to TR, Nixon, even FDR.
This comment, "More damaging to his Presidential candidacy is that Mr. Gingrich doesn't seem to understand why anyone is offended."
couple this with his statement the other day saying something about America is fed up with "the Washington establishment" is enough for me. I heard him say that and all I could think of is what a hypocrit - reminds me too much of CLinton hypocracy and deceit.
It really is astounding to hear so many Republicans come out in full force against him. Even people who are playing it safe and not speaking negatively publically, are trashing him by their silence and their patent refusal to endorse him.
I am not clear that any big names on the Repub side are for him. Has anyone heard a single prominent Repub leader come out and forcefully speak up for him - other than maybe John Bolten (who might be his secretary of state)?
I am shocked at how disliked he appears to be by anyone and everyone who knows him well.
I for one cannot ignore this. AS long as Romney can keep coming out swinging and show me he is in for the fight of this countyr's life - he is my man. I am almost there.
This video of him praising FDR like he does - that's almost it for me.
Thoughts anyone?
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Given the low regard in which I hold the Republican leadership for me it does not count against Newt that many/most of them are not for him. Indeed for me in many cases it counts as a badge of honor.
Unlike most of them, Newt's actual real world accomplishments are quite substantial:
a) engineering the first Rep takeover of the House in over 40 years and ARRIVING WITH A MANDATE
b) reforming "welfare as we know it" with a Dem Senate and President
c) major capital gains tax rate cut
d) budgetary surplus for 4 years
Anyone think Boener, the current leader of the House could do this? Or is he leading the Reps to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
Please be clear, I address ONLY the point concerning his lack of support from the Wash. establishment.
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"I address ONLY the point concerning his lack of support from the Wash. establishment."
Am I incorrect in noting that almost no prominent Rep has come out in big support of Newt?
Perhaps I have simply missed this or the MSM is NOT reporting it. No surprise there.
If this is the case than this a real eye opener. I mean even people who have worked closely with him will not speak up for him?
I also am not sure of what to make of his comment months back about Republicans must stop their social engineering. Remember this and he caught flack? I know exactly what he is talking about and so do the repubs who bashed him. Yet seeing tapes of him complimenting and even perhaps emulating TR FDR and Nixon certainly suggests he is not historically for ending Rep engineering. Indeed Scarbroough who I dislike maybe did have a point when he stated the reason the repubs got rid of Newt wasn't the gov. shutdown or the marital affairs but that he wasn't conservative enough!
I say this while recognizing that Scarborough sits every day agreeing with socialists for his TV show.
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By CURT LEVEY
'Gingrich would arrest judges," scream the headlines. You'd think he'd proposed some crazy, unconstitutional crackdown on federal judges. Instead, Newt Gingrich's position paper, "Bringing the Courts Back Under the Constitution," has a set of controversial but thoughtful proposals for reining in judicial activism.
These include calling judges before Congress to explain their decisions, impeaching judges or eliminating courts that consistently get the Constitution wrong, and limiting the applicability of Supreme Court decisions that distort the Constitution. They've been dismissed as violations of the Constitution's separation of powers. The criticisms are overblown. All are constitutional if carefully implemented and constrained to the appropriate circumstances.
For example, Congress routinely asks executive branch officials outside the White House to testify about their decisions. It occasionally subpoenas them to compel attendance, and arrest would be a last resort. It's unclear why applying the same rules to the judicial branch threatens the separation of powers, especially if done in the context of considering judicial reform proposals like Mr. Gingrich's. Subpoenaing Justices of the Supreme Court, the only court created by the Constitution, is a possible exception.
Mr. Gingrich discusses the possibility of abolishing individual judgeships or lower federal courts, while acknowledging that this would be "warranted only in the most extreme of circumstances." The Constitution gives Congress the authority to "ordain and establish" lower courts. That includes the power to eliminate courts and judgeships, as Congress has occasionally done. Nonetheless, Mr. Gingrich concedes that "Other constitutional options, including impeachment, are better suited in most circumstances to check and balance the judiciary." Stubborn disregard for the Constitution falls short of the "good behavior" required of judges and may justify impeachment.
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Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich
.Another controversial proposal: limiting the applicability of Supreme Court decisions. Mr. Gingrich proposes what Abraham Lincoln outlined in his First Inaugural Address, that "in certain circumstances, the holdings of Supreme Court decisions should be limited to the litigants in a case, and not be held to apply as a general controlling standard." Accordingly, Lincoln refused to treat the high court's Dred Scott decision—now recognized as outrageous judicial activism—as binding on the executive branch. If Lincoln's position seems extreme today, it only reinforces Mr. Gingrich's point that the balance of power has shifted too much toward the judiciary.
Like any plan designed to adjust the constitutional balance of power, Mr. Gingrich's ideas for judicial reform raise a variety of intriguing constitutional questions. Though his freewheeling style adds to the focus on such questions, we should not lose sight of the plan's valuable contribution to the debate on the courts.
Among those contributions is a clear identification of the problem: "The power of the American judiciary has increased exponentially at the expense of elected representatives" such that "the Supreme Court has become a permanent constitutional convention." Mr. Gingrich understands that "judicial supremacy only survives due to the passivity of the executive and legislative branches." He acknowledges the importance of an independent judiciary but points out that "judicial independence does not mean . . . judges can never be held accountable for their judgments . . . however extreme and unfounded."
Instead, Mr. Gingrich argues that the other two branches have the power and the obligation to push back. "The President and each member of Congress takes an oath to defend the Constitution," he notes; "if they believe that the judicial branch is acting contrary to the Constitution, then they have an obligation . . . to check and balance the judicial branch."
There's always the risk of overreach. But unlike the judiciary, democratic constraints provide a check. Even the popular FDR couldn't get a heavily Democratic Congress to approve his court-packing scheme.
Mr. Gingrich doesn't pretend to have all the answers. Instead he offers several possible ways to push back while acknowledging that the best remedy for judicial activism is a president and Senate that will nominate and confirm constitutionalist judges. Beyond that, he describes his specific proposals as "constitutional steps that the legislative and executive branches . . . can take to check and balance the judiciary" (emphasis added), noting that "these powers should be used sparingly." His goals are modest; he hopes to begin "a national conversation" about "formulating executive orders and legislative proposals that will establish a constitutional framework for reining in lawless judges."
While it's easy to criticize anyone who sticks his neck out with specific reform proposals, the alternative is to allow the federal courts to remain unaccountable. Mr. Gingrich's ideas deserve serious consideration, warts and all.
Mr. Levey, an attorney, is executive director of the Committee for Justice
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I think his time is over....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/23/how-newt-gingrich-crashed-and-burned-when-he-was-house-speaker.html
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http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/newts-negatives-true-or-false-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/gingrichs-06-memos-praised-romneys-health-care-plan-the-most-interesting-effort/
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It is nearly caucus time, and Newt Gingrich has found his closing argument. The question is whether it comes soon enough to save his campaign.
Mr. Gingrich rolled into this state on Tuesday with a new focus on pro-growth economic policies and a new determination to sharply contrast his proposals with those of his main rival for the nomination, Mitt Romney. On his first stop here on his final Iowa bus tour, Mr. Gingrich went straight to the mat. Voters face a choice, between "a supply-sider in the [Jack] Kemp-Reagan tradition," and "the philosophy of a moderate Massachusetts governor" who "said he did not want to go back to the Reagan-Bush years."
This pro-growth mantra isn't just strategy, it's necessity. The Gingrich surge has been checked by a barrage of negative campaign ads from his rivals, reminding voters of the former speaker's ties to Freddie Mac, his checkered Washington tenure, his marital baggage. Lacking the money or organization to respond, the campaign has drifted down in the polls, raising the distinct possibility that Mr. Gingrich could end up in a lackluster fourth place.
Mr. Gingrich is betting his new economic theme will be a winner, and he has grounds to think so. The voters in this state have heard every candidate promise the same things: They'll slash government spending, kill ObamaCare, rein in the Environmental Protection Agency. This has become a baseline for conservatives—they expect as much. What they are aching to hear is a bold, positive plan for how to reverse the ravages of Obamanomics.
That thirst was behind the rise of Herman Cain and his 9-9-9 plan, and for a while the pizza maven kept the other candidates on their pro-growth toes. But with his departure, the economic theme has lost some prominence. Mr. Gingrich is looking to re-jump-start his campaign as the growth guy.
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Newt Gingrich campaigns in Iowa, Dec. 28.
.And so here in this city, and across Iowa, Mr. Gingrich spent the week laying out his reform agenda. He riffed on his plans to eliminate the capital gains tax, to give voters an optional 15% flat tax, to cut the corporate tax rate to 12.5%, to axe the death tax. The campaign is plowing money into ads highlighting his economic plan and blasting out emails comparing it to Mr. Romney's. Mr. Gingrich is also touting an endorsement by supply-sider Art Laffer and telling voters he'd staff his cabinet with pro-growth adherents like Steve Forbes.
The Gingrich strategy—in addition to ginning up voter enthusiasm—is to drill into Mr. Romney's soft spot. The former speaker's "problem with Mr. Romney," he kept noting, is the former Massachusetts governor's timidity on tax policy. Mr. Romney has been cautious, shying from a flat tax, promising only to extend the Bush tax cuts, and offering a relatively small corporate tax cut (to 25% from 35%). His determination to be the champion of the "middle class" has also led to economically confused proposals, such as eliminating capital gains tax only for those making under $200,000 a year.
Mr. Gingrich's goal is also to make the case that the Republican nominee with the strongest economic proposals is the Republican nominee best positioned to take on Mr. Obama. He's correctly arguing that this election is going to be won or lost on contrasts, and that there will be no greater flashpoint with Mr. Obama than on economic policy.
Judging by the audience reaction, the voters were listening—though they'd have been listening more when Mr. Gingrich was still on top. In the intervening weeks, the pounding Mr. Gingrich has received at the hands of rivals has entered the public consciousness. It was notable that few of the voters at the Gingrich events were committed supporters. Most were folks who wanted to see if the candidate could overcome the doubts they'd developed about his temperament and past jobs and political positions.
And while many liked the economic theme, they left with those doubts still top of mind. "There's just so much baggage," says Mike Bertling, a small business owner who came out to hear Mr. Gingrich speak at the National Farm Toy Museum in Dyersville. "How do you get past that?"
There's also Mr. Gingrich's tendency to wander off subject—as he did frequently this week—raising questions about his ability to drive home his economic pitch. And there's the odd way he's packaging his message, arguing that his supply-side credentials stem from his time as speaker of the House. While many conservatives may remember the 1990s as a time of relative prosperity, the allusions also remind them of those things they didn't like about Mr. Gingrich—from government shutdowns to ethics allegations.
The Gingrich team is playing down expectations for Iowa, stressing the long game. It's betting that Mr. Romney will retain a ceiling on his support, and that Mr. Gingrich's economic message will help him to consolidate a majority as other candidates drop out. It's looking to South Carolina, and in particular to the late-January primary in Florida, where Mr. Gingrich has been focusing his efforts.
Yet Mr. Romney has been rising in the Iowa polls, and a victory here, followed by a smashing win in his stomping grounds of New Hampshire, could set him on an inexorable path to victory. Mr. Gingrich is making a winning last pro-growth stand, though it may come too late to capture the nomination.
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Newt had a great concession speech last night. URL anyone? (GM?)
As I see it at the moment, Newt is the only alternative to Romney and I have been reminded in recent days just how tepid and timid Romney's economic plans are.
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"Newt had a great concession speech last night. URL anyone?"
?: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/newt-gingrich-says-its-on-to-nh-after-the-iowa-caucus/2012/01/03/gIQAEkpVZP_video.html
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Here he is suggesting interest in an anti-Romney alliance with Santorum, whatever on earth that means:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/04/gingrich_interested_in_forming_anti-romney_alliance_with_santorum.html
The only way that would work now IMO would be for Newt to put ego aside and run now on a Santorum-Gingrich ticket. That won't happen and wouldn't win.
How about an anti-Obama, anti-left wing alliance. Once again they are losing the focus of the mission. Seven people think this is about them. Wrong. It is about us.
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Thanks for the excerpt but I'm hoping for the whole thing :-)
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"I have been reminded in recent days just how tepid and timid Romney's economic plans are."
Again the radical left has won the argument. When they are not in full power they are able to shift the argument with a complicit MSM to the Republicans, the Tea party types are out simply to shut down government and block ANYthing Brock does.
We NEVER hear this when we had a minority party in the Senate fillibustering everything and doing the same thing.
Unfortunately it does appear the Independents buy into this hook line and sinker particularly all of those on the gov. paycheck dole whose sole reason de tere is to get that check. At least that is the impression I am left with when everytime I hear a poll result the Repubs are held to blame MORE than the Crats or WH for the inability of the gov to "govern".
An unfortunately Romney is all about compromise and getting things done. Total establishment. Yet this appears to garner the most votes in a national election - :cry: :cry:
I don't recall if it was Cantor or Santorum who recently was on cable stating the truth that we cannot compromise - we have done so for decades and the left still does not will not stop the progressive march.
Either Romney doesn't believe this or he is doing what he thinks he has to - I am not sure. Either way I fear he may be right. It probably is too late.
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"We NEVER hear this when we had a minority party in the Senate fillibustering everything and doing the same thing."
I meant to say *Democratic* minority 2000 to 2008. And house I think 2000 to 2006?
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Made another donation to Newt today.
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Made another donation to Newt today.
Why? Is it time for another vacation for Newt?
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IIRC that was the reason his original staff left him for , , , Rick Perry. :evil:
At present, the four players are Mitt, Newt, Santorum, and Ron Paul.
Mitt: Too tepid, too timid, to used to being bullied by Democrats;
Santorum: While I am comfortable around social conservatism, I think many independents will find RS concerning on these issues and Baraq will whip his folks into a frenzy over them. He certainly seems to be a big government conservative. And, no way can he beat Baraq;
RP: As previously discussed-- absolutely great on economics, spending, taxes, freedom, the Fed, but devastating on foreign affairs. The left will join him in cutting the military, then hang him out to dry over entitlements;
Newt: Flawed as he may be, for his great strengths I go with Newt. He needs the money now or else he will be too badly wounded by the time South Carolina arrives and by default we will have Romney.
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Mittens will get the nomination in the end anyway. Newt already had his "Not Mitt" peak and won't see that lead again, IMHO.
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Newt's peak was also based upon his considerable strengths.
In the interviews I've caught in the last few days he sounds to me like a man thinking to win.
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Newt's peak was also based upon his considerable strengths.
In the interviews I've caught in the last few days he sounds to me like a man thinking to win.
And his valleys will be based on his considerable flaws.
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I gather there are two debates this weekend , , ,
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MANCHESTER, N.H. — Newt Gingrich may not have much money to spend on advertising here. But he does have Joseph W. McQuaid, the publisher of New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, The Union Leader. And Mr. McQuaid will happily spill barrel after barrel of ink trying to tear every other candidate down.
“Our job is to say, ‘Here’s our guy. Here’s why he’s the best, and why all the others are the worst,’ ” Mr. McQuaid said in a recent interview. He had just finished a front-page editorial for Sunday’s paper that ripped into Mitt Romney, who leads Mr. Gingrich by double digits in the polls. “Romney may be the WORST candidate,” he wrote.
“There’s no reason to be subtle,” Mr. McQuaid said.
Subtle is not how many people would describe The Union Leader or Mr. McQuaid. Mr. Romney is “plastic” and “desperate,” he said. Ron Paul is a dangerous elf from the “Island of Misfit Toys.” And Rick Santorum? “Is he running for something?” Mr. McQuaid said, flashing an impish grin.
Mr. McQuaid and his newspaper are the Siberian tigers of political journalism: ferocious and endangered. At a time when editorials and newspapers themselves are playing a smaller role in American politics, the brash and biting Union Leader still commands the attention and respect of the country’s most prominent politicians. Every four years, they flatter and pay homage to the newspaper in hope that they can secure what remains one of the most coveted endorsements of the presidential election.
Mr. Romney made a trip to the paper’s Santa Fund charity luncheon in November. An article in The Union Leader said that he even took a pledge envelope.
Jon M. Huntsman Jr. has been known to stop by the newspaper’s offices unannounced.
“He’d drop in, and he’d pull up a chair and park for a half-hour,” Mr. McQuaid said, sounding as if he had been at this game too long to be flattered anymore. “It’s, like, O.K.”
Mr. Gingrich’s wooing of the paper stretched out for almost a year. He would send Mr. McQuaid the novels he has written, drop by the offices to chat about Churchill and the 1860 presidential election (Mr. Gingrich and the publisher are both American history buffs) and e-mail an occasional article.
“I got Callista to autograph him a children’s book for his grandchildren,” Mr. Gingrich said of his wife at a recent campaign stop in the town of Lebanon. “And he reads my novels.”
In Mr. McQuaid’s office, a cluttered table was filled with books written by presidential aspirants, all of whom either had sent them by mail or had dropped them off in person.
“Read his novels?” Mr. McQuaid said of Mr. Gingrich, digging through the pile. “That would be a stretch.”
People have feared and loathed The Union Leader ever since the days of the curmudgeonly William Loeb III, who bought the paper in the 1940s and bullied a generation of politicians with vitriolic front-page editorials. Mr. Loeb headlined an article about Henry A. Kissinger’s appointment as secretary of state with an anti-Semitic slur. Edmund S. Muskie became “Moscow Muskie” and a flip-flopper. Mr. Muskie destroyed his candidacy by breaking down and appearing to cry while denouncing Mr. Loeb at a news conference outside the paper’s offices.
Mr. McQuaid, who has a wry sense of humor, neatly combed brown hair and a lean frame, seems committed to carrying on the paper’s legacy as a political baseball bat, albeit in an inoffensive, less cruel way. He prefers to bury you with words.
Friday’s newspaper, for example, had a front-page article about Mr. Gingrich, a syndicated column titled “In Mass., Romney raised taxes, fees” and an op-ed article, “Newt Gingrich can rise to the challenge of the times,” by a New Hampshire state representative. The back page displayed a picture of Mr. Gingrich and his wife, who was proudly holding a copy of The Union Leader.
“Joe McQuaid says, We don’t just endorse once; we endorse every day,” said John H. Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor, who sometimes found himself attacked when Mr. McQuaid believed his administration was not sufficiently conservative. “Once they endorse, every day after, you will not be in doubt about who they endorsed.”
The newspaper has at times gone over the top in protecting Mr. Gingrich. Last month it published an anonymous quotation defending Mr. Gingrich’s tax position — which had come under fire from Mr. Sununu and other Republicans — and attributed it to a Gingrich aide. It turned out the “aide” was Mr. Gingrich himself.
Mr. McQuaid, who edited the paper before he became publisher more than a decade ago, defended his newsroom and said he did not meddle in coverage.
“My reporters bend over backwards to be fair,” he said.
But some people object to the notion that he is hands off. “He is a very active publisher,” said Mark Hayward, a general-assignment reporter. “I don’t think he ever left the newsroom, in the emotional sense.”
Though the newspaper’s weekday circulation is just over 45,000 copies, its political potency is admired even by those who have ended up on the wrong side of the publisher’s pen.
The newspaper’s advocacy of Mr. Gingrich came up on Friday in a Fox News interview with Kelly A. Ayotte, the state’s freshman Republican senator.
“It’s the only statewide newspaper,” Ms. Ayotte said. “It’s a conservative newspaper. I respect The Union Leader.”
She also noted, “I have to say, they weighed in against me in my primary, and I still ended up winning.”
The newspaper’s average in picking winners suggests that Mr. Gingrich should not start writing his victory speech just yet. Though it endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 and John McCain in 2008, Steve Forbes got the newspaper’s nod in 2000, and Pat Buchanan in 1992. Americans never got to see a President Pierre du Pont (endorsed in 1988) or a President Samuel Yorty (1972).
“I’m only one voice,” Mr. McQuaid acknowledged, adding, “a loud voice.”
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Todd Palin Endorses Newt Gingrich - ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/todd-palin-endorses-newt-gingrich/
By Santina Leuci
Jan 9, 2012 12:46pm
Sarah Palin’s husband is endorsing Newt Gingrich for president, Todd Palin told ABC News today.
But Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and John McCain’s 2008 Republican running mate, has yet to decide “who is best able to go up against Barack Obama,” Todd Palin said.
Palin said he has not spoken to Gingrich or anyone from the former House speaker’s campaign. But he said he respects Gingrich for what he went through in the 1990s and compared that scrutiny in public life to what Sarah Palin went through during her run for the vice presidency.
Todd Palin said he believes that being in the political trenches and experiencing the highs and lows helps prepare a candidate for the future and the job of president.
He did not criticize any of the other candidates and said his “hat is off to everyone” in the Republican race.
But Todd Palin did point to last summer, when a large portion of Gingrich’s staff resigned and the candidate was left, largely by himself, to run the campaign.
Gingrich’s ability to overcome the obstacle and still move up in the polls showed his ability to campaign and survive, according to Todd Palin, who said Gingrich is not one of the typical “beltway types” and that his campaign has “burst out of the political arena and touched many Americans.”
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First this: I think the Todd Palin endorsement is significant. The conservative candidates all wanted Sarah Palin's endorsement. I think this is her way of announcing that. It should have been done earlier, while he was on top, instead of the other bunglings he was up to like trashing capitalism.
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The attacks from the right on Romney's work at Bain are misplaced; it also turns out Newt worked in the industry:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/09/newt-gingrichs-private-equity-past/
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/gingrichs-own-close-tie-to-buyout-industry/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/09/pawlenty-why-are-republicans-attacking-capitalism/
During Saturday night’s GOP primary debate in New Hampshire, Gingrich said: ”I’m not nearly as enamored of a Wall Street model where you can flip companies, you can go in and have leveraged buyouts, you can basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers.”
Upon leaving Congress in 1999, the former Speaker joined private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. as a member of its advisory board. Forstmann Little was one of the world’s original leveraged buyout firm.
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Newt spoke at some length on this on Hannity tonight. I thought he was in fine form. I thought he nicely distinguished the creation destruction of capitalism in contrast to a specific case he mentioned from Romney's Bain Capital wherein BC put in $30M and took out $180M , , , and the company went bankrupt.
To be precise the issue is not the field of venture capital, it is how one acts. Newt is specifically accusing Mitt of having acted badly on more than one occasion. No one that I am aware of has researched this point with regard to Newt's involvement w Fortstman et al.
Speaking of Newt's past: Concerning the FMs, I caught something recently where he said he had been restrained from talking about certain things with the FMs due to a confidentiality agreement, but that he was now free to speak and would be soon. With most politicians my natural reaction would be to roll my eyes, but with Newt I remember how he let literally DECADES go by with this terrible meme ou there that he had divorced his dying wife, only for us to discover quite recently through his daughter that it wasn't true!!!! That the wife had wanted to divorce him (who could blame her :lol: ) and that she had just gotten news that she wasn't dying and that in point of fact she is still alive!!! Only when the daughter and the wife gave permission to speak, did he let it come out. In my opinion, what he did as a man here is rather remarkable-- and it is why I am willing to take a wait and see attitude when he says he has not spoken until now about the FMs due to confidentiality issues.
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Following up on my post of last night:
Political junkie that I am while I was searching for the Sunday morning debate I ran across Newt in a NH townhall meeting.
In my opinion, NONE of the candidates come close to the level that this man operates at.
He told a story of the his time with President Reagan based upon a riff of "Lions don't hunt chipmunks, they hunt zebras and antelopes" with the idea that a lion hunting chipmunks would starve-- this being a metaphor for choosing a few big themes and not sweating the smaller issues. Hard to convey with my words here, but it was very effective. As he built the theme and worked with it the audience, my son, and I sat in close attention.
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Pravda on the Hudson seeks to guide us to the "proper" conclusions , , , :roll: :lol:
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MANCHESTER, N.H. — For weeks this winter, as Newt Gingrich’s presidential hopes faltered under the weight of millions of dollars in attack ads paid for by backers of Mitt Romney, a small group of Gingrich supporters quietly lobbied for help from one of the richest men in America: Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner and Mr. Gingrich’s longtime friend and patron.
Mr. Romney’s supporters were also calling, imploring Mr. Adelson to stay out of the race.
By the time Mr. Gingrich limped into New Hampshire, some of his top backers had given up on Mr. Adelson and begun prospecting elsewhere, including among erstwhile supporters of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, to finance a counterattack.
But on Friday, the cavalry arrived: a $5 million check from Mr. Adelson to Winning Our Future, a “super PAC” that supports Mr. Gingrich. By Monday morning, the group had reserved more than $3.4 million in advertising time in South Carolina, a huge sum in a state where the airwaves come cheap and the primary is 11 days away. The group is planning to air portions of a movie critical of Mr. Romney’s time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped found.
The last-minute injection underscores how last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election. Mr. Adelson’s contribution to the super PAC is 1,000 times the $5,000 he could legally give directly to Mr. Gingrich’s campaign this year.
Several people with knowledge of Mr. Adelson’s decision to donate to Winning Our Future said that it was born out of a two-decade friendship with Mr. Gingrich, his advocacy on behalf of Israel and his turbulent months as a presidential candidate.
“His friend needed his help,” said a close associate of both men, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid drawing Mr. Adelson’s ire. “It’s more than anything else a loyalty thing. And he believes strongly in his platform and in Newt’s candidacy.”
Ron Reese, a spokesman for Mr. Adelson, declined to comment for this article.
At a stop in New Hampshire on Monday, Mr. Gingrich, who complained bitterly about the wealthy Romney supporters who helped send him to a fifth-place finish in Iowa, said Mr. Adelson was operating on his own.
“If he wants to counterbalance Romney’s millionaires,” Mr. Gingrich said, “I have no objection to him counterbalancing Romney’s millionaires.”
But for Mr. Gingrich, the donation could be both boon and burden: Mr. Adelson comes with potential liabilities. His main source of income, casinos, could upset some social conservatives. That he operates in China could rankle isolationist voters, while some of his views on Israel are hawkish by mainstream Republican standards.
Mr. Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, also faces a federal investigation for possible violations of a federal antibribery law, relating to operations in the Chinese gambling district of Macau, the company acknowledged last year. The company has said the investigation stems from the allegations of a disgruntled former employee.
The aid is also likely to intensify public scrutiny of Mr. Adelson, 78, who has invested millions of dollars in conservative causes over the years but prefers to keep his political activities private.
The relationship between Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Adelson dates to the mid-1990s and first centered on their common animosity for labor unions.
Mr. Adelson was building his newest resort casino, the Venetian, and became embroiled in a battle with a local culinary union trying to organize his employees. The conflict soured further when Mr. Adelson helped finance a campaign in Nevada to pass legislation curtailing the ability of labor unions to automatically deduct money from members to finance political activities.
Aides to Mr. Adelson turned to Mr. Gingrich — known for his criticism of labor unions — for advice, said George Harris, who worked for Mr. Adelson at the time. Aides to Mr. Gingrich, then the House speaker, helped Mr. Adelson hone his antiunion pitch, and Mr. Gingrich was invited to Las Vegas to speak and be honored with a fund-raiser.
Mr. Gingrich endorsed the Nevada legislation. He also backed other legislation in 1998 to preserve tax deductions beneficial to the industry.
“They hit it off immediately,” Mr. Harris recalled Monday, explaining that he helped broker the introduction. “They became friends, pals, as they had a great deal in common.”
Mr. Adelson became one of Mr. Gingrich’s most important patrons, donating $7 million to a political committee founded by Mr. Gingrich in 2006, American Solutions, whose direct-mail lists and advocacy of Social Security privatization and greater oil exploration were critical building blocks to Mr. Gingrich’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Adelson allowed Mr. Gingrich the use of his personal aircraft, and the two occasionally met for meals and spoke often by phone, a former aide to Mr. Adelson said.
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But the two shared views about much more than domestic issues. Both men have long been staunch American allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Adelson owns a free daily newspaper in Israel that is credited with helping Mr. Netanyahu return to power in 2009.
In May 2010, the cover of a special section of the paper featured a full-page photograph of Mr. Gingrich in front of an American flag, with Mr. Gingrich criticizing the Obama administration for not moving more aggressively against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Evading the confrontation with evil may bring a second Holocaust,” Mr. Gingrich wrote in the article. “The mistakes made by the White House will exact a terrible price.”
This willingness to publicly criticize American policy toward Israel — during the Bush and Obama administrations — has distinguished Mr. Gingrich from his Republican rivals, said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush. Those views often echoed Mr. Adelson’s.
Early on, Mr. Adelson was expected to play a central role on Mr. Gingrich’s campaign, perhaps as finance chairman. But in June, the campaign seemed to implode, with the resignations of his campaign manager and a half-dozen senior advisers.
Within days, though, Mr. Gingrich rebooted his campaign, speaking at a fund-raiser for the Republican Jewish Coalition, where Mr. Adelson sits on the board.
In December, Becky Burkett, the former chief fund-raiser for American Solutions, formed Winning Our Future. Mr. Tyler came aboard as a senior adviser. Rumors soon floated that Mr. Adelson would give the group as much as $20 million — but were quickly denied by Mr. Adelson.
