Posted on 11/26/2011 12:31:21 PM PST by rzman21
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Former Gingrich press secretary Tony Blankley tells ConservativeHome USA that the popular desire to elect someone with ideas and substance has fueled the former House speaker’s rise to the top of the polls.
“While most of the people who are running for president are pretty well informed and pretty bright people, most just end up in talking points,” Blankley says. “There’s not a lot of depth to their discussion, and I think that Newt’s standing out in the debates as somebody who’s actually thought deeply on these issues, cares about them and who discusses them both conceptually and in detail.
“And I think that’s why he’s moved up from single digits to anywhere from around 22 to 24 percent after a couple of months of debates.”
Blankley observes that a candidate like Gingrich has appeal because he stands for ideas and results at a time when both parties can’t seem to get the job done. The Supercommittee’s Super failure stands as the latest and most searing example of Washington’s inability to place the country’s needs before political considerations.
“I think not just a lot of conservatives, but also a lot of independents and moderates want to hear somebody who has some idea of how we can improve things,” Blankley says. “That’s Newt’s strength, and now is his moment, I think.”
Gingrich’s former press secretary jokes that you would need a “really large vehicle, maybe an ocean liner” to affix a bumper sticker that would fit all of Newt’s ideas in one place.
But on a more serious note, Blankley suggests that a Gingrich presidency would be the most ambitious of any in recent memory. Blankley saw Gingrich up close on an almost daily basis throughout the Contract With America and the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994.
“I was with him about 12 hours a day, particularly before he became speaker where it was just the two of us and a secretary in the room,” Blankley says. “I know him very well.”
According to Blankley, Gingrich was just about the only person in the room in the run up to the 1994 midterms who thought the GOP could win early on and made it happen with his dogged determination.
He predicts that the first eight months of a Newt presidency would be not unlike FDR’s in the event he would win along with sizeable GOP majorities in the House and the Senate.
“It would be like 1933, but we’d be going back in the other direction toward markets and traditional values,” Blankley says. “It would be a really thrilling thing to watch.
“We had a bit of that during the first eight months of the Reagan term in ’81 had some of that; it was a pretty invigorating period where the ideas of the new president won support in Congress and the country.”
Gingrich’s record from the 1980s shows he consistently ran to the right of the Reagan administration, particularly in his insistence on a spending freeze in 1983, which put him at loggerheads with people like James Baker and then OMB Director David Stockman, as Evans and Novak reported in January of that year.
Blankley predicts Gingrich would likely have sizeable majorities in both the House and the Senate, but exact number in the latter chamber being more open to question.
“I think you would see a remarkable period of legislation on deregulating, on attracting health care into a more market-oriented system and on reforming taxes,” Blankley says. “But I can’t imagine anyone who would bring the intellectual vigor or policy agenda to the table as Newt would.”
He characterizes Romney as someone who would be more like “a manager” who would manage the nation’s policy problems incrementally rather than in large jumps unlike Gingrich.
“I think we need to do it in larger jumps,” Blankley says. “So I think comparing a Romney to a Gingrich presidency, I think would see a far more dramatic effort under [Newt] more like he did when he was speaker.
“I think the motivation for him to deliver once he’s committed on something is really powerful.”
To date, Gingrich is the only American politician who committed to balancing the federal budget and succeeded.
Blankley predicts based on his knowledge of Gingrich’s character that the former speaker would only choose people in his cabinet who would get the job done and be most effective. He notes that Gingrich bucked House tradition when he tapped people like now Ohio-Gov. John Kasich to chair the House Budget Committee and Henry Hyde to chair the House Judiciary Committee.
Gingrich is man who isn’t restrained by Washington convention, but who instead has consistently bucked custom to get things done.
“Newt believed you picked people who would deliver people who would deliver the results you committed to,” Blankley says. “And I think you’d see that kind of selection in top appointments, and [his] people wouldn’t be there because some faction of the party wanted them to be there, but [rather] because of the policy commitments he made during the campaign.” (Audio of the interview is on-site.)
Works for me as long as we are talking about actual policy proposals he has made and not hyperventilating misrepresentations that have no actual basis in fact. FReegards...
