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.phpPosted 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-campaignGingrich'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