In the days before the Iowa caucuses, as Mr. Gingrich’s poll numbers fell under a withering assault from Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Mr. Romney, supporters of other Republican candidates said they urged Mr. Adelson to hold back or even endorse a different candidate
People close to the men disagreed on whether Mr. Adelson always intended to support Mr. Gingrich or only came around in recent days, as his supporters came to believe that only a major infusion of money could salvage the campaign.
But when Mr. Gingrich declared in a December interview that Palestinians are an “invented” people — meaning they had no historical claim to have their own state and that they remain committed to destroying Israel — it inspired a new round of enthusiasm for him among many conservative American Jews.
“Not many others are willing to say that, but it is a tragic truth,” said Morton A. Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America
Mr. Adelson echoed Mr. Gingrich’s comments within days in an interview with Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.
“Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people,” Mr. Adelson said.
Fred Zeidman, a Texas energy executive who is another prominent Jewish political contributor and a supporter of Mr. Romney, said he was among those who called Mr. Adelson, and they talked about why he was still backing Mr. Gingrich.
“As long as Newt is in the race, we are going to be with Newt,” Mr. Adelson replied, according to Mr. Zeidman, in a conversation they had in December. “We can’t abandon him now.”
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By STEPHEN MOORE
The buzz is getting stronger that GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will pull back on his planned $3 million ad campaign that accuses rival Mitt Romney of "looting" companies and ruining workers' lives when he headed Bain Capital.
I'm hearing from Gingrich insiders that several top campaign brass want the former speaker of the House to withdraw the 28 minute ad -- which has been universally panned by conservative leaders in recent days. Even Mr. Gingrich himself is said to be having reservations. But other senior advisors of the Gingrich Super PAC, Winning Our Future, want to continue full speed ahead. They dismiss complaints that the ad should be withdrawn and say doing so would only help the Romney campaign.
Radio talk show host Mark Levin reported Wednesday that Mr. Gingrich will pull back the ads, but the Gingrich campaign has denied that. I've talked to several major Gingrich donors who say they are disgusted by the class-warfare tactic. Rush Limbaugh likened Newt Gingrich's attacks to Barack Obama's assaults on free-market capitalism and rich people.
Some Gingrich advisors want to change tactics and use the Super PAC money -- mostly donated by Las Vegas casino hotel owner Sheldon Adelson -- to run positive TV ads on Mr. Gingrich's economic growth ideas or to criticize Mr. Romney on issues such as healthcare and gay marriage.
Mr. Gingrich probably can't win the race for the nomination. The only question is whether he will lose with any dignity. With Mr. Gingrich, you never know whether common sense will prevail. That may explain why a campaign that looked so promising one month ago has crash landed.
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I'm not seeing a problem here, but the WSJ writes as if there may be one , , ,
By BRODY MULLINS
Newt Gingrich and his consulting companies helped financial-services giant Credit Suisse Group gather exclusive Washington information and analysis, showing that the Republican presidential candidate benefited from a practice that has come under fire from lawmakers.
This "political intelligence" business—while legal—also risks muddying the campaign argument by the former House speaker that he has been a Washington outsider since he left Congress in 1999.
At a June 2010 lunch, Mr. Gingrich gave Credit Suisse and its clients his take on whether Republicans would back government spending on renewable energy. That fall, Credit Suisse analysts held conference calls with a top official at Mr. Gingrich's health-care consultancy, the Center for Health Transformation, to interpret changes to health-care policy.
And on May 26, 2011, Mr. Gingrich's health-care firm organized a day of private meetings between Credit Suisse analysts and senior Republican congressional health-care policy aides. Though held a few weeks after Mr. Gingrich left to run for president, it was planned while he was running the firm.
The Credit Suisse "D.C. Day" at the K Street offices of the Center for Health Transformation featured analysis from top Senate aides. Credit Suisse stock analysts used the information gathered at these events to help make stock recommendations to the firm's investor clients.
Information in this story comes from people invited to the meetings and from Credit Suisse research reports.
R.C. Hammond, a campaign spokesman for Mr. Gingrich, defended the work by calling the Credit Suisse events a standard element of the center's business. "This is what CHT is: It's information flow and an exchange of ideas," he said. "They weren't giving them investment advice; they were giving them policy analysis." He added: "Giving an update on what's going on in Washington is information analysis at its best."
In a statement, Credit Suisse said its "research analysts regularly tap appropriate experts from a broad array of disciplines, in an effort to help investors make informed decisions."
Wall Street firms increasingly are seeking an edge by trying to figure out how pending policy changes could affect stocks. To service this desire a crop of political-intelligence firms has sprung up. Unlike lobbyists, they face no requirement to register with the government or disclose their names or clients. The firms connect investors with Washington insiders, who pass on analysis based on their experience and contacts. In some cases, firms arrange face-to-face meetings for investors with officials writing laws.
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Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich at a State Capitol rally for home ownership Thursday in Columbia, S.C.
.Legislation introduced by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.) would require companies that sell political intelligence to disclose for the first time their activities and Wall Street clients. It has been embraced by a majority of House members, up from nine in November. House Republicans say they want to approve the bill early this year. It also would bar lawmakers and congressional aides from disclosing market-moving, nonpublic information about pending or prospective legislation if they believe the information will be used in stock trades.
In the Senate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, (I., Conn.) said he wants to hold a hearing on the political-intelligence business in the next few months.
Mr. Gingrich's Center for Health Transformation signed up dozens of health-care companies who paid as much as $200,000 a year to be members, with the goal of discussing and promoting free-market solutions to health-care issues. Member companies had access to a menu of services, including a speech by Mr. Gingrich, policy papers and regular conference calls. "Platinum" members receive twice-a-year meetings with members of Congress, key congressional aides and administration officials.
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Newt Gingrich in Columbia, S.C.
.The Center for Health Transformation declined to say who its members are and it was unclear if Credit Suisse was among this group.
According to a membership contract viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Gingrich's group "will help host, twice during our annual partnership, a delegation of portfolio managers, client company executives, etc. for a visit to Washington DC." The day "can include meeting with key thought leaders in health care, elected officials or key staff from the Hill."
For Credit Suisse, there was the added benefit of taking advantage of Mr. Gingrich's insights and connections to gain an edge in its analysis of health-care stocks. It isn't known if other Wall Street firms were members of the center.
Companies join the center "because of our vast expertise on health policy issues and concepts we forged to transform health care," said Susan Meyers, a spokeswoman for the center. "We have been a very attractive place for anyone wanting to come to learn more about how to save lives and save money."
.The May 26, 2011, event linked Credit Suisse executives with top Capitol Hill aides, including two Republicans from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and one from the Senate's tax-writing committee, which has jurisdiction over health-care policy. Others at the meetings included Charles Boorady, a top health-care analyst for Credit Suisse. The investment firm said Mr. Boorady wouldn't comment.
On June 1, Credit Suisse issued a report in Mr. Boorady's name predicting—based in part on information he cited from the "DC Day"—that managed-care companies such as UnitedHealth Group Inc. would likely benefit from a push by states and the federal government to reduce costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients.
Credit Suisse upgraded its outlook for UnitedHealth Group and raised its "target price" to $62 per share, up from $60 a share. The stock was then trading in the low $50s; it closed Thursday at $52.87 a share.
In September and October 2010, Credit Suisse analysts held two conference calls with Vincent Frakes, a top official at the Center for Health Transformation. The analysts asked Mr. Frakes for his take on how states would implement a piece of the health-care law that requires insurers to spend 80% to 85% of their revenue on medical care.
In the September conference call, Mr. Frakes said he didn't expect many states to change their insurance rules in a way that would hurt managed-care companies. He noted in a follow-up call in October that a move by a regulatory agency could make it more likely that states would ask for waivers from the rules, according to an Oct. 22 research report from Credit Suisse.
The research report said Credit Suisse's "top picks" were health insurers UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint Inc.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/16/video-gingrich-vs-juan-williams-on-the-food-stamp-president/
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We will see Saturday, but Newt with his personal baggage started with one chance to win and that was be only the guy answering Juan Williams in the clip espousing the value of freedom and work ethic, national security etc. and not fall off message. Paul Gigot has good insights on this:
The Bain of Gingrich's Campaign
In last night's debate, Mr. Gingrich was shaky on the most recent theme of his campaign—Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital.
By PAUL A. GIGOT
Newt Gingrich was the star of Monday night's GOP debate in South Carolina, which isn't surprising. He's done well in all the debates. Most notable is that he was shaky on the main theme of his last week of campaigning -- Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital -- while he did best when he focused on the failures of the Obama administration and the welfare state.
The former speaker never did have a good answer for Bret Baier's queries on Bain Capital, which included critical quotes from one of the Journal's recent editorials. The Georgian lacked his usual confidence and sure-footedness. This may be because at some level Mr. Gingrich doesn't believe his own assertions that Bain practices an illegitimate form of capitalism. He said he was merely asking "questions" to see whether or not Mr. Romney "can answer them effectively." Mr. Romney wasn't much better in defending himself -- his default is always to focus on his own biography rather than the larger philosophical or moral issue -- but an attack on business doesn't play very well among GOP primary voters and it didn't in the auditorium on Monday.
Mr. Gingrich was far better on the questions of race, jobs for young people, and Social Security. One of Mr. Gingrich's debating skills is that he doesn't accept the moral premises of the (usually liberal) questioner. So he can turn a query intended to trap him into accepting the exploitation of children into an answer highlighting the dignity of work and the dangers of dependency. He can do this speaking off the cuff in a way that Mr. Romney simply cannot. The crowd in Myrtle Beach loved it, and Mr. Gingrich will probably get a bump from his performance.
His problem is that debates tend to be more consequential earlier in a campaign when impressions are being formed, and this week is late in the game. Mr. Gingrich's Bain detour was a blunder that cost him with many of the conservatives he needs to win in South Carolina.
(Paul Gigot is WSJ Editorial page editor. Subscribe here: http://www.offers.com/wsj)
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Agreed. My sympathies for Newt are a matter of record around here, but I agree that this Bain Capital episode appears to have been not only a blunder, but also a moment of character weakness for him.
Here's a WSJ piece from today on his professor years:
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON
A year into his first full-time teaching job, Newt Gingrich applied to be college president, submitting with his application a paper titled "Some Projections on West Georgia College's Next Thirty Years."
Mel Steely, a history professor who played a role in Mr. Gingrich's hiring in 1970, said the bid drew "a chuckle" from administrators. The following year, Mr. Gingrich applied to be chairman of the history department. That wasn't greeted so kindly, Mr. Steely said, with some favoring a longtime professor and World War II veteran.
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University of West Georgia
Newt Gingrich in 1973, during his time at West Georgia College.
"We weren't going to make Newt our chairman, but he liked the idea of competing for almost anything," said Mr. Steely, who later wrote a complimentary biography of Mr. Gingrich titled "The Gentleman From Georgia." "He figured 'I'm capable of doing this,' and it didn't bother him so much that it offended anybody."
Mr. Gingrich often says his experience as a historian would make him a superior president. During Monday's GOP debate, he lectured "as a historian" on "a fact-based model" for revamping Social Security, citing the success of programs in Galveston, Texas, and Chile.
Gingrich's History
Review records relating to Newt Gingrich's time as a professor and his early political career.
View Interactive
So what was Professor Gingrich actually like? A clutch of little-known records from what is now the University of West Georgia in Carrollton suggests the ambition and intellectual grandeur of Newt 2012 aren't a long way from the 1970s vintage. In addition to seeking the college presidency, Mr. Gingrich was often absent as he pursued political goals. He embarked on an effort to moonlight as a paid consultant. And, it turns out, he spent little time teaching history.
Mr. Gingrich coordinated the school's fledgling environmental-studies department and by 1976 was removed from the history department because his "interest in long-range and broad-range planning for the future...is clearly more appropriate to the orientation of our Department of Geography," a 1975 letter from then-college president Ward Pafford reads.
Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond emphasized that Mr. Gingrich's backing in history includes a master's and doctoral degree from Tulane University and extensive research and writing on the subject. "He's talked about teaching environmental studies" at West Georgia, Mr. Hammond said.
Then as now, "There was this whole wealth of information that he was communicating in digestible bites," said J. Randolph Evans, a West Georgia student of Mr. Gingrich who was his legal counsel when he was House speaker in the 1990s and chairman of several Gingrich ventures. He described Mr. Gingrich as an engaged and energetic professor.
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The college records total more than 200 pages, but they're incomplete, university officials say, citing the file's age. Mr. Gingrich left the small liberal arts college in 1977 after seven years and after he was denied tenure.
Mr. Gingrich was recommended to West Georgia as a dynamic young academic "with a single-minded purpose in life: to become a fine teacher-scholar," wrote Charles P. Roland, then-chairman of history at Tulane University in New Orleans.
His application listed 26 books he said he'd read between August 1969 and January 1970 while writing his dissertation on educational systems in the Belgian Congo. Mr. Gingrich, his wife, Jackie, and their two daughters were living in Brussels at the time. "My reading is rather too eclectic for a specialist and my coursework was too broad to give me any depth," he wrote in a 1970 letter to W. Benjamin Kennedy, who then led West Georgia's history department. He started at an annual salary of $9,700.
After his unsuccessful bid for the president's job, college officials asked him and a colleague to draw up ideas for modernizing the institution. That led to the 1973 creation of "The Institute for Directed Change and Renewal," a platform the two men used to try to sell the institute's services to public schools.
Mr. Gingrich wrote to a college vice president asking if it was "appropriate and legal" to profit from their work. College President Pafford responded swiftly: "You are not entitled to financial compensation by any other State of Georgia agency or institution," he wrote in a memo. The institute soon went defunct.
The file contains a letter from Mr. Gingrich apologizing for his brusque treatment of Mr. Kennedy, the history head. "Occassionally [sic] a young man acting in innocence will cause trouble while pursuing what he believes to be a good cause," Mr. Gingrich wrote. A memo on the incident written by Mr. Kennedy is missing.
Mr. Gingrich threw himself into working as "a specialist in futurism," according to a 1973 college news release. "Asked why he maintains such a hectic schedule, he said he feels it is his obligation as an educator to do as much as possible to make the world a better place," the release said. In fact, Mr. Gingrich was pursuing a long-shot bid for Congress, running as the 6th District's lone Republican in the shadow of Watergate.
A December 1973 news story by Howell Raines, then of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, noted Mr. Gingrich was making "four or more speeches a week," while "carefully retaining the unofficial status of his candidacy." It was against the rules of the university system for serving professors to campaign for office.
Mr. Gingrich later went on unpaid leave to pursue his campaign, billing himself as a reformer, as he had at West Georgia College. He lost, but tried twice more, each time taking unpaid leave. After leaving the college for good, he won his House seat in 1978.
Write to Elizabeth Williamson at elizabeth.williamson@wsj.com
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Agreed. My sympathies for Newt are a matter of record around here, but I agree that this Bain Capital episode appears to have been not only a blunder, but also a moment of character weakness for him.
Agreed.
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NEWT IS FINALLY NEWT AGAIN
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on January 17, 2012
The impostor who wallowed in negative ads, attacked capitalism at Bain Capital and
hemmed and hawed when asked about his role at Freddie Mac is gone. The real Newt
Gingrich has returned!
The former Speaker was in his element during Monday night's GOP debate in South
Carolina. Inspired and egged on by a conservative crowd and appealing to a national
TV audience, he put red meat before the voters. Rick Santorum, by contrast, served
only white-meat chicken. (It was a GOP debate, so nobody served pork.)
When Newt spoke about the importance of a work ethic and criticized Fox News's Juan
Williams for implying that being a janitor was demeaning for young people, he gave
vent to the frustrations of millions of Americans chafing under the restraints of
political correctness.
And when he savaged Ron Paul for comparing Osama bin Laden to a Chinese dissident
seeking asylum in the United States, he articulated what we all felt -- revulsion at
Paul's modern-day impersonation of Neville Chamberlain cowering in the face of
Hitler.
Newt is back!
With biweekly debates, these national contests -- far more than local campaigning
and even paid advertising -- will shape the outcome of the early primaries.
Especially in a state the size of South Carolina, where media is not that costly, so
everyone can afford their share, the debates will be the difference.
Santorum's performance was workmanlike, statistical, detailed and lawyerly. He laid
out his points well and even baited a trap for Romney over his failure to urge the
repeal of a Massachusetts law permitting felons to vote, even while incarcerated.
But the difference between Santorum and Gingrich was on vivid display on Monday
night: passion versus carefully articulated positions.
Just as important for Newt was the destruction of Ron Paul. His quibbling over how
we should have handled bin Laden and the candidate's obviously self-destructive
isolationism should reduce even further his vote share in a defense-oriented state
like South Carolina. If Newt can open up a separation in vote share vis-à-vis Paul
and Santorum (and Perry recognizes reality and bows out) then Newt has Mitt where he
wants him -- one on one.
Romney's debate performance was subpar. He handled the income tax return question
poorly. Everybody realizes that releasing your returns in April won't help primary
voters decide for whom they should vote in January. Most likely, Mitt's return will
show that he paid the capital gains rate -- 15 percent -- on his income, which is
his legal right, but which will open him up for criticism. But Romney has to realize
that he needs to take the heat and release them sooner rather than later. If
Gingrich releases his returns before South Carolina, you can bet he will force
Romney to fess up before Florida.
Mitt also needs to do a better job of defending Bain Capital. This is not a
tax-supported or philanthropic institution. Bain got private investors to bail out
failing companies. To do that, and to take those kinds of risks, you need to offer
monster returns. That Bain was able to produce, attract capital and turn around so
many companies is very, very admirable. And Romney needs to start addressing it in
those terms. Are his critics confident that he would have gotten the capital to try
to turn these companies around if he offered a lower return? On what basis do they
think so?
Newt only hurts himself by going negative. He looks bad doing it and it brings out
the worst in his image. It makes one wonder if he is staying in the race out of
anger and a need for revenge. But when he articulates his positive vision, we
realize what a patriot he really is.
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I just heard that Perry has endorsed Newt.
And this from the Newt folks:
Dear Friend,
Newt Gingrich is surging.
Newt won the debate Monday night - it wasn't even close. Then Sarah Palin told Sean
Hannity last night on Fox that she'd vote for Newt if she had a vote in South
Carolina. And just this morning, a new Rasmussen poll showed Newt within three
points of Mitt Romney!
Please watch this video and you'll see why we have so much momentum right now:
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/134051/613051/884/2/
Here's what others said:
Frank Luntz: "I've never seen it in a debate and I've been doing these debates now
for 16 years - a standing ovation in the middle of a debate!"
Dick Morris: "Newt, Newt, Newt. He was absolutely terrific tonight? He might win on
Saturday!"
Kathryn Lopez of National Review: "This will get watched and re-watched."
Everything is going our way right now, but we are running out of time. Please check
out the note from Newt below and help us win this critical primary here in South
Carolina on Saturday.
http://list.dickmorris.com/t/134051/613051/884/4/
Sincerely,
Michael Krull
Campaign Manager
Newt 2012
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Yes, but which Newt are we pulling for? Dick Morris is looking for the good Newt but you only get all or none.
I guess these critics could be discounted as Romney surrogates but the criticism was present back then as well.
Ex-Senator Jim Talent calls him an "Unreliable Leader". Representative Susan Molinari: "I can only describe his style as leadership by chaos". Both served under him as House Speaker.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2088461/Romney-campaign-unloads-outrageous-destructive-Newt-Gingrich.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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Arguably he has matured since 15 years ago-- in part due to his being brought low, in part due to his time in the wilderness, in part due to the natural passage of time.
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"Arguably he has matured since 15 years ago-- in part due to his being brought low, in part due to his time in the wilderness, in part due to the natural passage of time."
Yes, but... He counts the accomplishments but refuses to take the negatives from the same time period. The ex-wife story is old news. I believe we had the Vanity Fair story here a year ago. I was only judging him by his word to prove his new discipline by showing it in the campaign.
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I disagree. I have seen him readily agree on his failings in the past.
Oh, and by the way m, , , Pravda on the Hudson has projected Newt as the winner in SC today :-D :-D :-D
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By JAMES TARANTO
It looks as if standing ovations at political debates are now the norm. Newt Gingrich got another one last night, after his answer to the opening question from CNN's John King, which concerned what the Drudge Report had hyped as ABC-TV's "bombshell" interview with the ex-speaker's ex-wife Marianne.
CNN.com quotes the response: " 'To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine,' Gingrich told King, the moderator of the debate." The story notes that "Gingrich's response elicited loud applause from the audience" but it doesn't mention the standing ovation, perhaps because such a thing is no longer newsworthy, more likely because it was at the expense of the network's host.
The interview aired on "Nightline" some 90 minutes after the debate ended, and the bombshell turned out to be a dud. The supposed big revelation--that "he wanted an open marriage," as she, not he, put it--turned out in context to be trivial.
As Mrs. Gingrich told the story, the then-speaker informed her over the phone that he wanted a divorce. "I said to him, 'Newt, we've been married a long time.' And he said, 'Yes. But you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn't care what I do.' "
"What was he saying to you, do you think?" asked interviewer Brian Ross.
Mrs. Gingrich: "Oh, he was asking to have an open marriage and I refused."
By her account, he first asked for a divorce. She protested, and he made clear that he was unwilling to give up his then-mistress. It's unclear from Marianne Gingrich's account whether Mr. Gingrich actually offered to remain married in exchange for tolerance of his infidelity, or if this was merely her inference.
In either case, there is an enormous difference between offering such an arrangement as a "compromise" to a spouse who does not wish to divorce, which is what Mr. Gingrich appears to have done, and flat-out asking for an open marriage. Neither reflects well on him, but the former is within the normal range of cruel and confused behavior during a breakup, whereas the latter is, at least by American standards, deviant.
There is also evidence that the Gingriches' marriage had been troubled for years before the split. National Review's Robert Costa notes a 1999 Associated Press report on their separation, which revealed some background:
Documents related to the divorce filed Friday in Cobb County Superior Court include a separation agreement signed by the couple and notarized in December 1987. There is no indication it was ever filed.
Browning said Marianne Gingrich called her husband on his birthday in June 1987 to tell him she was leaving him. Gingrich, he said, came back to Georgia to find his home emptied out.
Browning said the pair maintained separate residences for six years before reconciling in late 1993 or early 1994.
There's no way to know who was at fault in the first separation, and while it is not in dispute that Mr. Gingrich committed adultery before the actual divorce, the 1987 story leads one to wonder if he was completely to blame for the ultimate breakup.
Which brings us to the public-policy implication of the Gingrich divorce story. Mr. Gingrich might have been morally blameworthy in the breakup of his marriage, but at the time almost every state had a no-fault divorce regime. Today every state does. Mr. Gingrich was acting in accord with a legal regime that favors the spouse who wishes to divorce and gives no weight to the other's objections. Mrs. Gingrich's position would have been stronger, giving Mr. Gingrich an incentive to be more respectful, under the old fault-based divorce system.
Here is a point of commonality between Mr. Gingrich and his political contemporary, Bill Clinton: Both of their personal-political scandals arose out of relatively recent changes in the law. As we noted in a 1998 Wall Street Journal essay, the discovery process that led to the revelation of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was normal for a sexual harassment lawsuit. Yet Clinton's defenders, while complaining bitterly about how intrusive that process was, never questioned whether harassment law in general had gone too far.
Likewise, we don't expect the spotlight on Gingrich's marital woes to lead to a debate over the wisdom of no-fault divorce. Like the sexual harassment tort, it is firmly entrenched in our culture. Women initiate a large majority of both divorces and harassment lawsuits, so put this down to the power of feminism.
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The conventional wisdom is Newt can beat Obama in any debates. Suppose he is the nominee and Obama simply ducks the debates?
After all said and done at this time I prefer Romney as the "safer" candidate. Newt seems just too risky. On this count I agree with Coulter about Newt. I don't agree with her assertion he would absolutely lose against Obama. Yet the "insiders" must be doing studies of this and what they find is telling them independents don't/won't like Newt.
I guess the question is how will Newt do with the independents? My understanding is Romney is more popular with them.
The conservatives seem convinced that all they need is a great voice in the darkness to convince the independents that their contrasting vision for America is the best choice and all the independents will have some sort of awakening and vote for a Republican. I am not so sure.
Surely if Wesbury is right and the stock market is up 20% this year (despite the debt +/- unemployment) independents might very well go for Brock. He is very intent on buying their votes ("it is all about the middle class").
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IMHO Newt's strategy for making Obama accept the debates is fiendishly clever. I'm out the door right now, but I'm pretty sure its already been posted in this thread or the election thread.
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Many Republicans in Congress fear Newt's electabilty.... and the impact he could have down ticket.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congressional_republicans_fear_newt_gingrich_standard_-211732-1.html?ET=rollcall:e11964:80133681a:&st=email&pos=eam
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BD,
Yes that is what we keep hearing on radio and on cable that "everyone will behind the scenes tell 'you' they fear he will cost them majorities in the houses"
I am not sure what to make of this. I am somewhat skeptical that would happen. Yet the polls so far do tend to show he would not beat Bama. If that changes and starts to score with the independents I would certianly reconsider my support.
While Mitt certainly doesn't blow me away with the brilliant oratory like Newt he is satisfactory and on balance quite attractive overall. He is a bit of a compromise for me but my conclusion we MUST beat Obama and this country cannot afford chances.
A lame duck Bama is frightening and even more so if Newt would cause the houses to go to the crats. The pundits keep trying to tell us Bama has/is really been a moderate and all. We all know he is a radical leftist who governs left of center ONLY because he has to to keep power. So yeah, the idea of his being a lame duck and unleashed from a re election is very unsettling.
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"the impact he could have down ticket."
I also have expressed that fear, yet there seems to be a tendency of the voters to choose divided government. If they are about to reelect Pres. Obama then maybe they will give him an R Senate and House as with Pres. Clinton. The ability to stop all new big government initiatives still leaves us in a train headed off a cliff from my point of view.
If Romney wins as a weak or compromising Republican with a let's-see-how-it-goes agenda and a razor thin majority in the House and Senate, nothing bold will be enacted or repealed.
Republicans need a clear agenda and a clear up or down vote on it. Either the electorate will be sold or it won't.
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"If Romney wins as a weak or compromising Republican with a let's-see-how-it-goes agenda and a razor thin majority in the House and Senate, nothing bold will be enacted or repealed.
Republicans need a clear agenda and a clear up or down vote on it. Either the electorate will be sold or it won't."
So Doug are you for Newt at this point?
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"So Doug are you for Newt at this point?"
I find myself wishing Mitt would get his act together rather than pulling for Newt or Rick S, even though I am probably to the right of all 3 of them. If Newt is the nominee, I will be 100% behind him.
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Latest Gallup has Obama over Romney and Gingrich by the same margin, 50-48. http://www.gallup.com/poll/election.aspx That is quite a move for Newt. I think South Carolina was Newt's peak, but we will see.
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I look forward to seeing which candidate truly answers the speech going on as I write. The President has set just tossed a slow hanging curve ball over the heart of the plate for the former Speaker to hit out of the park. (Here he is, throwing his pitch - well not quite over the plate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGkPf9gZzM)
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/25/krauthammer_romney_wrong_gingrich_did_not_resign_in_disgrace.html
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First it should be said that the ethics charges then were largely bogus. Marc Levin was very strong on that and says he was there.
Krauthammer is saying he left in defeat instead of disgrace. The so-called disgrace was two years earlier.
But the defeat was at partly based on the cloud of these and other leadership issues that led to his 15% approval rate at the time.
There is both good and bad to be taken from that time. Winning a national election (yes) in 1994, getting to a balanced budget, welfare reform, trade expansion and capital gains tax rate reductions on the large plus side. Not bringing the public with you and not keeping the confidence and respect of the people around you were problems. Also the end of baseline budgeting was a promise in the contract. When was that fight and where was that focus? Winning that war then might have headed off a lot of what went wrong since.
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The negatives on Gingrich are surprisingly emotional.
For me to relate to this I could use this example:
No matter what Hillary or Bill Clinton say or do at this time I will *never* like either. She can smile and look adorable and give the impression she is kind and considerate and sweet. It makes no difference to me. I simply will not forget them from the 90's.
I wish them no harm but do wish they would both just go away and stay in private life and leave this country alone.
Apparently many people feel that way about Newt. I don't, but so what. I am just one.
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A bad night for Newt last night; mistakes he has made have come home to roost and bite him in the ass.
So, before he loses in FL, and therefore probably Romney wins the nomination, tis worth a moment to pause and reflect upon the point that Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ makes here:
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
It became clear two minutes after Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina that citizens were about to be treated to a non-stop effort to portray his smashing win as the result of his attack on the media. A victory, we were informed by cable and network commentators, which Mr. Gingrich owed to his cleverness in finding ways to give the press-hating right-wingers in South Carolina the red meat they craved.
He'd won, we heard repeatedly, by insulting a fine reporter, CNN's John King -- pronouncements accompanied by no little handwringing and defense of Mr. King who had only done what any good reporter-moderator would have done in raising the question about the public accusations made by Mr. Gingrich's second wife. Mr. King, it turned out, was far more serene about events than the chorus of commentators mourning his alleged victimization by Mr. Gingrich.