“Maybe you should go live in Derry Maine then. No Mexicans there. Just Somalians. And Tommyknockers. Gotta beware them too. “
I guess you’re down to personal attacks, as usual.
Have a nice day.
Thanks for posting the 10 points.
Sadly, very few will read it in its entirety.
You should post it on every Newt thread for emphasis.
Those of us who are forgiving of his mistakes and flaws will probably soon be zotted for our Christian redemption.
I forgot a question.
If the illegal immigrants don’t have a passport (and I expect they don’t); How will they get home? If the 25 year residents want to travel abroad - will they have to secure a passport from their native country’s consulate and will they be allowed to return to the US on a ‘visitor’s’ visa?
Lots of paperwork ahead;)
Damnation by faint praise if I have ever heard it!
Yes - and I would be the leading rebounder in a midget basketball league.
Exactly.
That’s only saying that Gingrich is more Conservative than Bush.
That’s not saying much. Sure, Podhoretz said that Bush was Conservative, but Podhoretz is a lying scumbag.
With Newt, you never know what you are getting. One minute he’s on the couch with Nazi Pelosi and her poisonous global warming agenda and the next minute he’s for illegal immigration. Then he’s against the global warming agenda and against illegal immigration.
As president, we would be in big trouble when he flies off the handle from common sense and does something disasterous to our Nation only to regret it after he gets caught.
Because of his lack of experience and knowledge, Cain is a sitting duck for any and all schemes of the elite. Grinrich would know ahead of time how he is screwing the “conservatives.”
That’s not saying much. Most any Republican not named Romney would be the most conservative president since Reagan.
Doesn't matter if he has or hasn't. We haven't had a conservative president since Reagan. It's not a particularly high bar.
You clearly know nothing about this issue. I and my legal partners have had a hand in the AZ, AL and SC immigration laws, state voter ID provisions, and current Congressional bills regarding birthright citizenship. Newt's "proposals", if you can call them that (academic fantasies?), are totally insubstantial, vague and imaginary, and do absolutely nothing to either curb illegal entries nor restrict, let alone prohibit, anchor babies. You are an ignoramus and have no business writing anything in this forum until you have educated yourself on the issues.
Oh, that would be dandy. "Challenge" him on what? The carbon tax he supported as late as 2009? The individual mandate he supported as late as this year? His love for Agenda 21 -- oh, wait, that;s right, he now claims to oppose it. His being the king of crony capitalism and revolving door D.C. influence peddling? Wouldn't it just be easier to just nominate an actual, moral, conservative?
Newt is not a conservative. His love of illegal aliens exposed his real self. Not even a moderate could honestly say that supporting illegal aliens is good for this country.
Hopefully, Newt would appoint a strong cabinet who would not be afraid to challenge him.
If Newt runs against Obama, he will have very short coattails as the Tea Party conserrvatives will not have a candidate in the race. If he were to win, he will take over with a Democrat controlled Senate and House (I consider Crybaby Boner a Democrat plant).
The last time Newt was challenged, he quit. I don't think he will surround himself with anyone who will not support him, in all his smartness, 100%.
Reaching across the aisle, he will be able to implement every hair-brain idea, including amnesty, the liberals will vote for. At least it will finally end the Republican party being a viable national alternative. If there is enough time, and this is a very big if, the American people will arise in a new conservative party to at least make the attempt to return America to a Great Constitutional Republic.
We are getting a RINO for president in 2012. I am livid, because we need a Conservative at this tipping point. We are in a rapidly worsening economic depression, and the masses will be calling for more bread and circuses. The demand for socialism will be higher, not lower. The RINOs will continue to expand government as they always have in the past.
Gone will be our dream of limiting the size and cost of Federal government, and eliminating or hamstring agencies such as Education, Energy and EPA and hundreds more.
We’re screwed. Bachman was a non-starter and Cain has no inside connections to get elected. Palin really would be in much the same boat as Cain. She acts like an outsider, so he lacks the necessary support from part of the establishment needed to win the primary.
I am so very tempted to write in Palin’s name for president and let the USA crumble to hell.
Thanks rzman21.
Sorry to burst your bubble, friend, but hardly anyone is going to read that virtual wall of propaganda text you posted.
Someone like Santorum, Bachmannn or Paul all are more conservative than Newt and have more legislative experience than Cain.
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