The image of the speaker as a man who owes his current strength mainly to attacks on the press is now a standard tool of his opponents -- a caricature meant to offset certain realities about his rise. The sort of realities recognizable to considerable numbers of people in Iowa where polls had begun running heavily in favor of Mr. Gingrich from late November on in the wake of his debate performance there and elsewhere. Iowans heard, from Mr. Gingrich, not media attacks but bracing expressions of American values electric in their effect. That was why he kept rising in the polls.
Enlarge Image
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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich
.That is, until, under the sheer weight of a nonstop, richly financed ad assault on behalf of Mitt Romney, they began to crumble as Mr. Gingrich was depicted, relentlessly, in the darkest terms. Then came South Carolina, and a debate, in which the speaker who had held those earlier audiences in thrall appeared on stage again, and in full voice. This time, to turn aside a journalist's effort to bait him with questions suggesting he was a racist, into a powerful affirmation of the right of all citizens of every race and status to hold a job, to earn money.
That was the standing ovation moment, and he had not reached it by attacking the press. That moment was his because he had given eloquent voice to core beliefs prized by most Americans.
The speaker has made his missteps in these forums. Among them we can count those little moments -- there were two -- of flirtatious deference, Monday, to Ron Paul and some of Dr. Paul's ideas which the speaker now discovers he can embrace. Not a pretty sight. There ought to be a way in which displays of realpolitik -- attracting the Paul voters -- come out looking better than this, if they're to be made at all. A dubious proposition.
Tonight's debate in Florida may be, as advertised, crucial to the outcome of the race there. But whether Speaker Gingrich knocks this one out of the park or he doesn't, one fact stands clear. He's survived this long against extraordinary odds and attained the challenger status he now holds not because of his nifty way of attacking the media, poor dears. He's here because he speaks to people in ways that assume their interest in ideas of consequence, and they know it -- they can hear. And because he speaks in ways that reflect a respect for their intelligence, and has much to say to them. They know that, too. This way of relating to voters is no gimmick. It's a condition of mind and one of bottomless value on a campaign trail.
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I need to figure out how to get in with the in crowd so I can visit the permanent moon base in 9 years. Who do you think will go? 13,000 is a pretty big group. Even if I can't, I'm excited for Newt now. How awesome would a moon base be?
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"Iowans heard, from Mr. Gingrich, not media attacks but bracing expressions of American values electric in their effect. That was why he kept rising in the polls."
Agreed. He says so eloquently what so much of us *loooong* to hear.
Romney sort of :| says it. But not like Newt.
We certainly didn't hear it in the State of the (Soviet) Union address the other night.
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Nor did we hear it much last night from Newt, who would have done much better if had focused on Baraq's State of the Soviet Union speech. Instead he tried playing gotcha games with Mitt and lost badly.
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Scathing comments from Bob Dole:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/289360/dole-goes-nuclear-nro-staff
I didn't like Bob Dole better than Gingrich, but these are first hand observations, more negative than necessary, that match closely what others have been saying.
Positive piece (IMO) on Newt and Supply side economics:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/supply-side-economics-at-core-of-gingrich-plan/2012/01/24/gIQAFxLhTQ_story.html
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I love the idea of LOW capital gains tax rates, state and federal. That said and in light of the uproar of Romney's and Buffet's tax rate on millions of 15%, does anyone still think it is/was a good POLITICAL idea for Newt and almost all other R candidates to take the capital gains rate to zero?
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"Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself."
Yeah it does appear this way. For me to continue to keep writing it off as *Wash Establishment*. is not being realistic. All these people can't be wrong or simply doing this for nefarious reasons. They have worked with him side by side and could see exactly this.
"He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway."
We are seeing it now. Newt, we keep hearing has no organization and is running his campaign solely on his debating, speech skills.
Didn't he also have a team that left him some months back. Though I want a #1 guy who is confident, I am not sure I want one who will never listen to others at all.
"Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall."
We are essentially to some degree seeing that now. He does seem to have an element of mania especially when he does start to do well he gets a little out of control. Like Crafty points out he got off message the last debate because he got focused on knocking off Romney.
I am almost completely sure I would have to vote for Romney.
As for Bob Dole, I like the guy, he liked to compromise, was known for that more than anything, terrible Prez candidate but his words are echoed by so many others they most likely are true and not just sour grapes, etc.
And what we are seeing does corroborate what are have siad about Newt in the 90's.
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Time Traveler From The Year 1998 Warns Nation Not To Elect Newt Gingrich
January 26, 2012 | ISSUE 48•04
WASHINGTON—Saying he came bearing an important message from the past, a stranger from the year 1998 appeared on the Capitol steps Thursday and urged voters not to elect Newt Gingrich president in 2012. "In the late 20th century, Newt Gingrich is a complete disgrace!" said the time-traveling man, warning Americans that 14 years in the not-so-distant past, Gingrich becomes the only speaker in the history of the House of Representatives to be found guilty on ethics charges, and is later forced to resign. "In my time, he shuts down the federal government for 28 days because his feelings get hurt over having to sit at the back of Air Force One. Gingrich gets our president impeached for lying about marital infidelities when, at the same time, Gingrich himself is engaged in his own extramarital affairs. And for God's sake, he divorced his first wife after she was diagnosed with cancer. Won't anyone listen to me?!?" When asked about Donald Trump, the time-traveler said he had no information on the man, as no one from 1998 cared about a "washed-up fake millionaire."
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Lets be more precise here:
a) To be precise, as has already been posted here (but perhaps you missed it?), the first wife and NG already had been formally separated for several years and the effort at reconciliation wasn't working and SHE wanted to divorce him. None of us know what was going on between them-- which is kind of how it belongs.
b) Yes NG had hubris in the front/back of the plane incident, but the shutdown of the govt. was about a mighty effort to cut govt spending, an effort from which the Reps flinched.
c) I could be wrong, but I remember the ethics charges as being relatively minor and in part due to NG having stepped on toes, many of which needed stepping. The charges were two years before his resignation. His resignation came because of Rep losses in the elections which had just taken place. This was recently exlained here in this thread in the Krauthammer piece. Perhaps you missed it?
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Ok here is Joe's first hand account. I have been tough on Joe. He often appears a sell out MSLSD. Yet this may shed us some light. Newt's downfall was after the polls clearly showed that HE not Clinton was being blamed by a majority of Americans for the government shutdown. That IS what I remember. His political collapse came soon after that. I no doubt would think the liberal MSM had a big role in the public's perception. It seems whenever the PRes goes up against the houses for spending bills (like we saw recently with the spending limit bruhaha between Boehner and OBama) the Pres wins out.
From what I gather that Newt gave up on his principles after his falling in the polls by appeasing on the big spenders and tax raisers etc. He appears to have panicked, put his tail between his legs and given up on HIS own contract. That is when and why his own people abandoned him.
Excerpt from Scarborough:
***Three years into his speakership, the man who helped draft the Contract With America began trying to undo some of that document’s key provisions. The government shutdown had badly damaged the speaker’s brand and he went to work trying to raise his 27 percent approval rating.
In April 1997, Gingrich told The New York Times he was ready to be a kinder and gentler Republican by negotiating away the very tax cuts that he had once called “the crown jewels of the contract.” Soon, conservatives were being pressured to vote for big spending appropriations bills.***
See here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72084.html
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OTOH when thinking about my above post it seems strange the people who are now criticizing Newt for compromising are some of the biggest compromisers. Isn't Dole's (lauded even by the MSM) ability to "work with the other side" and who championed big government anti-business things like American with Disabilities Act and Scarborough who sits next to the Misha or whatever her name is and often agrees with the MSNBCers being somewhat disingenius?
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Don't watch MSNBC, but what you post is consistent with my memories of that time.
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Fairly long, worthwhile read. Steven Hayward wrote the book 'Age of Reagan'. In a nushell, yes Newt opposed Reagan but not in a bad way. This account gives great context.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/newt-vs-reagan-the-sequel.php
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Why I support Newt Gingrich for president
January 29th, 2012 | Author: Herman Cain
Herman Cain
In a sea of negativity and distractions in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, I decided to throw my support behind former Speaker Newt Gingrich because I can now see much clearer distinctions between President Obama and Newt than I do between Governor Mitt Romney and the president.
These distinctions are between Obama’s hodgepodge of foggy small ideas, which he talked about in his State of the Union address, and Speaker Gingrich’s clear and bold solutions for solving the crises we face as a nation. And yes, my bold 9-9-9 tax reform plan is a serious consideration for Speaker Gingrich, which is why I accepted his invitation to co-chair his Economic Growth and Tax Reform Advisory Council.
The polls do not agree with my assessment of Speaker Gingrich, and it appears that the so-called political establishment does not agree. But remember, I’m Mr. Unconventional, and the ability of the Republican nominee to highlight distinctions clearly in the general election campaign will be critical to achieving the ultimate mission of defeating President Obama.
My decision was not based on the political pundits’ attempted labeling of the candidates as conservative, most conservative,moderate, liberal Republican, not a true conservative, not a real conservative or any other of the concocted labels by which they try to pigeonhole candidates.
My decision to support Speaker Gingrich was also not influenced by all of the attacks and dirt dug up from Newt’s personal and political past, which all of the campaigns are guilty of doing – including Newt’s. As a reminder, Newt specifically tried to stay out of the negative attack mode but was forced into it after being bombarded with attacks in Iowa, and some early attacks in South Carolina, where he not only survived but won the primary.
The bombardment of attacks on Newt is being launched again in Florida. I believe he will survive as the clarity of his solutions rises above the rhetoric.
And now, some of the former Members of Congress who served with Newt when he was Speaker of the House are trashing Newt, even though many former members thought highly of his leadership as Speaker. Their trash and attempts to say Newt was not a “Reagan conservative” (here we go again with the labels) are certainly adding credence to the emerging perception that the so-called Republican establishment is pushing hard for Mitt Romney to be the nominee.
That’s because the establishment does not want bold changes in Washington, D.C.
The bottom line is that the voters will decide. That’s why the voters got my first endorsement as announced previously, because the people have to remain inspired or the establishment wins. Most of us just want the people to win, and win with a people’s president in November.
Here are nine of Speaker Gingrich’s positives:
• He successfully led the passage of nine out of ten provisions in the Contract with America when he was Speaker of the House.
• He was a key player in passing welfare reform in the 1990s, and got President Bill Clinton to sign the legislation.
• He left Congress and spent years studying and developing bold ideas and solutions to our problems, many of which he is using as a candidate. This hiatus as an elected official gave him time for his head to clear and identify how to fix a broken Washington, D.C.
• He will ruffle feathers in Washington in order to change Washington.
• He will be bold in boosting economic growth because he understands that less government is the key, not more government as Obama believes.
• He believes in removing regulatory barriers so this country can become energy-independent by maximizing all of our natural resources.
• He is an outstanding debater and his language connects with people.
• He fearlessly body-slammed the media in a recent debate, which showed strong conviction, character and leadership qualities.
• His motivation to be president is the same as our motivation for bold solutions in Washington, D.C. It’s not about us. It’s about the grandchildren.
Thomas Jefferson said, “When people have the right information, then they will make the right decisions.” It is way past time for the media and campaigns to focus on solutions so people can get the right information.
We must make the right decision in November 2012.
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Thinking out loud, I wonder if the collapse of Newt in the polls after the budget stand off in the 90's led some Republicans to come up with the compassionate conservative theory which W embraced. Perhaps some repub strategists concluded too heavy on the strict conservative path may lose the independents.
I am still not sure which way to go. However I do get the idea that compromise cannot be an answer since there really is no compromise with liberals. They will chip away till forever.
OTOH I am not convinced that strict ideology will win out either. I just don't know. I'm afraid Mitt doesn't either.
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Thinking out loud, I wonder if the collapse of Newt in the polls after the budget stand off in the 90's led some Republicans to come up with the compassionate conservative theory which W embraced. Perhaps some repub strategists concluded too heavy on the strict conservative path may lose the independents.
I am still not sure which way to go. However I do get the idea that compromise cannot be an answer since there really is no compromise with liberals. They will chip away till forever.
OTOH I am not convinced that strict ideology will win out either. I just don't know. I'm afraid Mitt doesn't either.
Agree. Also Al Gore was considered a harmless centrist at that point so conservatism was thought to need tempering. 2012 allows more opportunity and more need for a clear distinction between the path we are on and some version of principled and consistent, common sense conservatism.
Newt's problems in the 90s were complicated. The ethics charges were largely BS but he left enough running room for his critics to make the smear effective. On policy, he was NOT too hard line (IMO), but too unfocused. Clinton took credit for their joint accomplishments and that lasted a decade. Now Gingrich takes at least some credit back as he should. Clinton's Presidency would have been nothing compared to what it was without the changeover of congress which was a national opportunity seized by one great politician - the good Newt. Not the angry one or the unfocused one, which all come in the package.
We don't need compromise with liberals, but we need the right dosage of conservatism to be successfully sold to independents presented the choice. We don't need a zero capital gains rate, but we need a reasonable one and a 'permanent' one. We don't need single digit income tax rates on the richest (per Herman Cain) but we do need to show we are moving significantly away from wealth destruction policies. We don't need pollution spewing, we need environmental gains locked in but with unnecessary and unwise regulations repealed. We don't need to be the world's policeman, but we are the world's superpower so we need a clear explanation of what peace through strength means going forward. We don't need to slash a trillion a year in spending (per Ron Paul) laying off government workers all at once to join the construction workers, we need a path forward that balances private sector growth, revenue growth and serious and specific spending restraint, but not the root canal type.
Newt knows all this, but lacks focus. All those accomplishments (balanced budget, economic growth, a national election victory, etc.) but never locked in baseline budgeting or CBO reform while he moved on, but these turned out to be more crucial now than having formerly balanced budgets.
Ethics violations were largely bogus, yet he goes on to sell himself out to Freddie Mac. He can't explain his work product or any reason a (psuedo)government employee should get a million a year for part time work undefined. It makes him the candidate of a nationalized mortgage industry and slimey public-private-partnerships while he tries fight off others for being big government candidates or not pure in their principles.
He needed to pitch a no-hitter to overcome baggage. He did that through scattered innings here and there but also gave up some grand slams.
The reason he took the Freddie Mac deal was because he needed the money. They have the Tiffany's bill, then the Michelle Obama-like exotic vacation during a key point in the process. Like the I-me Obama SOTU speech, I am seeing another it's-all-about-me candidate.
Reagan for example never made you feel like the election was about him. It was all about a country that he loved.
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Doug, Great post.
I agree Newt WAS smeared. Surely with a complicit liberal media.
Apparently he did seem to turn around in retreat in the 90's on his contract. Clinton was way to liberal and got pounced. He came back by selling us the "era of big government is over" and than announced a daily nanny statism initiative. Perhaps Newt should have played the same phoney game from the other side. However he would not have had an adoring loving press supporting him as do the Democrats. Perhaps in some regard Newt was being far more realistic than the now self proclaimed stalwarts of conservative like Scarorough who state that Newt abandoned them. Perhaps Newt was right to step back and give in a little (retreat). Maybe better to give in some and lose a battle then the whole war he may have thought. OTOH perhaps he just panicked. I am not sure.
For the Republican party and conservativism in general this seems like THE dilemna. Similar to playing the right approach to the Latinos who are very much in the Democrat party camp though they do hold some strong conservative values with regards to Christian faith.
"We don't need compromise with liberals, but we need the right dosage of conservatism to be successfully sold to independents presented the choice. We don't need a zero capital gains rate, but we need a reasonable one and a 'permanent' one. We don't need single digit income tax rates on the richest (per Herman Cain) but we do need to show we are moving significantly away from wealth destruction policies. We don't need pollution spewing, we need environmental gains locked in but with unnecessary and unwise regulations repealed. We don't need to be the world's policeman, but we are the world's superpower so we need a clear explanation of what peace through strength means going forward. We don't need to slash a trillion a year in spending (per Ron Paul) laying off government workers all at once to join the construction workers, we need a path forward that balances private sector growth, revenue growth and serious and specific spending restraint, but not the root canal type."
Doug for President!
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Thanks CCP but I have only agreed to serve as veep for Crafty, if asked, in a brokered convention. When they get a good look at my baggage and temperament, Newt's fidelity and focus might look very good. :wink:
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"I have only agreed to serve as veep for Crafty"
It was reported a famous martial artist has come out to endorse Newt. I thought maybe just maybe it was our favorite martial artist.
Then it was revealed it is Chuch Norris.
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Tail wags gentlemen. :lol:
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By ARTHUR B. LAFFER
If we judge both leading contenders in the Republican primary, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, by what they've done in life and by what they propose to do if elected, either one could be an excellent president. But when it comes to the election's core issue—restoring a healthy economy—the key is a good tax plan and the ability to implement it.
Mr. Gingrich has a significantly better plan than does Mr. Romney, and he has twice before been instrumental in implementing a successful tax plan on a national level—once when he served in Congress as a Reagan supporter in the 1980s and again when he was President Clinton's partner as speaker of the House of Representatives in the 1990s. During both of these periods the economy prospered incredibly—in good part because of Mr. Gingrich.
Jobs and wealth are created by those who are taxed, not by those who do the taxing. Government, by its very nature, doesn't create resources but redistributes resources. To minimize the damages taxes cause the economy, the best way for government to raise revenue is a broad-based, low-rate flat tax that provides people and businesses with the fewest incentives to avoid or otherwise not report taxable income, and the least number of places where they can escape taxation. On these counts it doesn't get any better than Mr. Gingrich's optional 15% flat tax for individuals and his 12.5% flat tax for business. Each of these taxes has been tried and tested and found to be enormously successful.
Hong Kong, where there has been a 15% flat income tax on individuals since 1947, is truly a shining city on the hill and one of the most prosperous cities in history. Ireland's 12.5% flat business income tax propelled the Emerald Isle out of two and a half centuries of poverty. Mr. Romney's tax proposals—including eliminating the death tax, reducing the corporate tax rate to 25%, and extending the current tax rates on personal income, interest, dividends and capital gains—would be an improvement over those of President Obama, but they don't have the boldness or internal integrity of Mr. Gingrich's personal and business flat taxes.
Imagine what would happen to international capital flows if the U.S. went from the second highest business tax country in the world to one of the lowest. Low taxes along with all of America's other great attributes would precipitate a flood of new investment in this country as well as a quick repatriation of American funds held abroad. We would create more jobs than you could shake a stick at. And those jobs would be productive jobs, not make-work jobs like so many of Mr. Obama's stimulus jobs.
Enlarge Image
CloseChad Crowe
.Tax codes, in order to work well, require widespread voluntary compliance from taxpayers. And for taxpayers to voluntarily comply with a tax code they have to believe that it is both fair and efficient.
Fairness in taxation means that people and businesses in like circumstances have similar tax burdens. A flat tax, whether on business or individuals, achieves fairness in spades. A person who makes 10 times as much as another person should pay 10 times more in taxes. It is also patently obvious that it is unfair to tax some people's income twice, three times or more after it has been earned, as is the case with the death tax.
The current administration's notion of fairness—taxing high-income earners at high rates and not taxing other income earners at all—is totally unfair. It is also anathema to prosperity and ultimately leads to the situation we have in our nation today.
In 2012, those least capable of navigating complex government-created economic environments find themselves in their worst economic circumstances in generations. And the reason minority, lesser-educated and younger members of our society are struggling so greatly is not because we have too few redistributionist, class-warfare policies but because we have too many. Overtaxing people who work and overpaying people not to work has its consequences.
On a bipartisan basis, government has enacted the very policies that have created the current extremely uneven distribution of income. And then in turn they have used the very desperation they created as their rationale for even more antibusiness and antirich policies. As my friend Jack Kemp used to say, "You can't love jobs and hate job creators." Economic growth achieved through a flat tax in conjunction with a pro-growth safety net is the only way to raise incomes of those on the bottom rungs of our economic ladder.
When it comes to economic efficiency, nothing holds a candle to a low-rate, simple flat tax. As I explained in a op-ed on this page last spring ("The 30-Cent Tax Premium," April 18), for every dollar of net income tax collected by the Internal Revenue Service, there is an additional 30¢ paid out of pocket by the taxpayers to maintain compliance with the tax code. Such inefficiency is outrageous. Mr. Gingrich's flat taxes would go a lot further toward reducing these additional expenses than would Mr. Romney's proposals.
Mr. Gingrich's tax proposal is not revenue-neutral, nor should it be. If there's one truism in fiscal policy, it's this: Wasteful spending will always rise to the level of revenues. Whether you're in Greece, Washington, D.C., or California, overspending is a prosperity killer of the first order. Mr. Gingrich's flat tax proposals—along with his proposed balanced budget amendment—would put a quick stop to overspending and return America to fiscal soundness. No other candidate comes close to doing this.
Mr. Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates, is co-author with Stephen Moore of "Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status" (Threshold, 2010).
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HOW MITT SUCKERED NEWT
By DICK MORRIS
Published on The Hill.com on January 31, 2012
Printer-Friendly Version
For students of American politics, following the way the Romney campaign played Newt Gingrich in Florida is a lesson to learn and to keep. Romney's people must have realized that Newt does best when he is positive. His bold ideas, clear vision, revolutionary insights and extraordinary perspectives resonate with voters and win him millions of supporters.
Romney, less compelling but more consistent, doesn't need stellar debate performances or bold vision to win. The case for the former Massachusetts governor is more circumstantial: He can reach out to independents by virtue of his past apostasies on healthcare and abortion. He looks, talks and acts like a president. His record of job creation is exemplary.
But Newt needs the bold sally, the breathtaking moment of rhetorical clarity, to prevail.
So Romney's people set out to mire Newt in negatives so he couldn't and wouldn't get out the positive message he needed to project to prevail. They tormented him with negative ads in Iowa. While the ads were generally accurate -- the allegation about backing China's forced-abortion policy aside -- they presented only one side of the story and were stinging in their impact. Without funds, Gingrich couldn't answer the negative ads. He fumed but watched, in impotence, as his vote share fell away.
In Spanish bullfights, the picadors torment the bull by sticking darts into his shoulders. Enraged, bleeding, frustrated and in pain, he lowers his head, snorts, paws the ground and charges straight at the matador, oblivious to the sword awaiting him behind the red cape. That's about what Romney did to Gingrich in the January primaries.
Enter Sheldon Adelson, a Vegas billionaire who loves Newt. His affection runs so deep that he gave Gingrich the funds to destroy himself. With Adelson's reported contribution of $5 million-plus, Newt had the weapons to fight back with his own negative ads. In a rage, he put them on TV and devoted his time in the debates to throwing accusations. RomneyCare. Abortion. Gay rights. The taxes Romney paid and the ones he advocated. Massachusetts moderate. No, make that Massachusetts liberal. They tripped off his tongue and his super-PAC put them on the air. Sheldon paid the bill. But Newt paid the price.
No longer was he Newt the visionary, the leader, the intellect. He was a Nixonian caricature of himself, wallowing in negatives, forsaking the chance to explain himself and his ideas for the chance to jab with attacks.
Newt needed to rebut. Newt needed to go positive. Newt did not need to go negative. He should have used Adelson's funds to reply to Romney's attacks and then to articulate his bold plans for his first day in office. He did not need to exchange punches with Mitt.
As Newt lost his aura, Romney surged. At times, it seemed that Gingrich was motivated more by fury -- like the Spanish bull -- than by ambition or strategic sense. He had lost his cool, and all could see it.
In the end, his foray into negatives raised again the specter of Newt the loose cannon, firing any negative that came to hand. Newt the destroyer who shut down the government and handed Clinton the election in 1996.
Romney pulled Newt off his game. Late on the Monday night before the primary, we had a vision of what could have been. Newt went on the "The Sean Hannity Show" and laid out a sweeping plan for his first month in office. His obvious grasp of the legislative process and the potential reach of executive action was vintage Gingrich. Where had he been all campaign? Wallowing in negative campaigning, courtesy of Romney's strategy in playing him.
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Second post
Obama Administration makes war on Christians
by Newt Gingrich
Dear Marc,
Last week, the Obama administration finalized a radical new rule that uses the health care law to require all health insurance providers to cover abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization as well as contraception, all free of charge. The administration based the rule’s "religious exemption" on a provision drafted by the ACLU, applying the rule even to religious organizations such as Catholic schools, hospitals, universities and charities that oppose such things as a matter of religious belief.
The weak exemption the administration allowed applies only to religious organizations serving primarily people of the same religion. It is so narrow that Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York City and current head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "even Jesus and His disciples would not qualify for the exemption in that case, because they were committed to serve those of other faiths."
Because Catholic institutions serve people of all faiths, the adoption by the Obama administration of the ACLU exemption language is an explicit and intentional assault on the Catholic Church in the United States. President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius know full well that they are ordering Catholic institutions to violate their church’s teachings if they want to stay in business. They also know full well that they are explicitly running over the First Amendment protection of religious freedom that every American is supposed to enjoy as a birthright.
President Obama’s message to Catholics is clear: Catholics will not be able to build organizations according to their faith and the teachings of their church as long as they refuse to accept President Obama’s radicalism. President Obama’s order is a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of conscience and an unprecedented assault on Christianity.
Catholics are uniformly opposed to the rule. Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association—an Obamacare supporter—expressed disappointment "that the definition of a religious employer was not broadened." Even liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne blasted the rule, arguing that "the Church’s leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings."
The administration’s small concession—that it would allow organizations with religious objections an extra year to comply—does nothing to acknowledge their concerns. As Archbishop Dolan responded, "In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences."
This past Sunday, Catholics in churches across the country were read a letter from the Bishop of Marquette Alexander Sample drawing their attention to this unprecedented action by President Obama, describing the administration as having "cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty."
Maybe: It is important to remember, as the bishop’s letter reminds us, Catholics, like other religious groups came to America to be free.
"Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights," the letter said.
Bishop Sample is right. In choosing the radical agendas of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU over the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty; in dramatically undermining the numerous Catholic educational, health, and charitable institutions that provide so much good to so many Americans; and in implementing a rule no elected official has ever voted on, President Obama has chosen Saul Alinksy radicalism over the Constitution. It’s hard to see how many people of faith will long remain in a political party so hostile to their beliefs and their rights.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Given his poor showing yesterday, it may be too late, but it appears that Newt has been reading our forum :wink:
President Obama's Incredible Shrinking Labor Force
by Newt Gingrich
Dear Marc,
President Obama last week brandished new jobs numbers as proof that his policies were having an effect on the unemployment rate, which the report said declined to 8.3 percent in January.
The president is right about one thing: his big government agenda and class warfare tactics are having an effect -- but it's not the one he claims. In truth, last month's drop in the unemployment statistic was due largely to the evaporation of 1.2 million people from the labor force number. When people become so discouraged they stop actively looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed and the rate goes down even though Americans are hardly better off than they were before.
The rate went down in January because (apparently) 1.2 million people decided in a single month not to pursue work. This is the number, in effect, that President Obama is touting.
The January report caps an extraordinary decline in the participation rate that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been reporting under the Obama administration. Since January 2009, the BLS said more than five million people have dropped out of the labor force -- the greatest decline in American history and the lowest participation rate in more than three decades. Only about six in 10 adult American civilians are counted as part of the labor force.
A few more good jobs reports like this and we'll have a three percent unemployment rate with nobody working.
The president assures us, however, the lower unemployment rate is actually evidence that his policies are successful. Asked on Monday about the fact that unemployment had dropped in part because so many Americans left the labor force, unable to find jobs, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the decline in the participation rate could be an "economic positive" because some of it is "due to younger people getting more education." Carney also tried to blame the massive exodus on Americans getting older—which they must have done at record levels in January to account for 1.2 million people retiring at once.
Those are pretty glib and grasping explanations for the single largest exit from the labor force on record—especially since it's more than four times the number who left the previous month.
In reality, almost half a million fewer Americans are employed today than when President Obama took office. The real unemployment rate, counting those who are unemployed, underemployed, or have looked for work in the past 12 months but since given up, is closer to 15 percent. More Americans are relying on food stamps than ever before. Teenage unemployment during the Obama administration is the highest since records began in 1948, with almost one in four teenagers who wants to work today unable to find a job. 8.2 million Americans have only part-time employment either because they can't find full-time work or because their hours have been cut back.
The president's unrelenting assault on job creators has made a bad economy much worse. In the middle of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, he rammed through Obamacare, spent almost a trillion dollars of "stimulus" indiscriminately, virtually took over the American auto industry, attempted to raise taxes on producers with carbon trading legislation, banned development of offshore oil and gas resources, passed the Dodd-Frank Act which crippled community banks, juiced up the regulatory powers of the EPA, FDA and other bureaucracies—and lately, has taken to demonizing job creators with class warfare rhetoric while offering policy platitudes that do nothing to solve our problems.
These are the things the president is trying to tell us are responsible for last month's drop in the unemployment rate? Having driven five million people out of the labor force, maybe on second thought he's right.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Just in case he does.
Newt, it's over.
Bow out gracefully, for once.
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This would be interesting , , ,
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/02/21/428904/sheldon-adelson-influence-election/?mobile=nc
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Newt got creamed by Romney in the FL debate on his lunar colonies idea when he did not answer, but in typical Gingrich fashion he is looking to deal with a real problem (see the Outer Space thread) in a creative way-- what he says here makes considerable sense to me:
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Dear Marc,
In the past 10 years – since the Columbia tragedy led President Bush to retire the Space Shuttle, we have spent almost $150 billion on NASA and the civilian space program. We have spent additional money on defense aspects of the space program. Yet the United States currently has no way to launch a human being into space, other than buying seats from Russia.
NASA has accomplished some difficult things in its history, but spending $150 billion on the space program without developing a rocket and spacecraft to launch astronauts into space is near the top of the list.
For Americans who lived through the heroic era of early exploration in space and getting to the moon, it is hard to believe that in 2012 we are once again stranded on the Earth's surface.
NASA has reached this point by achieving a perverse breakthrough: the bureaucratization of space. The modern NASA is so risk averse, and so heavily burdened with safety processes, management, political meddling, and institutional inertia that it takes decades for new programs to get off the ground.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. The time from Glenn's Mercury 6 mission in February 1962 to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon in July 1969 was seven years and five months, to the day.
In that period we figured out how to perform frequent launches, keep humans alive in space for weeks, conduct space walks, rendezvous and dock two spacecraft in orbit, travel to the moon, land on it, walk around there, launch back off, and return to Earth. Each of these achievements presented innumerable challenges. Yet from launching one person to landing on the moon took less than seven and a half years.
The Shuttle program lasted 30 years, not counting the decade it was being developed. And after 30 years, we are reduced to buying seats for American astronauts on a class of Russian spacecraft first launched 45 years ago, in 1967.
Even if rocket scientists and astro-physicists do view time scales a little differently than most people, it would be desirable for the human space program to make some significant advances over the span of their entire careers.
The men and women who went to work at NASA after having been inspired by our bold space achievements during their youth or by dreams of a spacefaring future cannot be satisfied with what our space program has become. The elected officials who direct them should not be either. And the American people should be dissatisfied with both.
The way forward for the U.S. in space should be rooted in our entrepreneurial values and our spirit of adventure. We must open space to the private sector, allowing free citizens take risks--both financial and physical--in pursuit of our aims on this frontier.
The model for rapid progress at low cost can come straight from the history of aviation. In its infancy, aviation advanced by a series of monetary prizes set for particular feats. Starting in 1906, the U.K.'s Daily Mail offered rewards for the first people to achieve various milestones, including a non-stop flight between London and Manchester and flying across the English channel. In the U.S., William Randolph Hearst offered $50,000 in 1910 for the first person to fly from coast to coast in 30 days. Most famously, Raymond Orteig offered a prize of $25,000 in 1919 for the first person to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. It took eight years, but Charles Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize in 1927.
These competitions were far more dangerous than many today might imagine. In the 1927 Dole Air Race from California to Hawaii, only two of more than 15 entrant planes made it to Hawaii. But the pilots took such risks eagerly and freely, and in doing so made enormous strides in advancing and popularizing aviation.
A prize system similar to that of the early 20th century, aimed at enticing private companies to pursue our goals in space, would be a far more effective and exciting approach for the United States, and it would better reflect our values than does a massive bureaucracy incompetently managed by Congress and appointed bureaucrats.
The privately funded X-Prize Foundation conducted such an experiment in recent years, offering a comparatively small $10 million prize for a two manned suborbital flights in a reusable spacecraft within two weeks. It drew more than two dozen competitors, and the prize was awarded in 2004.
If, instead of spending almost $20 billion each year and getting nothing new in terms of human spaceflight, Congress set aside a large sum for prizes--say 10 percent of NASA's budget, or $18 billion over a decade--we could save hundreds of billions and still get better results. We could dramatically reduce the size of NASA and refocus its mission on breakthroughs in science and technology, rather than developing or operating basic launch vehicles and spacecraft.
After I discussed the prize concept with Robert Zubrin in the 1990s, he estimated in his book The Case for Mars that if Congress posted “a $20 billion reward to be given to the first private organization to successfully land a crew on Mars and return them to Earth, as well as several prizes of a few billion dollars each for various milestone technical accomplishments along the way,” it would draw numerous competitors. The actual mission, he estimates, could cost as little as $4 billion, leaving the winner with a $16 billion profit and the taxpayers with a system that gets to Mars thereafter for a fraction of NASA's annual budget.
Prizes have several huge advantages, which Zubrin also points out:
• We don't pay anything unless and until we actually get results--and we never pay more than the prize amount. If no one offers a system of launch vehicles and spacecraft that meet the prize specifications, it doesn't cost anything. And cost overruns are impossible even if there is a winner. After spending $150 billion on NASA for no current manned capability, this is quite a virtue.
• It would result in systems radically cheaper than those NASA has produced. NASA contractors are paid on a cost-plus basis, meaning whatever they spend “plus” a markup. This gives them a disincentive to save money. In a prize system, a company has to raise or borrow every dollar a company it spends, and then decreases their ultimate profit.
• Many competitors will spend money investing in technology and developing new solutions, but won't win the prize. And they spend all the money before the taxpayers ever have to pay anything.
• Competition breeds better, more diverse results. While NASA projects typically result in only one working design, a single prize incentive could produce several viable designs that make it to the flight stage--each will have different merits. Awarding runner-up prizes further stokes the competition.
The golden age of the space program is a piece of our history that makes all Americans feel proud. But today's non-manned interim program discredits that history and disappoints its employees and supporters. It's obvious that the bureaucratic model is failing, and failing expensively. With a prize-based, entrepreneurial approach, we can recapture the spirit of adventure and again be the envy of the world in space.
Your Friend,
Newt
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No Apologies
by Newt Gingrich
Dear Marc,
President Obama's apologies keep getting more outrageous and more destructive.
They started in the summer of 2008, before he was even elected president. Then-Senator Obama travelled to Berlin to introduce himself as "a citizen of the world," and said, "I know my country has not perfected itself…We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions."
Next came the Apology Tour of 2009, when President Obama travelled to France to apologize for our "failure to appreciate Europe‘s leading role in the world," saying "America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." (It's hard to know where to begin with that one.)
He told the Turkish Parliament that "the United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history."
He apologized to Central and South America for the United States having "at times been disengaged and…having sought to dictate on our terms."
In Cairo, he explained American actions after the Sept. 11 Attacks by saying, "The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals," and said tensions between the U.S. and Muslim world were due in part to "a cold war in which Muslim-majority countries were often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations."
An illegally leaked diplomatic cable from Japan to the U.S. even seems to suggest President Obama wanted to visit Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II, until Japan nixed the idea.
For all this apologizing the president was rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize, but his actions weakened the United States diplomatically and made America less secure.
As damaging as President Obama's compulsion to apologize has been, however, it was not until last week that we saw its true potential to put American lives and military objectives at risk. By apologizing unnecessarily to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the inadvertent burning by U.S. forces of Korans which had been confiscated from imprisoned extremists, the president made the situation in Afghanistan even worse.
Apparently the prisoners were writing in the books—and the books were inadvertently burned with the military’s trash outside Bagram Air Base, where they were spotted during the incineration process by local Afghans.
The violence that has erupted in Afghanistan in response to this mishap has been completely disproportionate. Riots and protests across the country have resulted in more than 30 people killed and hundreds injured. At least four Americans have died in targeted attacks since the crisis began. In one incident, an Afghan official apparently murdered his counterparts in the U.S. military, inside a base.
Instead of the United States treating this issue as it was—an accident, not reflective of any American policy or attitude—our leaders behaved as though the protests were based on a legitimate grievance. Afghanistan received apologies from "Afghanistan commander Gen. John Allen, the White House, NATO's International Security Assistance Force and other Pentagon officials," as Fox News reported.
The United States apologized for this accidental disposal even though the military intentionally burned a significant number of Bibles in 2009 that had been sent unsolicited from an American church, on the fear that "if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslim." Clearly there's no endemic lack of sensitivity in the military leadership.
Yet finally, on Thursday, President Obama apparently could resist no longer. He wrote President Karzai a letter in which he expressed his "deep regret," offered his "sincere apologies," and promised to "take appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible."
Tens of thousands of American men and women are in Afghanistan fighting to maintain security and prop up President Karzai's government. Thousands of American and coalition troops have died. Four have been killed as a result of the protests. And President Obama is promising to "hold accountable those responsible" for the unintentional burning of a few books prisoners were themselves desecrating to pass messages.
The president's letter is outrageous, and he first owes an apology to the men and women in uniform for his failure as commander-in-chief to defend their honor. What's worse, he may have made their jobs even more dangerous. By apologizing he inflamed the sense that Afghans had been wronged and gave anti-American forces there the message that their violent, senseless protests were achieving something. It might come as a surprise to the president, but not all of his apologies win people over. Most of the time, they just make America look weak.
There's no doubt that President Obama has a lot to apologize for. But before he continues diminishing the United States on the world stage, he should start by apologizing to the American people.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Gasoline: 70% off
by Newt Gingrich
Dear Marc,
Six years ago, the New York Times profiled Charif Souki, the chairman of the Cheniere Energy company, which was building a nationwide network of natural gas import terminals. North American production of natural gas was declining, and Souki hoped to cash in on increased natural gas imports.
Now, just a few years later, the price of natural gas has collapsed, largely due to an enormous increase in American supplies made possible by new discoveries and technologies. In January the Times ran another story on Mr. Souki. It was headlined, "U.S. Company, in Reversal, Wants to Export Natural Gas." His Cheniere Energy is now planning to spend at least $10 billion to convert its import terminals into export terminals.
Cheniere's story highlights the incredible shift in the natural gas industry over the past decade. In the early 2000s, experts believed the U.S. would soon be forced to import most of its natural gas from foreign sources, and the industry invested billions to expand import capacity by almost 900 percent, from 2 billion cubic feet per day to 17.4 billion feet per day. Today, most of these facilities remain unused while companies like Cheniere Energy race to expand America's capacity to export natural gas.
The reversal comes thanks to the shale gas revolution, improvements in technology that have made it possible to retrieve the natural gas trapped in shale. In the period of just a few years, our estimated supply in North America has gone from less than a decade's worth of gas left to more than a century's worth.
Several weeks ago in this newsletter, I suggested $2.50 should be an attainable price for a gallon of gasoline with an aggressive American energy policy which, among other things, greatly expands drilling permits for federal lands. $2.50 would be about a one-third decline in price from Monday's national average of $3.77 per gallon.
The Left and their allies in the media—who would sooner see prices rise to $8 a gallon than make pickup trucks and SUVs affordable to fill up—defensively protested that $2.50 a gallon was "unrealistic," or even, in the words of David Axelrod, "magic fairy dust."
My suggestion to lower gasoline prices is based on exactly the same "magic fairy dust" that has caused the price of natural gas to decline 70 percent since 2008: supply and demand. Before the shale gas revolution dramatically enlarged our supply, natural gas cost almost $8 per MMbtu in 2008. At the end of last week, the spot price was $2.36 per MMbtu. This steep crash in price came with just an 11 percent increase in total production from 2008 to 2011.
A similar 70 percent drop in gasoline prices would give us $1.13 a gallon gasoline. That's less than half of the $2.50 a gallon I have argued should be realistic. So while it's not possible to make a direct comparison between the oil market and natural gas markets, there should be no doubt that a substantial supply increase can yield a big drop in price. Expanding our exploration and development of oil can bring similar economic forces to bear on the cost of gasoline that have produced this collapse in natural gas prices.
Critics on the left claim that any effect of expanded federal leasing on oil and gas prices will be years away. But that's simply not true. A real commitment to an American energy policy can put downward pressure on prices right away, since the market anticipates future supply changes today. Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan, addressed this effect in the Wall Street Journal back in 2008, as then -candidate Obama was claiming (like he still is today) that we couldn't "drill our way out" of higher gas prices. Feldstein wrote that "any policy that causes the expected future oil price to fall can cause the current price to fall, or to rise less than it would otherwise do. In other words, it is possible to bring down today's price of oil with policies that will have their physical impact on oil demand or supply only in the future." The president could help relieve consumers immediately by ending his opposition to substantial new oil and gas development.
The credible promise of increased American energy production can have other positive economic effects in the near future as well. In the case of natural gas, the shale revolution has made home heating and manufacturing less expensive, and some manufacturing jobs are already returning to the U.S. because of the lower cost of energy from natural gas. A commitment to more development of American oil supplies will only accelerate these trends.
The record low price of natural gas is itself likely to help tame the rising cost of gasoline. At no time in recent history has natural gas been cheaper relative to oil:
By substituting natural gas for gasoline where economically rational, such as in public transportation fleets or other vehicles that are expensive to operate on gasoline, reduced consumption of gasoline will also help drive prices down. And because natural gas is roughly 75 percent cheaper than oil on an energy equivalent basis, companies and individuals are responding to the prices all by themselves. In fact, Chrysler and General Motors this week are announcing pickup trucks powered by natural gas.
The contrast could not be clearer: President Obama has killed jobs and taken hundreds of billions in taxpayer money to support fantasy technologies which aren't ready and which are more expensive than gasoline. We want to use the power of supply and demand to lower the price of gasoline, create jobs, and allow Americans to voluntarily choose cheaper forms of energy, using technology that's ready to go in cars and trucks today.
Who's not being realistic again?
Your Friend,
Newt
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Second post
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/gingrich-falls-asleep-at-aipac-wakes-up-confused/
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Dear Marc,
I have some breaking news to share: The latest polls show that Newt is in first place in both Alabama and Mississippi!
In Alabama he holds a one point lead with 30% and in Mississippi he holds a four point lead with 35%. While we're excited Newt is leading the pack, the race is still extremely tight and every vote will count.
Both Alabama and Mississippi go to the polls next Tuesday, and we are taking nothing for granted. Newt is aggressively campaigning across both states right now and our grassroots volunteers are hard at work reaching out to undecided voters.
As Newt travels both states, it's clear his message of $2.50 gasoline is resonating and voters are responding to his bold leadership that has put President Obama on the defensive over his failed policies.
Now more than ever we need a quick infusion of donations to help spread Newt's message just days before voters go to the ballot box. Can you chip in $25, $50, $100 or more right now to help Newt win Alabama and Mississippi?
Newt has the momentum at just the right time, and your generous donation today will go a long way towards boosting our voter turnout effort in Alabama and Mississippi.
Thank you,
Michael Krull
Campaign Manager
Newt 2012
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Sandra Fluke has a better chance at winning Ms. America.
Seriously Newt, it's starting to look like a cry for help at this point.
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Dear Marc,
With different media outlets and campaigns reporting various numbers, there's been a lot of confusion lately about the state of the delegate race.
As a key supporter of our campaign, I wanted to make sure you were armed with the correct numbers from the Republican National Committee - and not the spin from the DC Establishment who are trying to prematurely end the race for the Republican nomination.
Here are two quick things to keep in mind.
First, the magic number of delegates to secure the nomination is 1,144 and no candidate is remotely close to that number. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all delegates will come from states that haven't voted yet.
Second, there is an important distinction between bound and unbound delegates. Most media outlets are reporting estimates or projections which include unbound delegates from various beauty contests.
What only matters at this point is the number of bound delegates. According to the Republican National Committee, here's the official breakdown:
Romney - 339 delegates
Gingrich - 107 delegates
Santorum - 95 delegates
Paul - 22 delegates
As you can see, Newt is currently in second place. Many of Senator Santorum's victories came in states whose delegates will not be selected until much later in the process. For this reason, Newt wasn't expending a lot of time or resources in these states, choosing instead to focus on states with bound delegates. That strategy has now been validated by the official RNC delegate count.
Keep in mind, this breakdown doesn't take into account the fact that the challenge to the "winner take all" awarding of delegates from both Florida and Arizona - which won't be decided until this summer's convention - could reduce Governor Romney's delegate advantage dramatically.
Here's a story from the Washington Times which outlines the delegate math in greater detail, and shows that Newt is actually in second place.
Simply put, Newt is in the race for the long haul. Thank you for your generous support and for standing with Newt's campaign.
Sincerely,
Martin Baker
National Political Director
Newt 2012
P.S. With two new polls released today showing Newt leading in Tuesday's Alabama and Mississippi primaries, we are in a great position to add even more delegates to our count. Please make a generous contribution today to help maximize our voter turnout operation in Alabama and Mississippi.
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Newt's job is to either drop out or spin things positive the best that he can. The Cain ruile is that you are all in verbally and in fund raising until the last minute that you are out. The race for second OTOH is important because front runners can and do stumble. But getting beat 3 to 1 margin by a 'weak frontrunner' and bragging about it isn't looking too good.
The delegate count is a little misleading because several of Santorum's wins were in in caucus states where no immediate delegates were awarded but his delegates disproportionately moved forward to the conventions where Presidential delegate votes will eventually be awarded.
Newt's strength is the south. He says he is leading in states in a statistical tie where the momentum is against him.
I like that he won his home state where people have known him longest and know him best. His daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman wrote a nice op-ed on that recently.
Yes GM, letters to contributors are a plea for help. :wink:
If either Santorum or Newt could see the other as the next Reagan emerging, then maybe one would drop out. No one I guess drops out based on sympathy for the other competitors. You drop out because you are out of money or to save face.
How does a 'brokered' convention, best case for Rick or Newt, endorse anyone other than the far and away front runner. The elites switch to the second or third place candidate on the second ballot or to someone who skipped the process entirely or dropped out early? I just don't see it. I've been at a lot of endorsing conventions. In a bitterly divided party you always have the option of not endorsing. That is unthinkable. Delegates move their vote on subsequent ballots to where they see strength and momentum. For the Dems in '08, Hillary had momentum at the end, Obama had strength. A small lead guaranteed victory because the elites were not going to reverse that in August to lose legitimacy in November. Elections, even primaries, have consequences.
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Mittens is going to win. Newt is done. Santorum will win a few more, but he's not going to win.
Newt needs to bow out for the good of the party and the country.
If only there were a younger, more attractive country holding a presidential election right now......
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Newt was on Chris Wallace today.
I thought he was very strong on energy issues; energy independence and getting energy costs down by allowing increased supply.
Then he was asked about Afpakia. He squarely said the mission may have become undoable with the amount of force we are willing to bring to bear and expanded the concept to the middle east as a whole and squarely raised the possibility that we walk away altogether and say to others (e.g. the Chinese) that it is there problem now because we are going to be energy independent in a few years.
Then the time for the segment ended. I wish there had been enough time for Wallace to have followed up asking about Iran going nuke were the US to follow such a strategy.
I could have posted this in other threads, but I posted it here because of its implications for the presidential campaign. As I have noted in the last day or so, the US domestic politics of Afpakia are problematic for the Rep Party and what Newt says here is a very interesting development.
Here's a WSJ article on this:
=====================
By Gary Fields
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Sunday the U.S. should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, calling the mission “undoable.”
In some of his strongest language about the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan, Mr. Gingrich said on “Fox News Sunday” he had reached the conclusion “frankly about the entire region that is much more pessimistic than Washington’s official position.”
“I think we’re risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that frankly may not be doable,” he said.
His comments came hours after a U.S. soldier went on a shooting spree killing at least 16 Afghan civilians and wounding several more, an incident that threatens to increase already strained tensions between Washington and Kabul. The accidental burning of Qurans touched off days of violence across Afghanistan with six U.S. troops killed by Afghan security personnel in an eight-day period.
Mr. Gingrich said the shooting must be investigated and “we have to indicate clearly and convince the people of Afghanistan that justice will be done and that we’re not going to tolerate that kind of thing.” He added that the families of the victims should be compensated “for the tragic loss.”
Mr. Gingrich said how the U.S. responds can serve as a clear example of the difference between the U.S. and the Taliban and al Qaeda, who target civilians. “We have to live up to our standards and our values,” he said.
The shooting incident was roundly condemned by American officials, although some differed with Mr. Gingrich on what should happen next. The GOP primary has seen unusual splits on national security, with Ron Paul on one end of the scale pledging an isolationist policy, and Mitt Romney on the other promising to build up the U.S. Navy and maintain American military superiority.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said the incident was “tragic” but he thought the U.S. could “win this thing. We can get it right.”
Mr. Graham, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” said his recommendation to the public is to listen to Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “The surge of forces has really put the Taliban on the defensive.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, addressing the incident Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, said a soldier “went into a couple of homes and just killed people at random.”
“Our hearts go out to these innocent people,” said Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat. “Our troops are under such tremendous pressure in Afghanistan. It’s a war like no other war we’ve been involved in. But no one can condone or make any suggestion that what he did was right because it was absolutely wrong.”
Mr. Reid said he believes the U.S. is making progress in drawing down troop levels. “I think we’re going to find out that hopefully we can get out of there as scheduled and things will be stabilized when we do that,” Mr. Reid said.
Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, chairman of the Republican Governors Association chairman, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the U.S. military has done great work in more than a decade of fighting the “global war on terror,” but added that “one incident like this in the minds of the civilian population who we’re trying to win their hearts and minds, as well as the battle against the terrorists in Afghanistan, can change the equation.”
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Dear Friend,
With your help we finished a strong second in both Alabama and Mississippi and picked up a large amount of delegates.
The Washington establishment is trying to prematurely end the Republican primary, but this race is far from over. As my two of my senior advisors wrote in a memo today, it’s not even halftime yet.
These past few weeks have provided additional evidence that I am the candidate best prepared to take the fight to President Obama and defeat him in November.
After we launched our $2.50 gas plan, we forced President Obama – or as I jokingly say on the campaign trail, President Algae – to respond with two fantasy-filled energy speeches. This week President Obama’s press secretary called me a liar for saying we can lower gasoline prices below $2.50 by implementing the right pro-American energy policies. And today, Energy Secretary Chu said he “no longer” wants higher gas prices, backtracking from his 2008 statement saying he wanted gas prices to reach European levels. Taken together, the White House is clearly on the defensive.
According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll, 65% of the American people now disapprove of the president’s handling of gas prices. Unlike the other candidates, we are leading the fight against President Obama’s failed energy policies – and winning.
This campaign will continue because of people like Samuel Samford, our 175,000th donor from Jacksonville, Florida. Samuel is currently unemployed, but he believes so much in our $2.50 gas plan, that he recently donated $2.50 to our campaign. With over 175,000 donors, our campaign has been fueled by Americans who believe we need big solutions to rebuild the America we love. You have my commitment I will continue to carry that message across the country.
We are well positioned for the second half, but we need your help to have the necessary resources to be competitive in upcoming states like Louisiana and Illinois. Please help us continue the fight by making a generous donation today.
Thank you,
Newt Gingrich
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With your help we finished a strong second in both Alabama and Mississippi and picked up a large amount of delegates.
In other words, he lost his "must wins". Is it now the "come in second place-southern strategy"?
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No, now its the "Deny Romney and throw the convention open" strategy :lol:
Worth noting is that it is Newt who is at the tip of the Rep spear on energy issues with his $2.50 gas program and thinking like this. You and I both agree that the economy is central. How many can think specifically of what Santorum offers on the economy?
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Paying off the national debt with more energy and lower prices
by Newt Gingrich
Dear Marc,
Two very large numbers are essential in the American public debate today. They are so big that they are almost inconceivable.
The first number is 15.5 trillion. That's a 14 digit number.
$15.5 trillion is the size of the U.S. national debt—more or less the amount the federal government owes individuals, organizations, and governments that have loaned money to it. To put this number in a more human perspective, it's roughly $50,000 for every person in the United States.
$50,000 is more than the U.S. median income, about $44,000. That means if a normal, working American worked an entire year and devoted his or her entire income to nothing other than paying off their share of the national debt, they still wouldn't pay off the full amount.
Today's national debt is so large that it is very difficult to imagine a solution. President Obama has added $4 trillion during his administration alone. That means the Obama administration in three years has added nearly 40 percent to the national debt.
The problem of balancing the budget and reducing the national debt didn't always seem so insurmountable. When I was Speaker, we balanced the budget for four straight years, resulting in real surpluses and paying down the national debt by $400 billion. When I left the speakership in 1999 the entire public debt was scheduled to be paid off by this year, 2012.
The government even began preparing for the possible difficulties this could cause the financial system, since if the U.S. paid off its entire debt there would be no more U.S. Treasury bonds. As NPR said in its story uncovering the secret report last year, the danger has clearly passed. Irresponsible Republican leadership in the early 2000s, when we never passed a single balanced budget, and the Democrats' explosion in spending and the size of government since meant the prospect of paying off the debt disappeared long ago.
Today the obvious means of paying off the national debt are all unpleasant. Both taxes (which take money from Americans directly) and inflation (which take it from us indirectly) would be very painful for the American people, making it less likely that anything will be done about this serious problem.
That's where the second very large number could come in: 1.44 trillion (a 13 digit number).
1.44 trillion is the number of recoverable barrels of oil estimated to be in the United States, waiting to be produced. That's about the amount of oil the entire world has consumed since the first well was drilled before the Civil War. In addition, we have an estimated 2.744 quadrillion (a 15 digit number) cubic feet of natural gas.
Much of these resources are on federal lands, meaning the American people own them.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Harold Hamm, a major developer of the Bakken formation in North Dakota, said he calculated that “if Washington would allow more drilling permits for oil and natural gas on federal lands and federal waters, "I truly believe the federal government could over time raise $18 trillion in royalties."
That is more than our current national debt—the first number, $15.5 trillion.
This potential for new federal revenue without new taxes opens up a third possibility that is much less painful than taxes and inflation: the government could simply lease the rights to develop the energy resources in various tracts of federal land.
As Mr. Hamm's calculations suggest, we should not underestimate the potential of an American energy program to go a long way toward restoring America's fiscal health. Lease terms for producing oil and gas on federal lands, on-shore or offshore, include an agreement that companies will pay royalty shares on production to the government. For on-shore leases, the rate is one-eighth of production value; offshore, lease terms vary but range between 12 and 20 percent of the value produced.
In 2007, the federal government collected $9.4 billion in revenues on offshore drilling in the OCS. Considering only 2 percent of federal OCS lands are available for production, that would be $470 billion if it earned the same rate off all OCS lands.
Clearly, there is enormous potential revenue for the federal government locked up in lands we are currently doing nothing with, at a time of exploding deficits and fiscal downgrades.
Opening up American energy production would be a boon to cash-strapped state governments, as well. Revenue from on-shore resources is generally split 50/50 between the state and federal government. While revenue sharing with states is not yet standard for offshore drilling on federal lands, the few recent leases that have been permitted have included similar arrangements. In 2006, lease terms gave Gulf states a 37.5 percent share of revenues.
This expanded production of American energy would create millions of jobs and bring down the price of gasoline to $2.50 a gallon or less.
It tells you the scale of our domestic energy resources that revenue from one-eighth their value could eventually pay off our national debt of $50,000 per person. It tells you the extent of the Obama administration's extremism that it won't let us tap them.
Your Friend,
Newt
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No, now its the "Deny Romney and throw the convention open" strategy
Yeah, that's going to put a stake through the "It's all about Newt's vanity and ego" narrative. :roll:
Worth noting is that it is Newt who is at the tip of the Rep spear on energy issues with his $2.50 gas program and thinking like this. You and I both agree that the economy is central. How many can think specifically of what Santorum offers on the economy?
Hey, Newt has my vote to be Mitt's chief speechwriter! It's also worth noting that out of the three, only one doesn't beat Obozo head to head in national polling.
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Can't argue it.
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Dear Friend,
When President Obama took office in January 2009, the average price of gasoline was $1.89 a gallon. Three years later the average is $3.82 a gallon.
President Obama's response to soaring gasoline prices has been touting algae-powered cars, saying we can't drill our way to lower gas prices, and deriding anybody who puts forth solutions for more American energy. In a speech today in Maryland, President Obama once again directly attacked Newt's plan for $2.50 gasoline. This comes days after the White House Press Secretary called Newt a liar for saying we can lower gasoline prices by producing more American energy.
To add insult to injury, the Obama administration asked Saudi Arabia this week to increase their oil production.
What President Obama refuses to recognize is that we should haven't to bow to the Saudi's for energy. America has abundant energy resources here at home – an estimated 1.4 trillion barrels of recoverable oil that could power us for over 250 years. With the right policies, including immediately authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline, we could dramatically lower gasoline prices below $2.50 a gallon and make America energy independent.
Unlike the other candidates, Newt is leading the fight against President Obama's failed energy policies and has put the White House on the defensive with his plan for $2.50 gasoline. By all this attention, it is clear that Newt is the candidate that the White House fears the most. Please make a generous donation today and send a message to President Obama: it's time stop bowing and start drilling.
Sincerely,
Michael Krull
Campaign Manager
Newt 2012
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"President Obama's response to soaring gasoline prices has been touting algae-powered cars...".
President Obama is hardly the only person to "tout" algae as an alternative to oil.
Exxon Sinks $600M Into Algae-Based Biofuels in Major Strategy Shift: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/14/14greenwire-exxon-sinks-600m-into-algae-based-biofuels-in-33562.html
Algae Oil in China: http://www.algaeindustrymagazine.com/algae-business-algae-oil-in-china/
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I sure wish Newt didn't have more baggage than LAX and appealed to the all important swing voter, but he does not.
Yes, Newt can preach while we sing songs of praise for the gospel of small government in the background, but it's more important at this point to win with Mittens Q. Milquetoast than risk Obozo II: The Wrath of Farrakhan.
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"President Obama's response to soaring gasoline prices has been touting algae-powered cars...".
President Obama is hardly the only person to "tout" algae as an alternative to oil.
Exxon Sinks $600M Into Algae-Based Biofuels in Major Strategy Shift: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/14/14greenwire-exxon-sinks-600m-into-algae-based-biofuels-in-33562.html
Algae Oil in China: http://www.algaeindustrymagazine.com/algae-business-algae-oil-in-china/
BD, there is an important distinction between the US Gov't funding algae as energy vs. Exxon. Can you tell me what it is?
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GM, first of all, I never said or implied it was the same thing. I noted that, and I quote me: "President Obama is hardly the only person to 'tout' algae as an alternative to oil." Second, there are several things that are different about it. Since you clearly view me as a simpleton, I couldn't possibly begin to imagine what more highly evolved mind is thinking. When you explain it, please use small words. I would note though, that when Gingrich says what he says about the algae he acts like Obama is retarded. My point is that there is a possibilty that there is a viable use.
"President Obama's response to soaring gasoline prices has been touting algae-powered cars...".
President Obama is hardly the only person to "tout" algae as an alternative to oil.
Exxon Sinks $600M Into Algae-Based Biofuels in Major Strategy Shift: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/14/14greenwire-exxon-sinks-600m-into-algae-based-biofuels-in-33562.html
Algae Oil in China: http://www.algaeindustrymagazine.com/algae-business-algae-oil-in-china/
BD, there is an important distinction between the US Gov't funding algae as energy vs. Exxon. Can you tell me what it is?
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Well, the important point was Exxon and all the other private entities looking at algae are using their, not taxpayer money. In addition, they tend to be pretty good at getting bang for their buck, instead of Obama's "green jobs" that translates to handing out massive amounts of taxpayer money to dem cronies that result in Solyndra after Solyndra. Still, it's a pretty clever way to launder money, i'll give Buraq that.
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What do you think of things like NSF grants for R&D?
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Umm , , , I'm thinking this better belongs on the Energy/Green Energy thread. (BTW didn't Newt used to support corn ethanol? Maybe he still does?)
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I can't say that I have a good grasp of the internal workings of the NSF's grant process and the degree of political graft that may or may not be involved in the awarding of said grants, however given the abuses well documented under this administration and our dire economic condition, I'm wanting the USG out of the grant business altogether.
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Umm , , , I'm thinking this better belongs on the Energy/Green Energy thread. (BTW didn't Newt used to support corn ethanol? Maybe he still does?)
I'm guessing that depends on when and where you ask him about that and most any other topic.
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Hello,
Can Newt still win the Republican nomination?
Yes.
Is he still the only candidate who can beat Barack Obama?
Most definitely.
I am writing to you today because I know you to be among those who have closely followed Newt Gingrich. I have known Newt for many years. It was a great privilege to have served as his spokesman for over a decade.
Since late last year I have been working with a small team that makes up the Winning Our Future Super PAC, a team solely dedicated to helping Newt secure the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Working with such a loyal group of supporters has been a great and tremendously challenging experience.
Recently, many in the mainstream media have essentially dismissed Newt's campaign. You may have been tempted to do the same. But let me tell you why I believe that this race is far from over.
First, a short history lesson. For decades prior to Newt's election to Congress from the Sixth District of Georgia, the Republican Party was a regional party and not a national party. But Newt believed that our nation is conservative and that the GOP could once again become a governing party if it adhered to conservative principles. But first we needed to recruit and train candidates that could run as conservatives. To do that, Newt developed courses for GOPAC to teach Republican candidates to win elected offices throughout the country. But he did not stop there. Newt understood that helping our candidates to get to Congress would require a strong network of local grassroots support. Newt spent a great deal of time helping local, county and state parties organize, recruit the right candidates and raise money. Then in 1994, he successfully nationalized the Congressional races with a set of bold ideas contained within the 'Contract with America'. The result was a stunning victory for Republicans creating the first majority in both the House and the Senate in forty years.
The reason the election of 1994 was so successful was the power of ideas that inspired a nation. Nine-million MORE voters turned out for Republicans than did in the last off-year elections in 1990 while at the same time, one-million FEWER voters showed up to vote for Democrats. That was a ten-million vote swing in favor of the GOP.
When elected, Speaker Gingrich:
• Formed the Conservative Opportunity Society in the Congress, which still meets today to shape public policy based upon conservative principles.
• Took on President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party directly.
• Led the charge to balance the Federal Budget cutting both taxes and spending.
• Strengthened the military and reformed Welfare.
• Helped the private sector create 11 million jobs with pro-growth economic policies. During his speakership, the Dow Jones rose over 130% and the NASDAQ rose over 180%.
Compare this success to what is going on in the race for the Republican nomination today.
The front-runner Mitt Romney has steadfastly refused to run an issues-based campaign. Instead, he has engaged in a scorched-earth strategy outspending his competitors by tens of millions of dollars running false ads against his Republican opponents. These negative ads have had a devastating effect on voter enthusiasm and turnout. Remember, the key to winning majorities in 1994 is directly related to inspiring voters to turn out for a positive set of ideas. Mitt Romney has eviscerated the enthusiasm the Republicans had just a few short months ago. We simply cannot beat Barack Obama with depressed turn-outs.
Romney has offered nothing to inspire voters. His strategy is rooted in the fact that he does not have a conservative record to run on.
As a US Senate candidate in 1994, Romney ran against the Contract with America and the conservative agenda.
He ran to the left of Senator Ted Kennedy and lost badly. In fact, he was the only Republican Senate challenger to lose that year. As a candidate for governor of Massachusetts, Romney said that it was a burden to run with an R attached to your name.
He called his views "progressive".
As governor, he enforced the nation's strictest and unconstitutional gun-control laws. He supported pro-abortion laws including the radical position of giving a judge authority to overrule the parents of a minor daughter seeking an abortion. He appointed pro-abortion judges. His state was 47th in job growth. He passed "Romneycare" which included a health insurance mandate, the forerunner to "Obamacare". He supported the radical environmentalists' job-killing cap and trade policy. Romney left the governor's office in disgrace. More than half the voters believed he did a poor or very poor job.
But more recently and perhaps most disturbingly, Romney revealed his true colors as a nanny-state politician when he condemned the poor to a cycle of government dependency and hopelessness declaring on CNN that he did not worry about the poor, the government takes care of them.
No wonder he only runs ads tearing down his competitors. Romney does not want you to know his record.
All in all, Romney is not us.
He has never been with us because he simply does not believe in the America we believe in. That's why he sounds so disingenuous; it's because he is. He does not believe what he says most of the time. Romney has failed to wrap up the nomination because the conservative base will not support him - the same base WE will need to beat Obama.
Then there is Rick Santorum.
He initially looked like a candidate Conservatives could like. But a look at his record shows he was often at odds with conservative ideas. When Santorum first ran in 1990, he said he "danced around" the issue of abortion because he was for most of his adult life up until that point, pro-choice. He modified his position when he found out that more voters in his district were pro-life.
He described himself as a "progressive conservative" which is, not only an oxymoron, but completely ignorant and irreconcilable.
Any conservative with any sense of history and judgment could not possibly describe himself as a progressive. Just to make the point, it was the progressive movement that promoted eugenics which, when repudiated, morphed into the pro-abortion movement.
The progressives also gave us Prohibition. That is the same thinking of the people who are now telling us today what we can and cannot eat.
Santorum supported Arlan Spector for President.
Spector was one of the most ardent pro-abortion members of the US Senate yet Santorum endorsed him for President in 1996. Santorum also endorsed Spector for his reelection over conservative Pat Toomy. Santorum said that Spector could be counted on for the votes where we needed him to be with us. But Spector was the deciding vote for Obamacare. So while Romney invented it, Rick Santorum, it can be said, gave it to us by supporting Spector's reelection. Spector, as you know, went on to switch to the Democratic Party.
So much for us counting on him.
Santorum, like Romney, is a big-government Republican.
He once claimed credit for saving the Food Stamp program. He voted for Medicare Part D, a program bigger than Obamacare. He voted to raise the debt ceiling five times. He voted twice to force FedEx to unionize. He voted against "Right to Work" and anything else the union bosses told him to vote for or against. He voted for Planned Parenthood funding even when he said he didn't support it. He voted for the "bridge to nowhere". His success in getting earmarks is legendary, a legacy he says he's proud of.
In fact, when Santorum was in the Senate leadership, government spending continued to explode and yet he provided no leadership to stop it. His mantra was and is " go along to get along" because he's a team player. He may be that, but he is no leader. And let's not forget, in 2006, he ran to the left of Bob Casey. Like Romney, he thought the key to getting reelected was to run as a moderate. He lost his Senate seat in Pennsylvania, the same state Romney is currently beating him in, by 18 percentage points -- a modern-day record defeat.
Here is why I am writing to you and why I don't want you to give up on Newt.
I am not going to attempt to persuade you that the challenge is not great. It is. But Newt can still win.
But, let's look at the current reality.
Newt is far behind in the delegate count according to the mainstream media.
But many of those delegates that they are counting have not even been selected yet.
Romney's challenge remains getting the required number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. Today, that looks increasingly unlikely if Newt stays in the race.
Despite what the pundits are saying, Romney needs Newt to exit this race as soon as possible so he can eliminate Rick Santorum. If that happens he will likely get enough delegates to win and wrap it up.
Santorum simply cannot beat Romney in a one-on-one contest. Santorum needs Newt to stay in the race to deny Romney as many delegates as possible to keep him from getting the required number of delegates before the Republican National Convention in Tampa. If that happens then Romney would fail to get enough votes on the first ballot to secure the nomination. After losing the first ballot, all the delegates are released and can vote for any candidate they choose.
In that scenario, Newt has a very good chance of winning the nomination.
Remember, the delegates at the convention are not casual observers. They know the history of all the candidates. They know Romney is not a conservative. He did not govern as one and would not. They know Rick Santorum did nothing to stop the spending spree in Washington and was absent without leadership when conservatives needed him.
They also know that it was Newt Gingrich who led the way in shaping our party to go toe to toe against liberal Democrats, not by accommodating them but by beating them with conservative policies.
They know that Newt has a proven track record of increasing voter enthusiasm and turnout. They know he would beat Barack Obama in a debate and on election day in November.
Given that choice, I believe the delegates will do the right thing and nominate Newt Gingrich.
Today, our Party has tried to recapture the conservative spirit it had when Newt was Speaker by forming the Tea Party, a direct challenge to the establishment. It was the Tea Party after all that led the way to recapturing the majority in the US House in 2010. It was not the GOP establishment. They are still active today and will be a force at the convention.
If the Republican delegates in 1976 picked Ronald Reagan over the establishment's candidate, Gerald Ford, we would not have suffered through four years of Carter. In August, if the delegates pick Newt, we will not have to suffer four more years of Barack Obama.
It can happen. In fact, it is likely to happen.
But to ensure it does, I need you to continue to believe in Newt and his ideas of energy independence, job growth, free enterprise and prosperity. While the other candidates and the media focus on trivia, Newt will continue to focus on the issues that matter to our future.
For Newt's entire career, which you already know, he has taken on what for virtually every other politician goes into the "too hard" file.
He led the GOP to being a governing majority when no one thought it could happen.
He led the fight for tax cuts, spending cuts, Welfare Reform and a balanced budget when the establishment said it was too hard.
Washington cannot intimidate Newt.
He is the only candidate with a record of standing up to Washington, which is why the establishment is working so hard to defeat him.
He is the only candidate who knows how to energize voters to turn out.
And most importantly, he is the only candidate capable of defeating Barack Obama in the fall.
These are serious times and require an experienced and serious leader.
If you are in a state that has not voted, please vote for Newt and help get others to do the same. We need as many delegates in Tampa as possible to win a brokered convention.
Consider running for delegate yourself.
Some say a brokered convention is bad for the Party, but what is bad for the Party is to give it over to the moderate establishment who, as in years past, will lead us to defeat.
Newt showed us how we can win and be a governing majority and he did it by running and governing on conservative values.
If you can financially help it would be a big help to Newt, we would be grateful. You can do so by clicking the donate button below.
And while I am asking for money, it is not my main objective in writing to you.
I am writing to you personally to ask you again to believe in Newt and our conservative movement. We can beat Barack Obama in the fall but it will take the right candidate with a solid conservative record - someone who has worked tirelessly for decades to make the Republican Party competitive by representing conservative values.
It's time to choose Newt Gingrich to be our nominee. Please go to TimetoChoose.com and join us.
Sincerely,
Rick Tyler
Winning Our Future
Paid for by Winning Our Future. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
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Hello,
Can Newt still win the Republican nomination?
Yes.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahah*snort*hahaHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!*grasp*
Winner of the 2012 Harold Camping prize for predictive excellence!
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As is often the case, Newt is the one who notices that the Reps need to be FOR something, as well as AGAINST the other side.
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Today the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments in Florida v HHS to determine the constitutionality of President Obama's healthcare takeover.
This will be one of the most consequential court decisions in generations, as it will decide whether or not government has power over very personal decisions of life and death. If you believe, as I do, that we must either limit government or we will have government limit us, then please make a generous donation today.
I strongly support the 26 states that will argue before the Supreme Court that Obamacare is unconstitutional. But as I fight for the repeal of Obamacare, I will also advocate for specific replacement policies that will empower patients and create a free market framework for healthcare.
My "Patient Power" plan focuses on solutions that center on the doctor-patient relationship, use the best new science, lower medical costs, and improve the quality of life for every single American. Some of these solutions to save lives and save money include:
• Allow Americans to purchase insurance across state lines, making health insurance more affordable and portable
• Reform Medicaid by giving states more freedom and flexibility to customize their programs to suit their needs with a block-grant program
• Introduce lawsuit reform to stop the frivolous lawsuits that drive up the cost of medicine
• Stop health care fraud by moving from a paper-based system to an electronic one
• Invest in research for medical breakthroughs for urgent national priorities, like brain science with its impact on Alzheimer's, autism, Parkinson's, mental health and other conditions
These are just a few examples of reforms that we can enact, once Obamacare is repealed, that will transform our current healthcare system into one centered on the individual, where patients and doctors have power, not Washington bureaucrats.
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*How much does he charge to do magic tricks at kid's parties?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/27/gingrich-charging-50-for-campaign-stop-photos/
Gingrich charging $50 for campaign-stop photos?
posted at 9:15 am on March 27, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
What can a candidate do to raise cash when donations begin to dry up? Seize every opportunity to merchandise the campaign, it seems. National Journal reports that Newt Gingrich has taken the standard grip-and-grin ritual after stump speeches and turned it into a revenue source, a report I’ve confirmed with the campaign:
In a sign that his campaign is in need of fresh funds, Newt Gingrich on Monday began charging $50 to have a photograph taken with him following a campaign speech to Republican groups here in the northernmost part of the state.
It was the first time that the former House speaker has charged those attending one of his public speaking events to pose for a photograph with him. Lately, a member of his campaign staff has been snapping photos of any interested attendee and later posting them online at the campaign’s website, newt.org.
On Monday night, those paying for a photograph were also told they could find their photos on Gingrich’s website, after they had filled out a form providing their credit card information.
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Newt responds to Joe Biden on Face the Nation:
http://www.newt.org/2012/04/02/video-newt-discussses-gas-prices-obamas-flexibility-with-russia/
DAMMIT-- why did he have to $#ck up so much!
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Newt responds to Joe Biden on Face the Nation:
http://www.newt.org/2012/04/02/video-newt-discussses-gas-prices-obamas-flexibility-with-russia/
DAMMIT-- why did he have to $#ck up so much!
Bcause Newt does whatever Newt sees as in Newt's best interest. It must be cuddle-time on the couch with Nancy Pelosi, again.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/13/gingrich-selling-access-to-donor-list/
Ooooof!
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Newt's
Southern Delaware sell blood plasma strategy.
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Post-mortem on the Gingrich candidacy - I hate to say this but the first indicator that he had not learned self-discipline while out of power was that he showed up for the race looking out of shape.
They said of the last overweight President 100 years ago: “Taft is the most polite man in Washington,” “He gave up his seat on a streetcar to three women.”
Hey GM, Crafty's donations helped give Newt the confidence to borrow the other 4.5 million. If Newt had turned out to be the real deal, we wanted him to win. For me, same for Rick Perry. I was hoping to see in him exactly what the country was needing. That didn't go very well either.
Running for President and being in the spotlight over a sustained period is hard. Forget about being likable or connecting with voters, we are only asking Mitt Romney to still look competent on Nov. 6, and then govern that way.
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For decades he has dreamt of becoming President. He had the capability to be one of our greatest ever. For one shining moment in this campaign he had it in his hands to do so- and he blew it. I suspect he will be thinking about this until his dying day.
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Newt gave Romney the gift that will take him through the general election, the label "Massachusetts Moderate", while Obama was watching the Republican primary circus foaming at the mouth to call whoever came out of it a right wing zealot. Now what, they will call him incompetent? Like Jimmy Carter calling ANYONE incompetent. Or argue their own policies are working, we are on a glide-path, lol.
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I caught a goodly portion of Newt's rather lengthy "concession" today, which dedicated quite a bit of time to restating what his campaign was about when it was in the groove. Its great stuff!-- but had little resonance in its restatement today because he spoke in a manner that refused to acknowledge just how diminished he has become due to his own human foibles.
His inner suffering must be great. For one golden moment everything that his whole life was about was in his grasp , , , and he blew it.
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For quite a long time the country has searched and given up searching for the next Reagan, who was not perfect either. Newt was something like Reagan but with important differences. Different levels of self discipline and consistency were part of it.
With Reagan it was all about America, not Ronald Reagan, always. All about freedom, never about him. Reagan did not get bored with chasing the same 3 things every day, limited government, a strong America standing up to communism and a vibrant, free economy.
Newt's successes were that way, his best speeches, his best debates, his best policy ideas, and in the organizations he set up to chart a new path for America. In other ways it was apparent that Newt was about Newt.
Much of his past demise as Speaker was unfair. They filed charges against him on everything and when he settled what he couldn't afford to fight, he was called guilty. A speaker doesn't have the power of the Presidency to communicate back when his perfectly sensible words (a bureaucratic agency that would 'whither on the vine') were clipped and used wrongly against him. He had nothing like the Edwards guilt in his scandals but he had allowed that vulnerability too, with secrets he needed to keep and a woman with 'good tastes' to placate. Thousands in jewelry and a trip to the Mediterranean when your focus is the highest office is not focus or discipline.
Reagan by the end of 8 years also had problems, worn down by the process, the opposition, the media and perhaps his impending illness. His administration barely survived Iran-Contra, but Iran-contra was about doing everything possible to fight communism, nothing about personal advancement or gratification. What brought Reagan back to prominence in history was that his policies were largely still in place - and they worked. Growth was robust, he got his successor elected on a promise to continue the policies, revenues doubled in a decade, the wall came down and so did the Soviet empire. He had won 49 states in reelection but the real results were not apparent until he was gone.
Had Gingrich survived 8-10 years of Speakership and kept focus and discipline on the core principles underlying the 'Contract', being elected President would not have been a stretch.
Newt IMO should have settled much earlier for a behind the scenes role with someone else on the stage, but that is not who he is. I wish him all the best in private life.
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Newt would have skewered the logic of the SCOTUS decision and left Baraq bleeding in the water as he circled in for the kill.
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Newt will be on Jay Leno tonight
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Obama's big gamble on Bill Clinton
by Newt Gingrich
Dear Fellow Conservative,
The announcement that former President Bill Clinton had been personally asked by President Obama to place his name in nomination at the Democratic Convention struck me as potentially a major mistake.
Bill Clinton is one of the most effective and aggressive speakers in the Democratic Party.
His attacks on Republicans will be witty, memorable, and effective for the moment.
The problem for Democrats is that while those who listen to Clinton's speech and cheer him will be excited, those who think about Clinton and Obama in the same thought will begin to realize how bad Obama really has been as President.
Republicans should take every opportunity to drive home the amazing contrast between Clinton's bipartisan achievements working with a Republican Congress and Obama's absolute inability to work across the aisle.
I am aware of the vast difference because I spent two years opposing the Clinton Presidency as the House Republican whip and four years negotiating with President Clinton as speaker.
The gaps in approach, style and achievement between Obama and Clinton are immense and all to Obama's discredit.
Bill Clinton announced in a State of the Union that "the era of big government is over." President Obama has been working for four years to build even bigger government.
Bill Clinton worked with a Republican Congress and Republican Governors to pass welfare reform. Clinton had campaigned on "ending welfare as we know it." Obama in one partisan step ordered his administration to destroy the work requirements and return to the dependency-fostering, taxpayer crushing, work avoiding welfare system of the past.
Bill Clinton as Governor of Arkansas had learned the executive has to negotiate and work with the legislative branch. Two and a half years of bipartisan struggle led to the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. For the next four years there were balanced budgets and $405 billion in federal debt as paid off. Obama refuses to compromise and cooperate with the legislative branch and has run up the largest deficits in American history.
Compare their concrete achievements.
There is a 23,100,000 job gap between the economic growth of Clinton and a Republican Congress and the job destructive, class warfare policies of Obama's partisan radicalism.
With Clinton and a Republican Congress unemployment fell from 7.3 percent to 4.2 percent. Under Obama unemployment has been stuck at 8.2 percent (now moving up to 8.3percent this month). Obama has the worst job collapse in 75 years. Obama has had over 8 percent unemployment for 41 straight months. In fact under Obama unemployment went up from 7.8 percent to today's 8.3 percent.
President Obama's $5.2 trillion in deficits is a sharp contrast to Clinton's balanced budgets.
During the bipartisan period from 1995 to 1999, debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP dropped 23 percent. Under Obama, it rose from 40.5 percent in 2008 to an estimated 74 percent in 2012—an increase of more than 83 percent. And under President Obama, gross federal debt passed 100 percent of GDP for the first time since 1947.
When I was sworn in as speaker in January 1995, the Congressional Budget Office projected cumulative federal budget deficits of $2.7 trillion over the next decade. After four years of bipartisan rule, in 1999, the CBO projected a $2.3 trillion surplus – a turnaround of $5 trillion. Under Obama, the CBO this year estimated a ten-year cumulative deficit of $2.9 trillion.
The President's jobs failure has left 46 million Americans in poverty, the largest number in history.
Clinton's bipartisan cooperation on welfare reform and balanced budgets reduced the number of children in welfare by 25 percent and reduced the number of Americans in poverty by 17 percent.
Under Obama median household income has declined by $4300 while under Clinton it increased by $6200.
When you look at fact after fact about how much better Bill Clinton was than Barack Obama in clear, objective economic and governmental achievements, it will cause voters to spend Clinton's entire nominating speech considering the question, "Why is Obama such a failure?"
That is the high risk inherent in Obama asking Clinton to nominate him.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/12/gingrich-bidens-benghazi-response-will-haunt-obama/
Click on the link and enjoy. Newt nails it.
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Dear Friend,
How many times have you heard about the terrible, frightening, all-imposing "fiscal cliff" in the last few weeks?
Now we have a constant media drumbeat that Republicans will have to cave to President Obama's demands or they will bear responsibility for going over the fiscal cliff.
President Obama has increased his demands for more taxes and more spending.
The Left, both the politicians and the news media, have created a mythical threat which can only be solved by Republicans surrendering their principles and abandoning their allies.
Yet the fiscal cliff is entirely a manufactured threat.
The same people who are now negotiating worked two years ago to create the mess which they say is such a threat.
At any point they wanted to, the President and the Congress could reduce the "cliff" to a series of foothills by breaking the problem into ten or twenty component parts.
They could then focus on solving each problem on its own merits and out in the open with public hearings, public understanding and public involvement.
Public understanding, however, would limit the level of waste, favoritism, and special interests which could be funded.
That is exactly the opposite of what the Washington establishment wants.
To get a unique insight into the current psychological process of chanting "fiscal cliff," it is worth reading Tom Wolfe's essay, "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers" (1970).
Wolfe describes a San Francisco welfare office in which the senior management hides away on the second floor and hires young, underpaid people to catch the flak of the welfare recipients who show up angry and unhappy. It is the job of the junior staff to endure the hostility while protecting the calm and isolation of the senior leaders.
The local Samoan community had figured out the game and decided to change it. As Wolfe vividly describes, they would send very large Samoans with war clubs into the office. The flak catcher would start explaining why they couldn't see the senior decision makers on the second floor. The Samoans would begin chanting and pounding their clubs on the color. After a couple minutes of threatening noises, the young welfare worker would decide they weren't getting paid enough to endure the tension and the sense of threat. They would let the Samoans go upstairs to make their demands to the senior welfare officials.
This brief description does not do justice to the beautiful writing and keen insights Wolfe brings to this scene.
But hopefully it does paint a picture of what we are living through.
The political and news media Left have fashioned an artificial club called "the fiscal cliff".
They are now standing on national television pounding their club and describing more and more horrifying outcomes if Republicans refuse to surrender their principles and appease the fiscal cliff Gods as defined by the Left.
Their goal is to panic the country so the people will then apply pressure to panic the Republicans.
Every time you hear “fiscal cliff” just remember it is an artificial invention of the Left.
Every time you hear a dire warning about the coming crisis remember the Samoans pounding their war clubs and chanting.
House Republicans should start legislating solutions they believe in, allow President Obama’s alternatives the honest chance to win a floor vote, and move forward.
The current negotiations are phony, dishonest, and calculated to produce either a failure to be blamed on the Republicans or a success defined by the collapse of the Republican policy positions.
Republicans would be far better off to refocus their energy on legislation, appropriation, oversight, and communication -- and relegate negotiation to being fifth on their priority list.
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"At any point they wanted to, the President and the Congress could reduce the "cliff" to a series of foothills by breaking the problem into ten or twenty component parts."
Isn't that exactly what you do when you have a seemingly insurmountable large task at hand. Democrats are doing the opposite, focusing only on the one part that can't be done and wouldn't solve the problem if it could.
Negotiating is important, roughly 5th on the priority list far behind legislating a solution and communicating.
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Going through some papers yesterday I came across a yellowed out clipping of the actual text of the Contract with America, in small print from page 20 of the local paper Sunday before the 1994 election - far better coverage than any Republican proposal has gotten since. I pulled out a magnifying glass and read to see if anything that should have been done then would have prevented the situation today. I has two lists, first what they will do immediately the first day and second list of what they will bring to a vote in the first 100 days: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/jgloekler/documents/contract.pdf
From the first list:
• SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
• EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
Both I suppose would have to be in the constitution to be binding on future congresses, but both in actual practice would make the faux negotiations we face today moot.
First on the 100 day list: 1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment..."
That alone, ratified back then, would have removed the need for all future debt ceiling crises, credit downgrades and fiscal cliffs.
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12/5/2012 06:00 AM
Instead of being focused on a phony fiscal cliff, Republicans might focus on how they will approach Obama’s second term.
What should House Republicans do? They are in a very different world than they expected just one month ago. Instead of cooperating with a new President-elect Romney, they find themselves baited, taunted, and attacked by a newly re-elected and re-energized President Obama.
What is the right strategy for this new situation?
The news media are, of course, in full collusion with the president in defining the current situation in pro-liberal, anti-Republican terms.
The House Republican situation is made even more complex by the strengthened position of Democrats in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has to feel emboldened by the strategic success of gaining seats in a year which began with every expectation of substantial Republican Senate gains.
The news media and Washington elite solution is simple: surrender, cave in, give up your principles, do what the President demands. Those are the daily suggestions and expectations of the elite media and much if the national establishment, which takes its talking points from the consensus media of the left.
It would be a triple disaster for House Republicans to follow this defeatist advice.
First, it would be a betrayal of the very principles for which they campaigned and the voters who elected them.
Second, it would deeply and bitterly split the House Republican Conference between hard core conservatives and “Obama cooperators.”
Third, it would embolden President Obama and the left to increase their demands and push for even more concessions.
House Republicans are guaranteed majority status through 2014. The odds are overwhelming that they will increase rather than decrease their numbers in the 2014.
Election
House Republicans do not have to worry about day-to-day headlines or day-to-day polls.
They have the opportunity to think and to develop a new strategy in response to their new circumstance.
It was this understanding of time and strategic patterns which enabled the first House Republican majority in 40 years to become, in 1996, the first re-elected House Republican majority in 68 years.
The Washington establishment mythology of the Clinton years almost completely falsifies what actually happened.
House Republicans closed the government twice in late 1995 in their determination to convince President Clinton and the national establishment that we were going to balance the federal budget for the first time in a generation.
The Washington media still believe this was a major mistake.
Yet closing the government convinced the Republican base and the conservative movement that we were serious and had the courage to stand and fight for our convictions.
One year later House Republicans were re-elected despite a resounding defeat for Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole. Almost no one in the national establishment has ever looked at the GOP’s House victory and why it occurred.
Welfare reform and the only four balanced budgets in the modern era were a direct result of that strategy. Furthermore, those balanced budgets were produced by economic growth brought about by tax cuts, not by a socialist austerity program based on tax increases.
House Republicans should take the next six weeks to meet in private and work through a grand strategy for the next four years.
They have to develop a strategic program that can stop and then reverse the efforts of President Obama and the left to fundamentally change America.
This is precisely the type of moment the Founding Fathers designed the constitutional balance for.
The Founding Fathers understood that the executive branch could potentially become dictatorial and too powerful. That is why they built in checks and balances.
The House has five great tools for offsetting a President. These tools are helped by a cooperative Senate but they are not eliminated by an uncooperative Senate.
The five tools are:
1. Appropriations
2. Oversight
3. Legislation
4. Communications
5. Negotiations
The House Republicans today are over-relying on negotiations, the fifth and least useful of the five tools. Our effective negotiations with President Clinton only came after the two government shutdowns. We had to earn his respect through direct, hard confrontation before we could get his attention for practical negotiations.
The negotiation tool is the weakest because it centralizes communications and decision making into a formula which maximizes the President’s dominance within the national news media.
Appropriations
The most powerful House tool is appropriations. This power goes all the way back to Runnymede and the signing of the Magna Carta. If the people’s representatives don’t appropriate the money, the President can’t spend it. House Republicans should be prepared to suspend all appropriations except national security and public safety. They should selectively zero out the least popular of the President’s initiatives and agencies. He can attack the House all he wants, but he can’t spend money without its approval. The conservative movement would be galvanized by such a display of firmness.
Oversight
There are well over a hundred subcommittees which can be holding oversight hearings. Like the Lilliputians tying down Gulliver, these subcommittees can gradually educate the country about the waste, the cronyism, the corruption, and the radicalism existing throughout the Obama executive branch. The daily reports of hearing after hearing and scandal after scandal become a Fabian strategy of wearing down the Obama juggernaut and exposing its downside.
There is also a positive side to the hearing and oversight process. The House Republicans should ally with the 30 Republican Governors. Many of them are doing very smart things which could be applied to Washington. All of them can highlight areas in which Washington is forcing waste and inefficiency on their state. They give the House Republicans 30 star witnesses to layoff hearings. Several former Governors (notably Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and Mississippi’s Haley Barbour) would also make outstanding witnesses.
The combination of positive reform ideas and negative coverage of waste and scandal could make every subcommittee a star in its own right and create more communications than the White House could cope with.
Legislation
Legislation is action. It is fact. It is reality.
House Republicans should start by scouring the bills introduced by House and Senate Democrats for every good idea. Every chance House Republicans have to pass a bill introduced by a House or Senate Democrat, they build an irrefutable record of bipartisanship. Let Harry Reid and President Obama explain why they oppose Democratic bills passed by the House Republicans.
In addition, House Republicans should look for specific, narrowly-drawn positive ideas and pass a vast series of small bills. Let the Democratic Senate either start behaving responsibly or let it become known as the graveyard of obstruction. Either a lot of bills will be sent to the President or the theme of Constructive Republican House versus an obstructionist Democrat Senate will become a major factor in the 2014 elections.
Communications
House Republicans should study the period 1824-1828. The Jacksonians were enraged by the outcome of the election of 1824 and they spent four years steadily undermining the administration of President John Quincy Adams. Their use of the frank and of Congressional communications is a masterpiece.
In 1996, a concerted, methodical House Republican effort enabled us to reform Medicare and win the communications argument. In 2012, the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee did a splendid job of defeating Mediscare.
The House Republican leaders cannot out-communicate the President. It is a structural impossibility because of the White House command of communications.
However, 200-plus House Republicans (some will never cooperate) can more than overmatch an Executive Branch.
Negotiations
Having used appropriations to prove seriousness, oversight to define the debate, legislation to build a coalition, and communications to define the contest, then House Republicans can then negotiate from strength.
This is a strategy which can set the star for a successful 2014 and 2016.
More importantly, this is the right strategy for our values and for America.
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http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/12/gingrich-after-the-cliff-gop-must-have-a-strategic-plan/
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http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/12/gingrich-after-the-cliff-gop-must-have-a-strategic-plan/
Newt makes a good point here that the WSJ was making yesterday: "Until they understand the larger strategic fight, they can’t possibly know what to do in the current short-term tactical situation."
If they surrender all the concessions now for nothing, what leverage do they bring to the rest of the negotiations, comprehensive tax reform for example, but also everything else - immigration, regulatory reform, budget process reform, even further healthcare negotiations...
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By: Newt Gingrich
1/9/2013 07:50 AM
RESIZE: AAA
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Watching the news media this weekend start the process of setting up Republicans for another losing fight has been depressing.
Congressional Republicans seem to be moving toward three decisions that are profoundly wrong.
Just listening this weekend some Republican leaders seem to be saying:
1. They will fight over the debt ceiling;
2. They are urging President Barack Obama to lead;
3. They have come out of one failed cycle of secret negotiations with the White House and seem eager to start right back in on a new cycle of negotiations.
All three are demonstrably wrong.
1. The debt ceiling is a terrible place to fight when there is a Sequester bill and a Continuing Resolution available.
2. I do not want President Obama to lead. No conservative wants President Obama to lead. He is an ultra-liberal who really believes in the power of big government. Why would any Republican ask him to lead? I want the House Republicans to lead. Conservatives want the House Republicans to lead. Furthermore, Republicans should quit going on television and asking President Obama to be “reasonable.” The president will concede to Republicans exactly what they coerce him into giving and not one inch more.
3. Negotiations are the weakest of the five legislative branch tools. Appropriations, legislation, oversight, and communications are all tools which should be used to set up a framework for successful negotiations. Negotiating with a president without using the first four tools is an invitation to defeat.
Let’s start with the futility of focusing on the debt ceiling.
President Obama set the stage Saturday with his weekly radio address when he announced that he will insist on a clean debt ceiling. In doing so he actually outlined for Republicans the two fights they can win.
Consider the president’s argument:
“(O)ne thing I will not compromise over is whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they’ve already racked up. If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastrophic. The last time Congress threatened this course of action, our entire economy suffered for it. Our families and our businesses cannot afford that dangerous game again.”
Without realizing it the president just outlined the winning strategy for Republicans.
He suggested that the time for Congress to draw the line on spending is before they “rack up the bills” — to paraphrase the president.
We have two immediate opportunities to heed the president’s words: the Sequester bill that is coming up in 60 days and the Continuing Resolution at the end of March.
There is an enormous difference between the Continuing Resolution, the Sequester bill and the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling involves the faith and credit of the United States. It can not be held hostage because the crisis impact of failing to pay the government’s debts would be immediate, worldwide, and shattering.
Every element of the business community and the news media will spend the next two months beating up Republicans if the debt ceiling is the focus of the conflict. This past weekend’s media focus is just a taste of what is coming.
If Republicans fall for the debt ceiling trap they will once again be isolated in a corner, identified as negative extremists, and ultimately forced to back down with maximum internal conflict and bitterness among conservatives and Republicans.
However, they have two wonderful, clear, and far better fights available in the Continuing Resolution and the Sequester bill.
Both involve spending.
Both allow Republicans to quote President Obama’s Saturday radio talk over and over and over again.
The time to shrink future debt ceilings is by cutting spending now.
Threatening to stop the debt ceiling guarantees that the business community and the news media put more and more pressure on Congressional Republicans. In the end Republicans will be forced to cave.
Threatening to selectively close, eliminate, or shrink various parts of the government through spending bills puts President Obama and Congressional Democrats on defense.
Is there any Democrat who can argue with a straight face that in a $3.7 trillion federal government there is nothing which can not be cut or eliminated? Polls consistently show three out of four Americans favor cutting government spending.
A fight over cutting spending is a fight in which the natural advantage goes to the Republicans.
This advantage can be strengthened by House Republicans taking five big strategic steps:
1.Systematic hearings by every committee and subcommittee focusing on waste in government and opportunities to cut spending and reform government.
2.An alliance with the 30 Republican governors with them testifying on how to reform the federal government, how to cut spending and how to implement the Tenth Amendment and return power and responsibility to the states and with governors providing communications support back home.
3.An aggressive outreach to arouse and coordinate every group that wants smaller government so there is a nationwide clamor for spending cuts.
4.A very intense, disciplined, coordinated communications effort by every member, committee and subcommittee.
5.A very creative series of legislative efforts including: 1. Breaking the CR into a series of bills with national security and public safety funded for the rest of the fiscal year, while some of the smaller CRs could last for 60 days and lead to continuing fights over spending and reform (think Departments of Labor, HUD, FCC, etc. as hard to arouse public indignation over); 2. Attaching various major reforms to non-national security Continuing Resolutions; 3. Finding every reasonable bill introduced by Democrats in the House or Senate and bringing them up to pressure Democrats into voting for their own members’ bills; 4. Finding positive solutions that will improve the lives of people (for example, renewing visas is absurdly expensive and frustrating — modernizing the system will open a positive dialogue with virtually every immigrant group).
This is not a call for softness or compromise.
I am prepared to be very tough. I just want to be tough on a battlefield where Republicans can define the fight, communicate the principles, and win.
This is a call for picking very tough tenacious fights on grounds that conservatives and Republicans can win.
I led two government shut downs, for six days in November, 1995 and 21 days in December, 1995 and January, 1996. Those two closings led to the first domestic discretionary spending cuts since 1981. They also led President Bill Clinton to come to the Congress in the State of the Union and say that “the era of big government is over.”
Once President Clinton concluded House Republicans were serious about getting to a smaller, balanced budget we were able to work toward welfare reform in 1996. Note that we didn’t get welfare reform by back room deals in secret. We passed welfare reform twice and it was vetoed twice. It was only on the third passage, closer to the election, that the president finally signed the bill.
Some people in the news media think closing the government hurt us. To the contrary. When we closed the government no House Republican majority had been re-elected since 1928. After the confrontation and the subsequent negotiations House Republicans were able to survive a bad Presidential year and we were able to run ahead of the ticket and get re-elected for the first time in 68 years. People believed we were serious, committed, and tough but also that we were responsible and realistic.
Republicans have to confront the reality that we can get a good bit from President Obama if he has no alternative. Every conservative gain will come by strategically setting up fights we can win. Every liberal loss will come because the American people decide we won the argument, thereby forcing Democrats to go along with our proposals.
There are no inside strategies that will move President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Only a methodical steady outside strategy will put them in a position where they are cutting their losses.
In the process we will set the stage for very successful elections in 2014 and 2016.
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Gingrich is mostly right. Of course there are probably only 4 people in the country who could accurately tell you the difference between the debt ceiling, the sequester and the continuing resolution. The accusation will be the same if they only hold out on the last two, and no default has to occur with the first; it's just that everyone knows they are totally unserious about cutting spending by the full 1.1 trillion up front.
How much SHOULD spending be when we are taking in at the rate of $2.9 trillion per year?
One key fact with all the spending, deficit and debt: Republicans controlled the House during 14 of the last 18 years. During the Gingrich-Clinton years, as Newt describes, they negotiated democratic and baseline increases down pretty aggressively. During the first 6 years of Bush it was a blank check; they mostly deferred to the president of their own party who equated "compassion" with spending. Then were four enormously costly years of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama disaster. Then the takeback of Nov 2010. Then Republicans only fought again to slow the future increases, never to reverse the trillion a year in additional "temporary, emergency" spending. That is where we are now: making a trillion a year gap permanent - best case.
One important thing we learned this week: the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House.
Boehner, who "needs this job like a hole in the head', missed an opportunity to really shake things up. He could have made Newt the new Speaker. He could have done it expressly for the purpose of closing the deficit trajectory, the unfunded liabilities and restoring our credit. It would have been President Obama's worst nightmare - at first, only for him to take credit later like Clinton did. Put the President on notice there is a new (old) Sheriff is in town. Let the hearings begin on every aspect of spending, waste and unintended consequences of programs. As Newt says, bring in the Republican governors and start passing reforms that give major functions of government back to the states. Let the reckless statements like we don't have spending problem get answered in real time. Interrupt proceedings on the floor of the House and answer him. We would get the debates some of us wanted and it would be focused only on policy outcomes, not on popularity, swing states or electoral votes.
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Memo: The Challenge Confronting the Republican Party
I wanted to share with you the following memo which I have written at the request of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, and which he has distributed to RNC members this afternoon.
This is the beginning of a four to six month project considering what the Republican Party must do to become competitive in all 50 states.
THE CHALLENGE CONFRONTING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Newt Gingrich
December 2012
To Chairman Reince Priebus:
Thank you for inviting me to present an analysis for the Republican National Committee about the current challenges Republicans face at every level.
Our working together goes all the way back to your early years in politics. I enjoyed doing events with you in Wisconsin and admired the work you did in helping Scott Walker become Governor.
I was delighted when you became RNC Chairman and I know how much you accomplished in the last two years rebuilding RNC finances and developing a better ground game.
Your creation of the Growth and Opportunity Project chaired by Henry Barbour is a very important step toward assessing what we have to learn from 2012 and what we have to do to succeed in 2014 and 2016.
I look forward to working with Henry and his team and hope this paper provides some useful thoughts about both the GOP’s past record of responding successfully to election challenges and to the changing nature of American society and politics.
Reforming the Republican Party so it can create a governing majority is an enormous challenge which includes every element of the party. However as you have observed the RNC has a key role to play in bringing together the ideas and the critiques and helping shape a clear vision of a successful GOP.
I begin with three famous quotes about solving problems.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Albert Einstein.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Einstein
“When I couldn’t solve a problem I would always make it bigger until I could find the solution. I never solved it by making it smaller,” President and General of the Armies Dwight Eisenhower on problem solving in World War Two.
PROPOSITION
The scale of strategic thinking Republicans need is vastly larger and deeper than any current proposal recognizes. The Republican National Committee will play a particularly important role in gathering information, encouraging analysis, hosting dialogues about key changes, and helping implement strategies for victory in 2014 and 2016.
This will require a deep, bold, thorough, and lengthy process of rethinking.
I was so shaken by how wrong I was in projecting a Republican win on election night that I have personally set aside time at Gingrich Productions to spend the next six months with our team methodically examining where we are and what we must do.
In that context I was delighted when you appointed a distinguished team to lead the analysis for the Republican National Committee. I appreciate your invitation to work directly with them on a process that will be important to the entire Republican Party and ultimately to the country.
This paper is a step in that direction.
This initial analysis is direct, tough minded, and daunting.
As you recognize, the Republican National Committee is not merely the junior partner of whoever becomes the next presidential nominee.
The Republican NATIONAL Committee has a key role to play in every level of party activity including Congress, Governors, state legislators and local offices and activists.
That key role has often led to profound improvements in the GOP at a time of electoral disaster.
THE RNC ROLE IN KEY PERIODS OF CHANGE
The RNC has historically played a very important role in recognizing new realities and developing new strategies and new structures.
After the disastrous collapse of the GOP in 1964 Chairman Ray Bliss played a decisive role in rebuilding the party structure. Within two years President Lyndon Johnson had created such a mess and Republicans had rebuilt so rapidly that the GOP won decisive victories for Congress and for Governorships.
After the devastating Watergate defeat of 1974 Chairwoman Mary Louise Smith led a courageous rethinking of the party’s strategies and structures. Her Executive Director, Eddie Mahe, undertook an exhaustive in depth look at a party which had dropped to 18% support among the American people( the lowest since the Great Depression).
In 1977 Chairman Bill Brock built on that rethinking. He backed Congressman Jack Kemp’s concept of supply side tax cutting to create economic growth. In 1978 Brock paid for the “tax cut clipper” to fly Kemp and Senator Roth around the country. This was a very courageous step because many establishment Republicans ridiculed Kemp’s ideas and opposed his bill. Even when Reagan adopted it in the campaign it was derided as voodoo economics by some Republicans).
I campaigned on supply side tax cuts and won a House seat in 1978 after losing in 1974 and 1976. I know Kemp’s ideas made a big difference.
Brock invested heavily in party structure and in ideas. After Margaret Thatcher won the May, 1979 election, Brock brought her advertising team to the United Stares and we studied intensely how they had communicated complex ideas in simple, vivid language. I was honored as a freshman to be part of that group and I know it disseminated a new wave of ideas that along with Reagan’s adoption of them shaped the GOP for a generation.
After the 1992 defeat Chairman Haley Barbour was decisive in renewing enthusiasm, raising resources, and helping shape and implement strategy. Without Haley’s help we would not have had a Contract with America, would not have won the first House GOP majority in 40 years or re-elected it for the first time since 1928 in 1996.
Your leadership in creating the Growth and Opportunity Project sets the stage for exactly that kind of decisive impact over the next few years.
OUR CHALLENGE
There will be forces urging The Growth and Opportunity Project to develop a shallow, quick fix, small change approach to our current challenges.
There are very powerful, well connected, and prestigious forces who have made a lot of money out of the old system and have a huge interest in keeping it intact. It may be bad for the GOP but it is good for them.
There are a number of influential people who are simply uncomfortable trying to think through fundamental change. They like to raise money and spend money. Over the last six presidential elections they have been in the minority five times. If money were the answer by now they would have found a majority.
The committee has an historic obligation to insist on a very deep, through analysis of where we are, what we did, the challenges we face, and the strategies and structures needed to win in the future.
If basic rethinking doesn’t make a lot of people very uncomfortable it isn’t serious enough, thorough enough or bold enough.
This makes the Growth and Opportunity Project a central activity for the party in the next six to nine months.
THE THREAT
Too many Republicans underestimate the scale of the threat we face.
There is a combination of demographic trends, cultural changes, technological breakthroughs and intelligent, disciplined application of resources which could turn America into a national version of Chicago or California.
It is very unlikely Republicans will win in California without major changes.
It is very unlikely Republicans could win in Chicago even with major changes.
Those Republicans who assume bad events will beat the Democrats in 2016 underestimate the power of machines to survive bad performances.
In good economies or bad Democrats win in Chicago.
Throughout the decay and decline of Detroit (from 1,500,000 people with the highest per capita income in 1950 to under 800,000 and 67th in income today) Democrats won despite failure after failure.
In Argentina Peronism shattered the country’s political culture three generations ago and Argentina has never recovered.
The Democrats have been building a national machine while the Republicans have been running campaigns.
Four years of preparation (one could argue 20 years of preparation going back to the first Clinton victory) collided with a two to six month Republican general election campaign.
President Obama combined the lessons he learned as a neighborhood organizer with the principles and systems he learned from the Chicago machine. In Florida alone they had 800 full time staff by Election Day. In some areas they had paid people who had lived in neighborhoods for over three years before the election.
This was organizing unlike anything Republicans had imagined.
As a general rule Machines beat campaigns.
It will take a large coalition working year around to bring enough people and resources together to defeat a machine
Unless Republicans profoundly and deeply rethink their assumptions and study what the Democrats have been doing the future could become very bleak and the Clinton-Obama majority could become as dominant as the Roosevelt majority was from 1932 to 1968 presidentially and from 1930 to 1994 in the House of Representatives.
THE OBAMA ACHIEVEMENT
No Republican should kid themselves about the scale of President Obama’s political achievement.
I was one of those who thought he would almost certainly be defeated.
Election night results have forced me to rethink everything I understood about how America makes political decisions.
With a bad economy, high gasoline prices, radical policies, and a massive deficit, precedent suggested that President Obama would lose in 2012.
However the President’s campaign recognized the challenges and designed strategies and structures to overcome them.
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher asserted that “first you win the argument, then you win the vote.”
The Obama campaign took her adage to heart.
Exit polling indicated that Obama won the argument over the economy and by a large margin the American people blamed former President George W. Bush rather than his successor for the economic mess.
Building on advantages they had before the campaign began, the Obama team sealed off African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans (amazingly, by a bigger margin than Latinos), younger Americans and especially young single women.
Look at that list.
If the Democrats sustain their dominance in those groups, how can we believe we will be building a successful Republican future.
From a geographic perspective how do we write off New England, New York, California, Illinois, etc and think we are going to compete. One analyst noted that the Democratic majority starts with about 250 electoral votes and simply has to find 20 extra electoral votes to win the Presidency.
This emerging Democratic machine helps explain why, in five of the last six Presidential campaigns, the GOP has failed to win a majority (and the 2004 Bush reelection was the smallest re-election margin of any President in our history).
If we were a sports team with that record every fan would be demanding profound change.
OUTSIDE KNOWLEDGE
The current Republican consulting class and their professional campaign acolytes simply don’t know enough to provide the level of knowledge we need.
Our effort should include reports from and dialogues with a number of people who have never been Republican consultants (see the “Questions” section below for some examples).
There should be special RNC meetings throughout 2013 to host day long workshops in which experts from a variety of areas immerse the committee in the realities of the world in which we will be competing.
The workshops should be streamed online and cached at an “RNC STRATEGIC THINKING” website so every Republican activist and concerned citizen can also learn and offer suggestions and comments.
We need a bottoms up rethinking involving many, many people, not a top down “expert led” process.
The experts just proved they aren’t experts so we should be very cautious about their reassurance that now they know what they didn’t know six weeks ago.
An open process would also fit more into the emerging nature of the Internet based, wireless, Information Age fluidity.
MEASURABLE CHANGE
When the analysis has been absorbed and the new strategies and structures adopted it is vital that the Republicans insist on changes that are measurable.
For too long we have tolerated consultants and staff promising change as they went back to their comfortable but losing ways.
For too long we have been intimidated by incumbents and candidates who promise to follow new strategies and grow new structures but promptly fall back into the same old habits and patterns.
Mayor Giuliani’s use of specific measurements to fight crime in New York is a case study of insisting on and getting real change.
The results of the Growth and Opportunity Project should lead to measurable differences in the GOP over the next few years.
REPUBLICAN ASSETS
As we enter this process it is important to remember we have a lot of assets.
Having lived through 1964 and 1974 I can personally testify that we are much stronger today.
In November 1974 only 18% of the country identified as Republican. It’s hard to believe that six years later Ronald Reagan won in a landslide and two years earlier Nixon had won re-election in a landslide- a note for those who think things can’t change rapidly.
The exit polls for Congress in 2012 indicated 33% identified as Republican, 39% as Democrats, and 28% as independents.
Republicans control the US House ( not true in either of those earlier disasters).
We have 30 Governors representing 315 electoral votes (45 more than it takes to win the Presidency).
In 24 states Republicans control both the Governorship and the legislature.
Those 24 states have 161,390,000 people or 51.2% of all Americans living under Republican government.
There are only 14 states with total Democratic control.
Overall there are 3863 Republican state legislators and only 3519 Democratic state legislators.
Thus we are in a period where there could be an alliance between 30 Republican Governors and a Republican US House of Representatives which could highlight better solutions and also highlight the failures of the federal government.
There is also a large bench of talent in the Republican state legislators which could lead to a future of very good candidates at every level.
The question is if we can identify a strategy and structure which enables us to turn those assets into a victorious future majority.
THE REPUBLICAN CAUSE
Learning how to win in the 21st century is vital to the cause of freedom. The Republican Party remains dedicated to the cause of Liberty as described by our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln when he described the source of American prosperity:
“All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all”—the principle that clears the path for all—gives hope to all—and, by consequence, enterprise, and industry to all.
“The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed, people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.”
We remain dedicated to the cause of freedom and liberty but we have to master the technologies and systems of the 21st century to ensure that that cause is victorious. We have to apply the principles of freedom, safety, prosperity, and liberty to helping Americans of all backgrounds understand how our approach will lead to their having better lives.
QUESTIONS
The key questions are about Republicans, not about Romney. It is a big mistake to focus the blame for this defeat on Governor Romney. He did not lose the majority in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2008. This is a much bigger, deeper problem than an analysis of 2012 in isolation will solve.
The following are examples of the kind of questions the Growth and Opportunity Project should be exploring. This list is not inclusive but is merely illustrative of the depth of knowledge we need with which to begin our exploration of strategies and structures for the future.
Many of these questions will require a dialogue over time rather than a single meeting or single report. Some of them may remain works in progress over a number of years.
Start with what the Democrats have been doing right. Build a library of must reads starting with books like Plouffe’s The Audacity to Win, Bai’s The Argument:Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, and Witwer and Schrager’s The BluePrint(: How the Democrats Won Colorado(and why Republicans Everywhere should care). A small team should be assigned to pull together every book, article, and interview which helps explain what the Democrats have been doing and to organize them into topics for analytical access by every interested Republican. A working group should also issue a report on lessons to be learned after thoroughly reviewing all this material. Someone should become the chief researcher and archivist on our opponents’ systems and activities.
2. We need a map of the Democrats’ coalition and the scale and intensity of their coalition. Their organized efforts and networks simply dwarf anything Republicans and conservatives have developed. Furthermore, their coalition is a permanent system of activism while the Republican consultant model is campaign focused and therefore both episodic and isolated. An ongoing coalition can mass and focus more energy and resources than isolated short time-horizon campaigns,
3. We need a clear distinction between coalition-based campaigns and consultant-based campaigns. There are profound differences in systems, styles, structures, and attitude. The last three big Republican Presidential victories (1980, 1984, 1988) were coalition campaigns. The House victories of 1994, 1996, and 2010 were coalition victories. The Republican consultant class, many campaign professionals, and many Republican staff are deeply opposed to the coalition model. This choice is decisive in growing a bigger, stronger, and more robust GOP. The RNC should insist on this debate and force the transition to a coalition model including within the RNC structure itself. This question of strategic doctrine and the culture and structure which implements it is central to the future of the party. Another billion dollars spent on the wrong strategy and structure will be another billion dollars wasted. As an analogy, the French had more and better tanks in 1940 than the Germans. However they had the wrong strategy and structure for using the tanks. They were routed in days by a more modern doctrine. Doctrine defeats dollars and the bulk of the professional GOP is wedded to the wrong doctrine. This change will be painful but unavoidable if we are to become a truly competitive 21st century organization. The problem is not consultants, campaign professionals, and staff as such. We need solid professionals and experts who can develop complex strategies, build complex structures, and run complex campaigns. The challenge is to convert the culture and doctrine from one that is focused on candidate centric, consultant defined campaigns to one that is built around coalitions, long term party building and team efforts.
4. We need a timeline and analysis of the Obama Presidency and campaign. Some components of the campaign go back to 2006 and have been growing and evolving ever since. Micro-targeting, micro-leaders, micro-communities, and micro-issues all existed within a larger narrative. There was solid connection between campaign needs and Presidential and Executive Branch activities (including policies, appointments and schedules).
5. Infotainment is a world Democrats enjoy and use and Republicans either disdain or fear, and as a consequence avoid. The View, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Leno, Letterman, ESPN, Nickelodeon, MTV, and on and on, represent patterns of communications Republicans often disdain, seldom appear on and as a consequence are simply invisible to their audiences. The same could be said for most ethnic media. We need a report on the appearances of Democrats and Republicans in these areas in 2011 and 2012 and then we need a strategy for Republican engagement.
6. The strategic nurturing over time of micro-issues with micro-organizations and micro-communicating ( a pattern much richer and more powerful than micro-targeting) to create micro-communities that support their team and their candidate has been vastly better done by Democrats. This deserves its own study and a strategic response that will require very different systems and structures. There is a huge difference between the strategic development of issues over time (often lasting through several election cycles) and the Republican consultant and professional staff focus on tactics with very short time horizons.
We need at least three case studies of the growth of strategic issues on the left. The contraception issue ( which none of the GOP candidates understood when first raised in a debate by George Stephanopoulos in December, 2011) grew into the War on Women and became a major coalition message by the time of the Democratic National Convention. Post-election polling indicates it was very effective in mobilizing and solidifying one segment of the Obama coalition. It is a good example of a case study we need. How do we grow our issues? How do we recognize and trump their issues?
What other strategies should be studied as examples?
7. The 47% comment by Governor Romney reflected a deep belief by many conservatives and Republican consultants, campaign professionals, staffs, and activists. The entire psychology of writing off vast parts of a country or state and focusing narrowly may make some sense for a specific campaign. but it is a formula for permanent minority status when adopted by a party. The GOP should end red-versus-blue and narrowly focused targeting models. What would a 100% Republican Party be like if we planned 2014 and 2016 with no reference to red or blue states or counties. It is true that President Obama ran a deliberate class warfare divisive campaign. However if you analyze his winning coalition it is amazing how many components were bonded by micro-communities and a sense of inclusiveness that transcended a narrowly class warfare approach. We have to understand this pattern of defining differences while being openly inclusive.
8. California should be a test of the new inclusive solutions-oriented GOP. Having our largest state dominated by the other party is an enormous disadvantage for Presidential elections and for controlling the House. Furthermore a one-party California has proven to be economically and educationally a disaster for Californians. Finally, a GOP which includes minorities will by definition be competitive in California. A special California victory project should be developed and sustained by the RNC until California is robustly competitive again (think of it as the equivalent of the long RNC investment in growing support in the South).
9. A truly national party also has to learn to compete in urban America. The 87.5 per cent turnout in Milwaukee, which shocked Wisconsin Republicans, should also be seen as a rebuke to a GOP which has atrophied in urban America. The RNC will need an urban operation that recruits, trains, and supports candidates in urban environments. One of the RNC’s great contribution in the 1970s and early 1980s was an aggressive local candidate program. The local elections division was crucial to the growth of the post Watergate Party. In the mid-1980s it was reinforced by GOPAC. Without the work of those two systems we would not have won a majority in 1994. The RNC is NOT the presidential committee. It is the NATIONAL committee. As such it should methodically build the party at every level. This requires a structure and budget to make the commitment real.
10. Washington is going to be a mess for the next four years, but there are 30 state capitols with Republican Governors achieving positive solutions. In 24 states there is Republican control of the executive and legislative branches. There should be a close, daily alliance between the RNC, the RGA, and House Republicans. Every effort should be made to move Republican achievements from the states to the national media. House Republicans should host hearings led by Republican Governors with success stories and other hearings with Republican Governors reporting on waste and failure in the federal government in their states. In addition, a thorough analysis should be undertaken of successful Republican Governors. How do thy win? How do they govern? How do they hold their coalitions together? Washington has a lot to learn from the states.
11. The challenge of Latino, Asian American, Native American and African American supportI must be met or the GOP will become a permanent minority party. We must think through inclusion and not outreach. Out reach occurs when five white guys have a meeting and call minority activists. Inclusion is when the activists are in the meeting. As a start, the RNC should bring together minority elected Republicans and those white Republicans who do best in minority communities. New strategies and systems have to be built starting with listening to the people we want to recruit and attract. This challenge is so big, so hard, and so central to our success that it should be one of the top three items at every meeting and have one of the larger budgets at the RNC. Anything less will simply fail as it has for the last 50 years. The same model of inclusion has to be applied to expanding Republican strength among women and especially among younger single women. We should establish specific goals for increases in support within each group for 2014 and 2016.
12. How did the Obama team manage such enormous turnouts? What components of message and mechanism went into that historic result? Could it be matched by a Republican effort, and if so, how?
13. Data science Obama-style has no relationship to the Republican model of Internet politics. The Obama system is helped in data science by its 85 to 90% dominance of Silicon Valley. If you have the founders of Google and Facebook helping you design your system you have an enormous advantage over your competitors. The challenge of social networking, micro-community building and citizen mobilization may be second only to the challenge of including minority Americans in the GOP in determining whether Republicans decline into minority status for the next several decades.
14. The gap between Republican and Democratic pollsters is ominously large. The shock many Republican analysts and “experts” got election night was extraordinary and should lead to a deep, long rethinking of Republican assumptions about the country and the campaign. In my case, it is leading me to six months of in-depth questioning, learning and analysis at Gingrich Productions. If it is true that the Obama team was doing 9,000 calls a night internally, connected to their data scientists while also using traditional polling it represents a world no Republican can match today. This is at the heart of knowing reality better than your opponent and it has to be honestly and courageously addressed.
15. In story telling and narrative development, the mismatch of resources is as great as in Internet capabilities. Hollywood, New York City, academics, the news media and trial lawyers are the dominant story tellers in American life. Every one of them is overwhelmingly (80% plus) Democratic. Republicans have complained about the inarticulateness and communications ineffectiveness of the party for the entire time I have been involved (going back to August 1958). This is the third great strategic challenge along with minorities and the Internet community.
16. The cultural and language context of politics is being changed dramatically by entertainment and by the education system. A 30-second ad can’t offset hundreds of hours of sitcoms. A key speech can’t turn around years of indoctrination by left wing teachers and professors. Republican planning has to be much more aware of the context, especially for younger voters, within which we are messaging. In the long run there have to be strategic responses to the left’s domination of entertainment and education.
17. The key to success in politics as in war is the ability to stay on offense. There is a deeply destructive tendency among Republicans to fall into a defensive mode (watch the current “fiscal cliff” process as a depressing example). Learning to stay on offense requires a strategic vision that enables you to constantly orient to the future, an operational system that allows you to be inside your opponent’s decision cycle ( see Boyd’s work on OODA-loops for an explanation) and the tactical skill to dominate the media, which will normally be opposed to you. Republicans as a group have none of these capabilities.
18. What is the Republican vision of a successful America built by a freedom, opportunity, safety and prosperity majority? If we have no positive vision to attract people to and no positive vision toward which we can develop policies, it is impossible to stay on offense and impossible to build the micro-communities and coalitions which lead to victory. We have to translate that national vision into offering a better future in personal, believable terms that draw people away from a culture of dependency and enable us to offer a positive future rather than simply attacking the left. We need to become a party that people want to belong to. For example, we should have had a positive answer for lower cost, better outcome health care in addition to opposing Obamacare. People need to know what we are for even more than what we are against.i
19. These changes will require retraining or replacing much of the current generation of consultants and campaign staff. All too many of our current consultants and professional campaign staffs have very short time horizons built around negative campaigns of tearing down their opponents. This does not imply that we can succeed without consultants and campaign staff ( and knowledgeable counterparts in public office). Just the opposite. Their jobs are so critical we have to ensure they have the right doctrine and the right skills.
20. There should be an analysis of the Obama campaign compensation model. Is there a model of compensation which creates a longer time horizon? A model which encourages investing in a ground game as much as in television advertising? A model which has high rewards for winning or for meeting metrics (in some areas we may want to run starter campaigns to just begin re-engaging those communities and in those cases, the metrics of achievement may deserve rewards even while falling short of victory)?
21. What changes should Republicans make to maximize the effectiveness of their resources? There is a great deal of confusion about the efforts of the campaign, the committees, the superpacs etc. What do we need to learn from 2012 and how can we improve resource allocation in future campaigns?
22. What functions should be decentralized outside Washington? What lessons can be learned from the Obama-Democratic Party system.
23. There should be an honest, tough minded review of the campaigns, the party, and the super-pacs. There is a widespread view that money is not being distributed based on performance and proposals but instead is being distributed based on cronyism, favoritism, closed (rigged.) bids etc? This is a Republican issue not an RNC issue. Too much money was spent by too few people with too few victories to avoid these questions.
24. One test for the emerging new insights, strategies and structures would be to ask, if they had been in place in 2009 would they have enabled us to win in 2012? When the various studies have submitted their recommendations, it would be healthy this August or September to have a two day simulated 2009-2012 rerun using the new decisions to see what impact they would have had. That might be a powerful last step in developing a new model, Information Age, inclusive Republican Party capable of becoming the governing majority.
25. As we listen to the larger country and learn more about key groups we failed to win in 2012 a number of new issues will begin to emerge. We need an issue development process that will enable us to build micro-communities or supporters and appeal to many people who do not consider themselves Republican. However this process of issue development should grow out of the new lessons and not prejudge them.
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Interesting ideas by Newt. He admits being "so shaken by how wrong I was in projecting a Republican win on election night" and needs a period of 6 months to "methodically examining where we are and what we must do". It hasn't been 6 months yet and his 24 point plan doesn't have the typical focus and clarity that Newt at his best possesses. He is right we need to learn all they can about the Dem methods but Republicans cannot compete and win on their field.
Simply put by Michael Barone today: "Democratic core constituencies -- blacks, Hispanics and gentry liberals -- tend to be clustered geographically in big metropolitan areas. Obama's large margins there helped him carry many electoral votes, but not so many congressional districts."
In the inner city I saw the blockworker with her pencil and clipboard the day before the election and she saw me from across the street. I braced myself for a repeat of the conversation I had with the ACORN people wasting each others' time in 2004. I was shocked when she didn't come over but this past year they were working smarter. I didn't fit her demographic and she had worked the area long and hard enough to know I was the landlord not the resident.
Take one Dem inner city for example: If they had an 87% turnout in Milwaukee preferring Obama by 79-19 (http://fox6now.com/2012/11/07/2012-voter-turnout-70-of-voters-in-wi-87-of-voters-in-milwaukee/). For another, 119% turnout in liberal Madison is beyond impressive. (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/05/report-voter-turnout-119-percent-in-madison) Studying and doing the same for Republicans is not going to work.
In the 'rich Republican' areas, no one does person to person exact tracking of every household and you can't. My own legislative candidate came by my house and missed me 7 times. I voted for her anyway but she doesn't know that. Houses are more spread out and people are busy. Caucus turnouts are a few in a thousand and they don't want to get on email or call lists much less go door to door or voice the phone banks.
We must learn all we want from the other side but the answer is not simply to copy them.
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It's all deck chair shuffling at this point anyway. The hull is breached and it's just a matter of time until things take their course.
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[http://gingrichproductions.com]
Overwhelming Reasons for Optimism
Conservatives recognize that government is not the only, nor even most powerful of
human forces. This means we should not miss the revolutions occurring as Washington
acts out its melodrama of manufactured crises.
Consider that despite President Obama’s best attempts to centralize power in the
bureaucracy, during the past few years the American people have:
Developed desktop 3D-printers which can manufacture almost any object you can
imagine within a few minutes. You can buy these devices for roughly the cost of a
laptop and print out, in plastic, anything you can design on your computer, or any
3D models from an online library. You can then send away to a website like
[http://www.shapeways.com/]Shapeways to have the design printed in stainless steel,
silver, or ceramic. People are only beginning to understand the enormous
possibilities for industry, logistics, education, science and medicine.
[http://www.pbs.org/arts/gallery/off-book-%7C-season-two/offbook-3d-printing/]This
video provides is a great short explanation.
Carried regenerative medicine to the point of growing people new organs using their
own cells. In fact, we will be able to 3D-print new organs using live cells within
the foreseeable future. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Y_nd-NAtk]In this video
Dr. Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine explains
how they are growing replacement bladders in incubators using patients’ own cells.
Created intelligent, autonomous drones for civilian use. You might have heard of
drone military aircraft (especially after Senator Rand Paul’s impressive filibuster
this week) but soon civilians will have access to drones of all sizes as well. The
potential for cargo shipping, transportation, public safety and more is
extraordinary. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/swarming-drones.html]This
video of a University of Pennsylvania lab shows a whole swarm of personal drones.
Pioneered the development of a driverless car. In addition to autonomous aircraft,
Americans might soon travel in cars controlled completely by artificial
intelligence. Sebastian Thrun at Google leads a team that created a car which has
driven hundreds of thousands of miles autonomously on California roads. The
implications for safety and quality of life are incalculable.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp9KBrH8H04]He explains the project in this video.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rgN8MOrss40#!]This Audi
already parks itself automatically.
Launched private spacecraft, without NASA. Sir Richard Branson and others have
independently developed private spacecraft which are prepared to carry paying
customers on suborbital flights and beyond. Last week, SpaceX became the first
private company to resupply the International Space Station.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVDTSi7zblY]Branson discusses Virgin Galactic in
this video.
Made a high quality education available to everyone online, for free. Salman Khan, a
former hedge fund analyst, has recorded thousands of hours of free lessons on
everything from basic biology to calculus, in a project that started as a way to
help his younger cousins catch up in school. Today, his ever-expanding collection of
lessons is known as [https://www.khanacademy.org/]Khan Academy. They have been
viewed more than 244 million times. In some schools, teachers now assign students to
take the lessons at home and to do their homework in class -- where the teacher can
help kids if they get stumped.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk&feature=player_embedded]Salman Khan
talks about project in this video.
Several of these developments may be at least as important as the computer
revolution of the past two decades.
This gives us overwhelming cause for optimism. After all, this is occurring even as
we are stuck with a government trapped in the past, the legacy system that is the
federal bureaucracy.
The charades playing out in Washington among prisoners of the past are not the most
significant events for our economy. They are certainly not the most important
stories of our time.
Americans working together on projects like this, our pioneers of the future, will
do more to grow the economy, more to expand freedom and opportunity, and more to
shatter bureaucracy than Washington ever will. In that sense, at least, the city is
already nearly as insignificant as we would like it to be.
Send us your own stories or videos of pioneers of the future at
[http://gingrichproductions.com/pioneers]GingrichProductions.com/pioneers.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Note Piers' arguments and tactics. Prepare yourself to deal with them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OsVjqyK6_Y
For example, Newt stumbles pretty badly on the question "Do you agree with outlawing automatics?" Upon answering yes, Newt then cannot deal decisively with the follow-up "Well, then what is the practical difference with a semi-auto with a magazine that holds 100 rounds that can fire them in less than one minute?"
How do we handle this one?
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Note Piers' arguments and tactics. Prepare yourself to deal with them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OsVjqyK6_Y
For example, Newt stumbles pretty badly on the question "Do you agree with outlawing automatics?" Upon answering yes, Newt then cannot deal decisively with the follow-up "Well, then what is the practical difference with a semi-auto with a magazine that holds 100 rounds that can fire them in less than one minute?"
How do we handle this one?
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/02/robert-farago/hey-dan-memo-to-piers-morgan-heres-another-example-of-an-ar-15-used-for-self-defense/
Memo to Piers Morgan: Here’s ANOTHER Example of an AR-15 Used for Self-Defense
Anything that holds 100 rounds can generally be counted on to malfunction constantly. Very few people can accurately employ a rifle with a 100 round drum that isn't jamming with any kind of accuracy when attempting to hit anything beyond contact distance. The problem is that Newt and most others in the national spotlight haven't much, if any experience and training in firearms usage.
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Yes, agreed that handling more than one is one of the first points we should make about defending +10 clips, ARs and the like.
That said how do we handle this one?
"For example, Newt stumbles pretty badly on the question "Do you agree with outlawing automatics?" Upon answering yes, Newt then cannot deal decisively with the follow-up "Well, then what is the practical difference with a semi-auto with a magazine that holds 100 rounds that can fire them in less than one minute?""
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http://nevadaguntrustattorney.com/2011/09/16/the-national-firearms-act-a-brief-history/
The National Firearms Act: A Brief History
Posted on September 16, 2011 by BBunker
The Original National Firearms Act
Originally passed into law in 1934, the National Firearms Act (“NFA”) was enacted in response to the surging crime gang of the era, like the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Congress addressed this issue by imposing a “tax” on certain firearms and devices mistakenly thought to contribute to this crime wave: machine guns, silencers, and short barreled rifles/shotguns.
The NFA required that the possessor of any NFA restricted firearm or device must register it with the Dept. of Treasury (now the Dept. of Justice) and pay the then enormous tax stamp fee of $200. This was intended to discourage possession of these firearms and devices. Unfortunately, the NFA ran into serious constitutional hurdles vis-a-vis the Fifth Amendment in Haynes v. United States, 390 U.S. 85 (1968).
The 1968 Amendment to the NFA (Title II)
Following the setback by the U.S. Supreme Court in Haynes, Congress set about revising the NFA to cure its constitutional flaws. No longer could information from an NFA application be used against a person in a criminal proceeding. Also, Congress expanded the definition of “machine gun” and added destructive devices to the list.
The 1986 Amendment to the NFA: Firearm Owners Protection Act
This ironically named amendment to the NFA adjusted the definition of “silencer” by adding parts for a silencer. The amendment also prohibited the transfer or possession of machineguns, with the exception of those manufactured prior to May 19, 1986 (The infamous “Hughes Amendment”).
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[http://www.gingrichproductions.com/2013/05/a-scandalous-ideology/]
A Scandalous Ideology
With so many big government scandals now implicating the Obama administration, there
is a great effort to tie them personally to President Obama, to discover exactly
what he knew about the IRS targeting conservatives, the AP’s phone records, or
Benghazi security.
Kimberly Strassel’s
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324659404578501411510635312.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop]column
in the Wall Street Journal today details how the 2008 Obama campaign pioneered some
of the very tactics the President now claims to be outraged by, asking for Justice
Department investigations of conservative groups and their donors. If it does turn
out that the President knew about some of the corruption or incompetence under his
watch, he will bear clear responsibility. He already does as the Chief Executive of
the executive branch.
But Republicans should be clear: big government scandals are not about Obama. They
are about big government -- big government that is absolutely out of control whether
under Obama or any other president.
They’re big government scandals because they all arise from the enormous
bureaucratic structures which give unelected people tremendous power with little
accountability. Corruption is completely predictable. As George Will said on ABC’s
This Week recently, “The best construction on the IRS scandal is big government is
impossible to monitor...Any government has to be trusted. But the bigger the
government gets, the bigger the distrust ought to be and will be.”
What better example is there of big government than the IRS?
This is an agency to which every single person, business, and charity must send
intimate financial details every single year.
It employs close to 100,000 bureaucrats.
These bureaucrats administer a tax code that is so big and so complex that it is far
beyond anyone’s ability to understand. They are empowered to audit any person or
group of people they choose, checking for compliance with these often indecipherable
rules, at great expense to the subjects.
It is impossible to ensure all these bureaucrats use their power properly, and if
the public ever does discover impropriety it is virtually impossible to fire them
because they are heavily unionized against the taxpayers whose taxes they collect.
Is it any surprise that such an institution would be susceptible to corruption? That
it would persecute groups it did not like? That it would seek to protect itself, its
bosses, and its workers from accountability?
That’s how you end up with IRS agents investigating the Tea Party breakfasts hosted
by an
[http://washingtonexaminer.com/irs-went-after-83-year-old-tea-party-granny/article/2530131]83-year-old
grandmother who was held in an internment camp during World War II. That’s how you
end up with IRS agents demanding to know from another organization
“[http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-rep-aaron-schock-irs-aked-about-content-of-pro-life-group-s-prayers]the
content of the members’...prayers.”
When corruption occurs in such an institution it is not right to say it was done by
“rogue” employees. It’s the inevitable outcome of creating an agency with vast
powers and little oversight. But agencies with vast powers and little oversight are
what big government is all about.
Columnist John Kass put it best in the Chicago Tribune last week recalling how he
learned the “Chicago way” growing up in the city as the son of small business
owners.
“The city code books aren't thick because politicians like to write new laws and
regulations,” he wrote. “The codes are thick because when government swings them at
a citizen, they hurt.”
James Bovard writing in the Wall Street Journal last week
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324715704578482823301630836.html]recalled
alarming evidence of a culture of corruption that has infested the IRS for some
time: "A 1991 survey of 800 IRS executives and managers by the nonprofit Josephson
Institute of Ethics revealed that three out of four respondents felt entitled to
deceive or lie when testifying before a congressional committee."
The study is old, but has IRS culture changed? Recent reports clearly suggest it has
not
The administration’s handling of the Benghazi scandal shows a similar willingness to
deceive the American people.
Through twelve drafts of talking points for Congress and other public officials,
representatives of the White House and various federal departments whittled down
intelligence presented by the CIA into something unrecognizable and untruthful.
They seemed less concerned about presenting accurate information than about hiding
information that might have made them look bad. The dishonesty continued for months
-- is still continuing -- as Congress is forced to confront officials who want to
mislead them every bit as much as the IRS has.
It certainly matters whether President Obama knew about these big government
scandals or not. But even more important than his prior knowledge is his certain
knowledge today that he presides over a government that is ungovernable at its
current size with its current bureaucratic structures and work rules, out of
anyone’s control including his own, a government whose very condition is a scandal.
He knows abuses of power are common at every level. He knows this government is the
product of his own political ideology. And instead of taking decisive action to
reform these bureaucratic structures, his entire agenda is to expand their reach.
This is a larger, more important fight for America than just a Congressional
skirmish with Obama. These scandals are laying bare what big government is:
structures so vast they are uncontrollable. Conservatives want things to be
governed. They want simple rules to be fairly enforced. The oppressive and
unaccountable bureaucracies we have today are not a way of doing that. They’re just
the opposite.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Newt has some good points as he always does. Rush was saying more or less the same thing on radio sometime this past week.
Rush more or less said, don't get your hopes up that we can rid ourselves of the tyrant ONE (my name not his for the ONE which is Crafty's name - I just embellished it a bit). But all that is besides the point anyway as it is not about him but the big government forces of the liberals.
IMHO -
The republicans appear to be taking the scandals opportunity to the first step back to redemption. But they cannot simply make elections ONLY about the evils of "big government". We have already been there done that. What we wind up is praying Rasmussen is right and many Dems don't show up at the polls and we squeeze out another close margin victory.
The party IMHO has to do more to prove we are inclusive to other groups. The party has to prove that we simply don't replace big gov with private wolfs thieves and scoundrels. People can see the wealthy getting rich on Wall street. They can see the bankers came through this without a scratch. They can see how the rich and powerful have advantages in DC and in the courts the rest of us don't have.
I agree with GM . There will always be those at the top that take advantage of what is available to them. What I am asking at least the f' Repubs should at least recognize this. Instead they ALWAYS look the other way. If they were to recognize this and at least give some lip service to this point and offer some plan to combat this than maybe just maybe they could be ahead in Pew or CBS or CNN poll for a change.
Maybe even a few more Blacks and Latinos and Asians might be inclined to vote for them.
I would be curious as to what Doug thinks about my thoughts. Doug always has great insight from the political point of view.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/4/newt-gingrich-rethinks-neoconservative-views/?page=all#pagebreak
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Reagan Would Say No
Leaders who would consider involving the United States in Syria’s civil war against the will of the American people should weigh their decision against Ronald Reagan’s four principles for “the application of military force abroad.” Reagan established these principles after nearly 300 American and French troops were killed in an attack on their barracks in Beirut in 1983. He listed them in his autobiography:
1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.
2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.
3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We all felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.)
4. Even after all these other combat tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available. (Ronald Reagan: An American Life, 466)
Measure the Obama administration's muddled case for war in Syria against these principles.
“The clear intent and support needed to win”? Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Wednesday in a Congressional hearing that the mission would cost in the range of “tens of millions of dollars.” Tomahawk missiles cost about one million dollars apiece. If it’s going to cost tens (not hundreds) of millions, what are we talking about? Lobbing fifty or so missiles onto targets which the President has given the Syrian regime weeks to evacuate?
Last night, ABC News and CNN reported the Pentagon will potentially use B-52 and B-2 bombers, indicating a much larger campaign that would likely cost more than the “tens of millions” Secretary Hagel predicted.
Indeed, the administration appears to be simply thinking out loud about taking the country to war.
That’s exactly the phrase Secretary of State John Kerry used to describe part of his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he waffled back and forth on the question of whether the President might require American combat troops in Syria.
Early in the hearing he stated unequivocally, “We all agree, there will be no American boots on the ground.”
Then when asked if the administration would accept a Congressional resolution prohibiting “boots on the ground,” Secretary Kerry said it would prefer not to, before proceeding to imagine a scenario in which American ground forces might end up in Syria.
Then he said he had just been “thinking out loud,” and that he really meant that the administration would have “no problem” with a resolution which left it with “zero capacity for American troops on the ground.”
In the same hearing, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he couldn’t speak to the scope of the authorization the President is seeking from Congress. When Senator Bob Corker asked, “What is it you’re seeking?”, the general replied, “I can’t answer that, what we’re seeking.”
The Obama administration is seemingly making this up as its goes along. On Sunday the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama made the last-minute decision to seek Congressional approval “after returning from a 45-minute walk.” Yet the President wouldn’t ask lawmakers to return to Washington early. Only days after sending Secretary Kerry in front of the cameras to make what sounded like an urgent case for a strike, the administration reversed its tone completely, saying it didn’t matter if the U.S. launched its attack tomorrow or a month from now.
How can Congress be expected to vote in favor of improvisational war planning--especially for action that meets none of the criteria President Reagan described?
Your Friend,
Newt
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Newt may be fudgin his Iraq history a bit here , , ,
Hawks, Doves, and Owls
As we remember the horrors of September 11, 2001, I want to add a new bird to our national security language.
For years we have talked about hawks and doves.
The term war hawk goes back to 1798, when Thomas Jefferson applied it to Federalists who wanted to go to war with France.
In the election of 1810 the war hawks won and elected Henry Clay as Speaker of the House (the only freshman member of Congress in history to become speaker). In 1812 they got their war which was with Great Britain.
The dove as a symbol of peace goes all the way back to the dove bringing the olive branch to Noah as a sign the waters had receded.
During coverage of the Cuban missile crisis commentators began to describe the hawk wing which wanted to invade Cuba and the dove wing which wanted to find a diplomatic solution.
During the Vietnam War the concept of hawks and doves became wide spread.
For most of my career I would have been called a hawk. When we founded the Military Reform Caucus in 1981, I said that I was a hawk, but a cheap hawk.
We have gained a lot of experience with war and violence in the Middle East since then. Indeed, we have been in a struggle in the Middle East for at least 34 years (going back to the Iranian hostage takeover).
We lost 241 service members in Beirut in 1983 (almost certainly masterminded by an Iranian).
We liberated Kuwait from Saddam in 1991.
We tried to police Saddam through the United Nations and coalition efforts for 12 years before the second Iraq war.
In 1996 we lost 19 airmen when the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia were attacked.
In 1998 we had embassies bombed in Kenya and Tanzania by al-Qaeda.
In 2000 in Yemen terrorists attacked the USS Cole and we lost 17 sailors.
Twelve years ago today in 2001, Islamist radicals attacked the American homeland with four coordinated aircraft hijackings, destroying the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon and killing nearly 3,000 people.
During the 12 years since then we have been fighting across the planet, particularly Afghanistan and Iraq. I was initially in favor of both the Afghan and Iraq campaigns. Beginning in December 2003, I said that the United States had gone of the cliff in Iraq and was engaged in an inevitably losing strategy.
The result of the longest continuous war in American history is a mess.
Libya is a mess.
Egypt is unstable.
Iraq is violent.
Afghanistan is unstable.
Pakistan has large pockets of violence.
Iran is working to build a nuclear weapon.
Yemen is a mess.
Mali is a mess.
Radical Islamists are gaining recruits and spreading around the world.
It is with this backdrop that 85 percent of the American people in one recent poll said they were opposed to the United States getting involved in the Syrian civil war.
The American people are right.
Assad is bad.
The opposition to Assad is bad and maybe worse.
It is inconceivable that the United States would project enough power to change the Syrian system of factional warfare and hatred.
Staying out is not a sign we are becoming a nation of doves.
If directly threatened the American people will be as hawkish and aggressive as needed.
The last few decades, however, have taught us a lot.
We want to think long and hard before committing to war.
We want to ensure there is no alternative to risking the lives of our young men and women.
We want to know that there is a realistic goal that is achievable.
We are as tough as hawks but the lessons of history have made us slower, wiser, and more cautious. We are not isolationists and we are not doves.
We are owls.
Your Friend,
Newt
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He is right; it is neither hawk nor dove we need in such trying times. The answer is wisdom - backed up with core principles and backbone. I like the symbolism, but it is not another bird we are looking for.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/20/gingrich-responds-to-coulter-suggests-making-money-motived-her-to-make-criticism/
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/20/gingrich-responds-to-coulter-suggests-making-money-motived-her-to-make-criticism/
(http://michellemalkinblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/1agreens1.jpg)
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Hat tip to Big Dog:
http://www.gingrichproductions.com/2013/12/what-would-you-have-done-nelson-mandela-and-american-conservatives/
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Obama’s Attack on Israel
"The success of Hamas in closing Israeli airspace is a great victory for the resistance, and is the crown of Israel’s failure,” a Hamas spokesman said today.
When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, the United States became the first country in the world to recognize the Jewish state, just 11 minutes later. That recognition, however, came after one of the greatest foreign policy disputes in American history—a fight in which Secretary of State George C. Marshall told President Truman that “if the President were to [recognize Israel] and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the President.”
This was an astonishing rebuke coming from any cabinet officer, and more so coming from Marshall—a popular figure who as Chief of Staff of the Army during World War II had helped win the war—and directed at Truman, one of the least popular presidents in recent history. But Truman was still the president, and he had the wisdom to forge with Israel what has become one of our country’s closest friendships.
Later, when Syria and Egypt invaded Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, President Nixon airlifted heavy arms and supplies to help Israel defend itself.
Contrast those strong actions with President Obama’s response to the current crisis threatening our ally.
The President’s FAA-imposed ban on flights into Ben Gurion International Airport is the most hostile step any American president has taken toward Israel in its entire existence. The restriction deals a major psychological blow to our friends, prevents Israelis across the world from returning home, stops tourists and others from leaving, and creates a major disruption to the country’s economy its tourism industry especially.
Even worse, it hands an extraordinary victory to Hamas, a terrorist organization that also happens to be the government in Gaza.
The decision can only be interpreted as a willful attack by the United States and one of its closest allies at a time of great crisis. It was clearly deliberate. If the restriction had been an accident—an unfortunate mistake by some bumbling bureaucrat at the FAA— the President could simply have reversed it when he found out about it.
Given the circumstances, it is impossible to believe the cessation of flights was not a deliberate act on the part of the Obama administration to undermine Israel and bully it into accepting the “ceasefire” President Obama and Secretary Kerry desperately want.
The Israelis maintain that their airport is safe. Their own airline, El Al, continues to fly. They have demonstrated with impressive accuracy the ability of their Iron Dome missile defense shield to protect Tel Aviv from Hamas rockets. Except for a single rocket discovered about a mile from the airport, there is no evidence to support the FAA’s decision.
That’s the same FAA that allows flights into Baghdad. That allows flights into Kabul. Into Peshawar and Kandahar. It allows flights, for that matter, into Kiev. These are all places where the FAA might apply the same logic as it did in Tel Aviv—there are bad people in the neighborhood who sometimes do bad things.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood bravely against the administration’s bullying tactics when he released a statement last night announcing:
“This evening I will be flying on El Al to Tel Aviv to show solidarity with the Israeli people and to demonstrate that it is safe to fly in and out of Israel. Ben Gurion is the best protected airport in the world and El Al flights have been regularly flying in and out of it safely. The flight restrictions are a mistake that hands Hamas an undeserved victory and should be lifted immediately I strongly urge the FAA to reverse course and permit US airlines to fly to Israel.”
Mike Bloomberg is exactly right about the effects of the administration’s decision, which is even more damaging in the context of the American government’s latest pronouncements. All week Secretary Kerry and President Obama have been pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire against an enemy that is actively trying to kill Israelis. They warn Israel that the United States is “deeply concerned” about civilian casualties in Gaza.
Indeed, everyone is worried about civilian casualties. Everyone except Hamas.
Have Obama and Kerry forgotten how the current violence started?
It started with Palestinian terrorists firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians.
It continued with the discovery of hidden tunnels—dozens of them—which Hamas has dug into Israel with the intention, apparently, of launching an invasion of terrorists into Israel to kidnap Israelis and drag them back through the tunnels into Gaza.
A few militants who made it through the tunnels were found to be carrying tranquilizers and handcuffs. Today Israel discovered a tunnel filled with a trove of Israeli Defense Force uniforms in which the terrorists were evidently planning to disguise themselves.
This is the stuff of nightmares. And in the middle of Israel’s campaign to stop such atrocities, Obama and Kerry are criticizing Israel for causing civilian casualties? They’re handing a victory, with the flight cancellations, to Hamas, which hides its weapons and its militants in civilian homes to use women and children as human shields. It is an act of enormous cowardice.
President Obama should immediately reverse the FAA’s ban on flights into Ben Gurion International Airport and should apologize to Israel for the mistake. And Congress should hold hearings on the decision process to determine for certain if this was a deliberate political attack by the Obama White House on America’s ally.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Obama, Buchanan, and Baldwin: The Cost of Rejecting Reality
President Obama is in serious danger of joining a select group of disastrous leaders who put their people and their country in desperate circumstances that cost lives and risked ruinous defeat.
Almost everywhere you look around the world, the situation is worse for the United States and worse for freedom than when President Obama took office—in many cases catastrophically so. There isn’t much sign that he recognizes this or is particularly concerned.
Iraq is the most obvious (and potentially most dangerous) example. The Washington Post clarified the stakes there in a report quoting Janine Davidson at the Council of Foreign Relations. Davidson noted that ISIS, the terrorist group that has taken over much of the Iraq, “now controls resources and territory unmatched in history of extremist organizations.”
The Post went on to quote the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Iraq and Iran, describing ISIS:
It’s “worse than al-Qaeda,” Brett McGurk…told lawmakers last month. It “is no longer simply a terrorist organization. It is now a full-blown army seeking to establish a self-governing state through the Tigris and Euphrates valley in what is now Syria and Iraq.”
Just this past January, President Obama dismissed this new threat "worse than al-Qaeda" with the trivializing quip: “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”
Assuming the President was telling the truth, the White House analysis seven months ago was that ISIS was an irrelevant junior varsity split off from the really important al-Qaeda.
That would be a mistaken analysis of historic proportions. Yet it fits the continuing pattern of the State Department and the White House underestimating Boko Haram in Nigeria, the terrorists in Libya, the Taliban in Afghanistan (where an Afghan just killed an American major general, the highest ranking officer lost in the last 12 years of war), the Iranian nuclear program, the Iranian influence over Maliki in Iraq, the depth of Hamas's commitment to destroying Israel (killing every Jew as Hamas’s charter promises and as Hamas spokesmen have continued to suggest), etc. etc.
The Obama administration's Middle East confusion is matched by its misunderstanding of dictatorship in Venezuela, Putin's intentions around the Russian periphery, the growing North Korean weapons program, the growing Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea and with the Japanese. Again and again there is a growing gap between reality and the Obama Administration's analysis and plans.
Well-meaning but delusional governments can have catastrophic consequences and many people can die as a result of misinformed, overly positive, and or fantasy-driven leadership.
President James Buchanan simply couldn't bring himself to intervene to stop the South from arming itself, taking over federal armories and setting the stage for Civil War. He left the Union in much worse shape, made war much more likely, and is generally considered to be the most destructive president in American history.
Similarly, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin lied to the British people about the German military buildup under Hitler. He knew the truth but was afraid of annoying the British voters by forcing them to confront the danger of war. He simply wasn’t truthful, as Churchill pointed out time and again in frustration. Chamberlain succeeded Baldwin and continued the process of ignoring the demonic evil in the Hitler dictatorship and trying desperately to cut a deal to protect Britain even at the cost of selling out
Czechoslovakia.
President Obama should study carefully the costs of self-deception and weakness. He is in grave danger of leading us into a disaster on a scale that will be historic and will condemn him to be in the league of Buchanan and Baldwin.
That would be a horrifying legacy and a horrifyingly expensive result in both blood and pain.
Look at the facts as they are unfolding and decide for yourself if this analysis is too strong.
I fear the future will prove this analysis correct.
Your Friend,
Newt
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https://mobile.twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122?s=11&refsrc=email
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Obama Blasts Bullying, Ignores Beheading
Originally published at the Washington Times
The 2016 State of the Union was very striking for the one-sidedness and disproportion of the President's concern for religious suffering.
President Obama worried that "politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or fellow citizens."
But he couldn't bring himself to worry aloud about the Christians being driven from Middle Eastern countries, the churches being burned from Nigeria to Malaysia, or the 22 Coptic Christians who were beheaded on video on a beach in Libya by Islamic supremacists.
Insulting Muslims: bad. Killing Christians: irrelevant.
The President went on to say that when “a kid is called names, that doesn't make us safer, it diminishes us in the eyes of the world."
Why is our civilization—or Islamic civilization, for that matter—diminished by name-calling, when the real damage to both is being done by virulent, violent Islamic supremacism? (After all, the vast majority of Muslims being violently killed are killed by Islamic supremacists.)
The President saw fit to blast bullying in his State of the Union, but he said nothing of the beheadings that leave Americans justifiably afraid. Nor did he mention San Bernardino, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11—which occurred just over a month ago.
If calling a kid names is bad enough to diminish us all, how does the President feel about the incident in France this week, in which a Muslim student in Marseille pulled out a machete and tried to kill his Jewish teacher? Indeed, the situation in France is so hostile to Jews that the leader of the Jewish community in Marseille advised that they should stop wearing yarmulkes because it makes them targets. Not since the Nazis have Jews been told it is dangerous to be overtly Jewish in a European country.
Moreover, if calling a kid names diminishes us all, how would the President characterize the hundreds of assaults and rapes of German women by immigrants over New Years? How would he describe the German media’s and German government’s efforts to censor the news so that people would not know about it?
The President talks about "telling it like it is," but neglects to mention the thousands of women and girls sold into sexual slavery by ISIS. He says that the United States has the most powerful military on the planet, but offers no strategy for ending the brutal rule of ISIS over millions of people.
Finally, the President highlighted his delusions about the dangers of the real world at the close of his speech, when he said that he was optimistic that "unarmed truth...will have the final word.”
This is a wonderful phrase for a preacher.
It is a terrible phrase for a commander-in-chief.
Unarmed truth would have its head cut off by ISIS.
Unarmed truth would be sold into slavery by Boko Haram.
Unarmed truth would be massacred by Al-Shabab.
It is a sad reality that while President Obama is very sympathetic to the plight of Muslims, he is stunningly silent about the plight of Jews and Christians.
It is a frightening reality that President Obama has no idea how dangerous the world would be if truth did not have the protection of the American military.
This was a very disturbing State of the Union—an address that explains much of our current danger.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Supreme Court Justice Obama?
Originally published at the Washington Times
As the Republican primaries have become increasingly contentious in recent weeks, various factions have threatened not to support the others should their preferred candidate fail to win the nomination. But if the prospect of Hillary Clinton as president is not frightening enough to unite Republicans behind their eventual nominee, perhaps something Secretary Clinton said in Iowa this week will be.
Asked at one of her town hall meetings if she would consider appointing Barack Obama to the Supreme Court after his term as president, Hillary appeared as if she had just heard the best idea of her life.
“Wow, what a great idea!” she gushed. “Nobody has ever SUGGESTED that to me! WOW. I love that! Wow.”
For the full, chilling effect, you will have to watch the video. It must be seen to be believed. It’s uncanny.
If--despite our history with her--we are to take Hillary at her word, it seems there is a chance she would appoint the most anti-Constitutional president in American history to the Supreme Court of the United States, where he could remain for decades as the most anti-Constitutional Supreme Court justice in American history.
From the point of view of Democrat primary voters (if not from Clinton’s), the idea isn’t insane.
The party openly celebrates President Obama’s illegal actions--from suspending immigration law by executive fiat, to modifying Obamacare (“the law of the land”) at whim, to using the IRS to target conservative opponents, to making “recess appointments” when the Senate was not in recess. Democrats would like to protect as many such overreaches as they can. Undoubtedly, they could trust President Obama to give his illegal innovations--and the many others sure to be committed by a Clinton administration--the stamp of Constitutionality.
The idea of appointing a former chief executive to the bench is not without precedent. In 1921, Warren Harding nominated former President William Howard Taft to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. Taft went on to hold the position for more than eight years, and regarded it as the greatest honor of his life.
Somewhat like Taft, President Obama has exactly the “right” background for the job. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where six out of the nine current justices went to school. And before he ran for office, Obama was a Constitutional law professor, which is all the experience that many other justices required to begin pronouncing law from nation’s highest court. (Obama has certainly had plenty of practice pronouncing it from the presidency.)
If the thought of Justice Obama is not frightening enough by itself, consider that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. served on the Court until he was 90 years old. By that measure, President Obama, who is 54 today, could be on the bench until 2052--or even longer, if the miracles of medicine are able to keep him issuing opinions into his ninth decade.
Imagine the damage he might do from a perch of 30 or 40 years on the Supreme Court. Or consider just a few of the questions that today hang by a 5-4 majority of the conservatives: whether the free speech clause of the First Amendment protects speech about political matters (Citizens United v. FEC), whether the religious liberty protections in the Constitution apply to Americans who own businesses (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby), and whether there are any limits at all to what the federal government can justify under the Commerce Clause (NFIB V. Sebelius).
Whether or not President Hillary would in fact appoint Barack Obama to a retirement job on the Supreme Court, we can be absolutely certain about one thing: she would surely appoint justices who would eagerly overturn all of those 5-4 cases, and sanction almost any abuses of power she could think up.
In other words, no matter whom she nominated, Hillary’s lifetime appointees would decide cases as if they were Justice Barack Obama. That specter alone should be terrifying enough to end any talk within the GOP about not supporting the eventual Republican nominee.
Your Friend,
Newt
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http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/30/exclusive-newt-gingrich-evaluates-2016s-political-climate/
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Agree. Cruz in starting to seem in a sense like Romney. Just cannot get over the hump so to speak, but for different reasons. He is not likable no matter what. I don't see how anyone can win without a likability factor.
Bush now in 2nd in NH by one poll! God help us. He is a disaster.
I would take Christie over him. Maybe even Kasich...... :?
I would certainly vote Trump before him
I ddin't see the debate. Was Rubio really that bad or is the MSM and his political enemies making it out to be worse?
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http://www.subjectpolitics.com/top-5-newt-gingrich-debate-zingers/
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If Donald loses, the question arises-- does someone else succeed him to lead the movement, and if so, who? Here Pravda on the Hudson offers its take:
Mr. Gingrich’s ‘Big Trump’
By TERESA TRITCHOCT. 21, 2016
Newt Gingrich listens as Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally earlier this year. Credit Ty Wright for The New York Times
It’s no big surprise that Newt Gingrich is still a gung-ho adviser to the Trump campaign. Mr. Gingrich has long espoused political views similar to Donald Trump’s.
But there is more to the alliance than a meeting of the minds. Mr. Gingrich understands that Mr. Trump appears to be losing not because his message has failed to resonate with Americans but because he is a poor messenger.
“I don’t defend him [Trump] when he wanders off,” Mr. Gingrich recently told ABC News. But “there’s a big Trump and there’s a little Trump,” he said, explaining that the big Trump is the one who has created issues that make “the establishment” very uncomfortable.
“The big Trump,” he said, “is a historic figure.”
With statements like that, Mr. Gingrich is positioning himself as the keeper of the Trump-campaign themes and, by extension, as the politician best able to mobilize Trump supporters going forward.
In the 1990s, Mr. Gingrich spearheaded the antigovernment movement. As House speaker from 1995 to 1999, he invoked racial stereotypes about African-Americans during debates over welfare reform. During his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, he repeatedly called President Obama the “food stamp president.”
Mr. Gingrich played to birther movement sentiments in 2010 when he said that Mr. Obama exhibited “Kenyan, anticolonial behavior.”
And now, he is extolling the virtues of “big Trump.” There is a pattern here, and it does not bode well for American politics.
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quote author=Crafty_Dog If Donald loses, the question arises-- does someone else succeed him to lead the movement, and if so, who? Here Pravda on the Hudson offers its take: ...Gingrich...
Newt is a great American, has been a great supporter of Trump, probably designed and wrote Trump's new Contract with the American Voter. He is a great surrogate and behind the scenes adviser. That said, as a candidate and a player, he had his time and he had his chance. He isn't the leader or the successor. As youthful as he comes across he is older than both Hillary and Trump. He had his own women and fidelity issues. He worked for Fannie Mae as a "historian" when he should have been lobbying for its demise. There isn't a successor to Trump and his hardest core supporters aren't coming back to merge with the other wings. We have to replay this whole, rotten ordeal having learned nothing and with a side that is small and even more divided.
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"There isn't a successor to Trump "
No . And everyone else looks like a midget next to his guts. Too bad he couldn't control himself.
With this and my other statements posted today I still hope it ain't over till its over. :|
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You may be right Doug.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/news/308437-gingrich-ups-speaking-fees-cites-trump-insight-report
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The Other Half of ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’
Originally published at Fox News.
President-elect Trump said his administration will be focused on three very important words: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
He has outlined a bold agenda to achieve 4 percent economic growth in America, and much of that agenda involves undoing the Obama administration’s disastrous regulations that get in the way of job creation, but job creation is only half the challenge. Americans must have the skills necessary to do the jobs that are created under this new, more dynamic economy.
Meeting this goal will also require undoing the harmful actions of the Obama administration, specifically the devastating impact his Department of Education is having on career education in America.
Career education is distinct from the four-year Bachelor of Arts and Science programs you might think of as higher education. Career education certificates and associate degrees typically take 1 or 2 years, respectively, and rather than providing a broad-based education, they are specifically tailored to prepare students for specific jobs.
The demand for these programs is growing. Since 2003, per the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of certificate degrees awarded has increased by 40.9% and the number of associates degrees awarded has increased by 50.8%. This is a much faster rate of increase than the growth in Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees of 33%.
Many of these programs are offered at community colleges, but private sector career schools play a vital role as well. In 2014, more than 1/3 of certificates and almost 1/6 of associate degrees in America were awarded by private sector career colleges.
In fact, these numbers understate how critical private sector schools are to certain industries.
Healthcare is a prime example. According to a recent analysis of Department of Education data by Career Education Colleges and Universities, 78% of vocational/practical nurses and nursing assistants, 74% of medical assistants, 43% of ultrasound technicians, and 39% of surgical technologists are educated at private sector colleges and universities.
The fields of computer networking, electrical and electronic engineering, heating and ventilation installation and airplane and auto repair also disproportionately rely on private sector career schools to provide workers with the skills necessary to fill critical jobs.
Disgracefully, despite the vital nature of private sector career education to the American economy, the Obama administration has launched an ideologically motivated assault on private sector schools.
Over the past four years, the Department of Education forced almost 900 private sector campuses into closure, throwing tens of thousands of students out on the street – many of them low-income adults, single parents and African Americans and Latinos.
In just the past thirty days – in a final effort to cause as much damage to private sector schools before President-elect Trump takes office – the Obama Department of Education has revoked the accreditation status of ACICS – a national accreditor which certifies many private sector career schools in America, and deliberately done to immediately put almost over 700 schools in serious jeopardy.
Just as President-elect Trump has made it clear that he intends to undo many of the Obama administration’s disastrous regulations that hurt job creation, his administration should swiftly announce it will take steps to undo the damage President Obama has done to career education in America.
First, the Trump administration should announce that it will give ACICS 12 months to correct the deficiencies which the Obama administration used as an excuse to try and shut them down. This is a standard grace period that the Department of Education normally gives after notifying an accreditor that it is not meeting certain standards. The only reason ACICS was not given this same courtesy is because the Obama administration viewed them as a vehicle through which they could attack private sector schools.
In addition, the Trump administration should announce that it intends to make the disastrous Gainful Employment Rule open for review. This rule, which I have written about before , removes programs from eligibility for federally backed student loans if the earnings of its graduates do not meet an arbitrary debt/earnings threshold in three years.
As predicted by many, the rule is hurting students rather than helping them. For instance, students in lower wage states are having their opportunities for career advancement eliminated simply due to differences in the cost of living. The rule also doesn’t appreciate that many fields – such as the culinary arts and design programs – require a period of apprenticeship, which means that graduates will not necessarily realize the real value of their degrees in just three years.
The Trump administration should also announce that two rules which have not yet gone into effect – the Borrower Defense to Repayment (projected to cost over $16 billion over ten years) and the State Authorization Rule – will be immediately withdrawn. Instead, Congress and the Trump administration should work together to craft better solutions when they reauthorize the Higher Education Act later this year. There is clear precedent for these actions provided by none other than President Obama himself.
In 2009, his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent directives to all departments and agencies instructing them not only to withdraw all rules which were not yet implemented, but also to act to stop “rules which raise substantial questions of law or policy.” The biased rulemaking and regulatory enforcement of the Department of Education against private sector schools certainly rises to this standard.
President-elect Trump can show that he is indeed focused on jobs and send a signal now that the assault on career education will come to an end in his administration. Only then will Americans have access to the vital skills education they need to get good jobs in the 21st century.
Your Friend,
Newt
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https://www.gingrich360.com/2020/09/newts-world-ep-130-the-bidens-chinese-secrets/
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One of the players in this suit brought this to my attention:
file:///C:/Users/prett_000/Downloads/Ethics.pdf
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/its-time-to-balance-the-budget_3918689.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-27&mktids=a51020e17a5a4209835beaa3e12a0f0c&est=h8vh5Bj%2FZNCYCNGzivAB6IRo%2BWHNbmrOkSRz0oG%2F4sJ0yfMcKwTIlOWMMy3QUtMfv03O
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/12/20/gingrich_dealing_with_the_left_is_not_a_political_problem_its_a_mental_health_problem.html
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I love listening to Newt
he always has interesting take
AOC brand politics = mental illness
White House staff real leaders of the WH - not jBiden
Biden the worst president since the (possible first gay one). Buchanan
always has interesting takes
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Newt has an aspect to his depth that I attribute to his having been a college prof of American history.
I remember when he was running for the Rep nomination for president. It was in NH and he spoke off the cuff for about an hour on the history behind the Second Amendment. I sat enthralled.
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Crafty: "... I attribute to his having been a college prof of American history."
Yes, but unfortunately a lot of people teach "American history" today without the curiosity that drives one to get that depth of knowledge, wisdom and insight.
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https://www.gingrich360.com/2021/12/21/joe-manchin-and-the-white-house-staff/?fbclid=IwAR0-H_cgMkmpwMvuYxpYSqsxIutGqu_fKWTaeEjdsgtVdPqaz0XP7YxMl1A
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https://www.gingrich360.com/2021/12/21/joe-manchin-and-the-white-house-staff/?fbclid=IwAR0-H_cgMkmpwMvuYxpYSqsxIutGqu_fKWTaeEjdsgtVdPqaz0XP7YxMl1A
Great story by Newt. Huge mishandling of Manchin by Biden and staffers. Those staffers should be fired, but good for us that dysfunction lives on.
It is outrageous and totally undemocratic that Omar, AOC, these staffers or anyone should believe we should have legislation that only 49 Senators support. Anyone who reads West Virginia (Trump +39 actual result) as a liberal bastion is an idiot.
More interesting is the reaction in the heartland. The radicals may be in office but moderate Dem voters outside Washington are siding with Manchin against the other 49.
They used to use that divide the other way. In Amy Klobuchar's first race, she said moderate Republican Sen John McCain voted against tax cuts and that somehow proves Bush- Republican tax rate cuts were reckless, even though we gradually learned John McCain was an attention seeker, a sellout and an economic dunce.
As already posted, the spot-on criticisms Manchin had of this legislation will most certainly be featured in the campaign ads running in the swing districts and states this year. You don't have to be a Republican to know that doubling the size of an already bloated government and astronomical debt is a bad idea.
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An American majority, not a Republican majority
Part two: Lessons from Reagan
By Newt Gingrich
To really understand the American majority that we can build, we must understand the one that emerged to support former President Ronald Reagan. Further, it is essential to understand how much Reagan had learned from former President Richard Nixon and the emerging, massive, anti-left majority that first appeared in 1972.
In the years preceding Nixon’s presidency, left-wing values combined with big government bureaucracy and massive income transfers had created a disaster. There were nearly 160 riots in the summer of 1967, and the Black Panthers openly called for the assassination of police (at least 19 were killed). Leftist activists committed more than 2,500 domestic bombings in 1970 and 1971 (averaging five per day).
Rational people started to react to the chaos. The development of a new American radicalism to replace the New Deal coalition of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was captured brilliantly in Tom Wolfe’s 1970 article on “Radical Chic” and his other essays parodying the left’s absurdity.
Theodore White, in his “Making of the President 1972” argued that the radical Sen. George McGovern found it impossible to appeal to mainstream Democrats because the liberal ideology had become a liberal theology. The earlier FDR-liberal politicians had been able to compromise and to consider public opinion and practical realities. The new theologians of the “Church of Leftwingism” were rigid in their positions. And those positions were totally unacceptable to a substantial number of Democrats and virtually all independents and Republicans.
Furthermore, the rise of the hardline leftists was connected to the rise of Big Government socialism in President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. As Charles Murray and Marvin Olasky outlined in “Losing Ground” and “The Tragedy of American Compassion,” respectively, it was the Great Society that broke with historic American norms in favor of left-wing ideological stubbornness.
So, the rise of Big Government socialism and radical left-wing culture in the late 1960s and early ’70s began a dramatic shift in political support for popular conservative, pro-American ideas.
Nixon had been through a harrowing series of races starting with losing a virtual tie in 1960 to Sen. John F. Kennedy, then a shocking loss (48.8% to 51.9%) in California to incumbent Gov. Pat Brown. Finally, he had won the election by a stunningly narrow margin in a three-way race in 1968, Nixon (43.4%) beat Democrat Vice President Hubert Humphrey (42.7%) and independent Gov. George Wallace (13.5%).
However, just four years later, in 1972, Nixon won a stunningly big victory with 60.7% to Sen. George McGovern’s 37.5%. Mr. Nixon then won reelection by a slightly bigger margin than Reagan would in 1984 (58.8%).
Reagan instinctively understood the need for an American majority rather than a Republican majority.
Reagan’s first great national televised political speech was Oct. 27, 1964, “A Time for Choosing” speech on behalf Of Sen. Barry Goldwater’s campaign. In that speech, Reagan clearly indicated he was speaking for more than the Republican base: “I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines.”
In Reagan’s own race for governor of California in 1966, he outlined the case for welfare reform, lower taxes and combatting left-wing radicals on academic campuses. He did so as a “citizen candidate” reaching far beyond the Republican base. In this first race, Reagan received 57.5% to Gov. Pat Brown’s 42.3% (an 8.7% improvement over Nixon’s vote just four years earlier). Reagan was broadening the base, not just mobilizing it.
Reagan continued to reach out to an audience far bigger than the Republican Party. In 1975, when only 17% of voters identified with the GOP, a narrow base mobilization strategy was a guarantee of defeat. Reagan knew that and acted accordingly.
He was following strategies of educating and leading the public which he learned in his eight years at General Electric. This era of his life was captured brilliantly in Thomas Evans’ book “The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism.”
At the 1975 Conservative Political Action Conference, Reagan called for the kind of boldness he had displayed in his first governor’s race. He said: “A Republican Party raising a banner of bold colors, no pale pastels. A banner instantly recognizable as standing for certain values which will not be compromised. Yes, we must broaden our base, but let’s broaden it the way we did in 1972, because those Americans — Democrats and independents and Republicans — are still out there looking for a banner around which to rally. And we have what they want, what they’re seeking. But they don’t know that. And sometimes I wonder if we know it.”
Reagan’s efforts to broaden from a Republican majority to an American majority continued. Consider the opening of his speech to the 1976 Republican National Convention: “I’m going to say fellow Republicans here but those who are watching from a distance — all those millions of Democrats and Independents who I know are looking for a cause around which to rally and which I believe we can give them.”
As the Republican nominee in 1980, Reagan continued to follow a base-broadening strategy and worked to bring his party with him. I participated in the first Republican Capitol Steps event on Sept. 15, 1980. I was the House Republican organizer collaborating with Republican National Committee Chairman Bill Brock to get it done. Never had a presidential candidate joined with his party’s congressional candidates to pledge specific actions.
The historic nature of the day was captured by David Broder, whose entire column is worth reading. Broder wrote: “The implicit message of Monday’s ceremony is that there can be only one government in Washington at a time and that if voters want Reagan to lead it effectively, they have to go all the way with the GOP. … That is an honest statement, and it is as commendable for the Republicans to dramatize it as it is risky.”
The House and Senate candidates joined then-Gov. Reagan and then-Ambassador George H.W. Bush in pledging to: 1. Cut spending on Congress as signal to the rest of the government; 2. Cut government spending and reduce waste, fraud and abuse to fight inflation; 3. Cut individual income taxes across the board and develop incentives for savings, investment and capital recovery to put the country back on road to prosperity; 4. Encourage more private investment and permanent jobs — especially in our central cities; 5. Strengthen our national defense. More than 250 incumbents and candidates stood with the Reagan Bush team and made these pledges. The impact was clear on Election Day when the GOP picked up 12 Senate seats and won control of the upper chamber for the first time since 1954. No one had expected a Republican Senate majority (just as virtually no one would expect a Republican House majority in 1994). It was proof of the power of a tidal wave to exceed expectations. Despite the Republican victory, Reagan continued to reach out to Democrats to create an American majority. On the key vote on his three-year tax cut — the centerpiece of his economic recovery plan — 48 Democrats joined with 190 Republicans to provide a majority in the House. In the Senate, 37 Democrats joined with 52 Republicans topassthetaxcuts. Theterm “Reagan Democrats” began to be used, and his appeal to independents and moderate and conservative Democrats was a key part of his success. Reagan emphasized the broad nature of his coalition in his victory statement for the tax cuts: “The victories we have just won do not belong to any one individual, one partyoroneadministration. “It is a victory for all the people. A strong bipartisan coalition in the Congress — Republicans and Democrats together — has virtually assured the first real tax cut in nearly 20 years. It also has removed one of the most important remaining challenges to our agenda for prosperity.”
This effort to broaden the base and bring together as many Americans as possible would continue throughout Reagan’s eight years in office.
Reagan explicitly acknowledged the American people as the key to all his victories. He asserted: “what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn’t win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Reagan’s regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action.”
Today’s Republicans have an opportunity to rebuild the Reagan American majority. They would do well to study how he did it with simple clear language: “tear down this wall,” “evil empire,” “we win, they lose” – simple, clear, understandable and to the point.
In the next column, I will explain the 1994 Contract with America as a base-broadening American majority strategy that stood on the shoulders of Reagan’s leadership
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-trump-presidency-that-could-have-been_4493400.html?utm_source=Opinion&utm_campaign=opinion-2022-05-26&utm_medium=email&est=7w8Ygp%2Fd8haH3IruYarTjgDjDfx%2BsV4P9U6AmgQL7V2OHGUI2tdMznH0Urd5u8liLSYv
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newt:
"Somewhere there must be some Democrats willing to demand accountability and defend America against this kind of vicious dishonesty and manipulation."
there are none except Joe Manchin
the rest are too busy "SAVING DEMOCRACY"
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sn4zc5RLDs&t=2s
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he woke up this am and saw headlines of job growth:
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/02/newt-gingrich-biden-republicans
the only. thing I am sure of, the answer is not TRUMP!
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and I should add it ain't Mike Lindell.
:roll:
MON Dieu !!!!!
:-o
commit suicide now and get it over with.......
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/newt-gingrich-goes-scorched-earth-on-liz-cheney/ar-AA1ncAX0?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=9f9ceb9ba9704ad8a968c560a9f48073&ei=9
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I found this one both fascinating and perspective changing.
https://spectator.org/trump-is-the-man-nixon-couldnt-be/
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=a363029918ec080eaf226611394cc505_6627b2d2_6d25b5f&selDate=20240423