Posted on 11/23/2006 6:36:57 PM PST by no dems
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is telling associates that he’s launching a major new grass-roots movement to recapture the soul of the Republican Party, and quite possibly the White House.
Gingrich says that the effort will be much larger than his founding of GOPAC and his creation of the Contract with America.
The Georgia Republican is spearheading a program called "American Solutions for Winning the Future” in an effort to revitalize the GOP with Ronald Reagan conservatism.
This is the third time Gingrich has led a drive to steer the Republican Party toward traditional conservative values. In 1986, Gingrich took the chair of the Republican political action committee GOPAC and transformed it into an effective tool for electing conservative candidates. The stated theme of GOPAC was "a conservative opportunity society replacing the liberal welfare state.”
GOPAC was a key element in Gingrich’s rise to the leadership of the Republican caucus in Congress.
Then in 1994, as House Minority Leader, Gingrich was a co-author of the Contract with America, a conservative political platform that helped the GOP gain 54 seats in the House and end 40 years of Democratic majorities there.
Gingrich’s new program echoes the title of his 2005 book, "Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.”
Sources close to the former speaker say Gingrich believes the Republican Party has once again lost its way, and needs to refocus its agenda with an eye toward regaining Congress in 2008.
Stepping back into the political spotlight could help Gingrich’s presidential aspirations as well.
He recently told an interviewer that he won’t decide whether to seek the White House in 2008 until September of 2007.
But insiders predict Gingrich could throw his hat into the ring if a true Reagan conservative doesn’t emerge as a likely GOP candidate.
For the time being, he’s playing his cards close to the vest. "I am not ‘running’ for president, I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen,” he tells Fortune magazine.
Gingrich said he plans to build grass-roots support for the health care, national security, and energy independence ideas he has been promoting for the past six years.
There are ideas that need to be preserved and cherished and there are challenges that require new ideas. The winning party will be the one to figure that out and have candidates who are attractive, articulate, civil and trustworthy.
I find Newt an interesting person. His engineering of the 1994 successes was brilliant. But.....
He has said some funky things since leaving congress. But, even that aside, he could never get elected to the Presidency. He could play a significant role in revitalizing the Republican party electorally, but whether he is still a real conservative is of no real matter. He has as much chance of becoming President as John Kerry. Less.
That and move April 15th to the first Mon in November?
Very good start! :-) and, of course, no more automatic deduction. People must mail in their tax money every quarter.
I don't see how asking if Newt has learned to keep it in his pants huryts anything except false pride. He can be forgiven for womanizing. But has he learned self control since leaving Cogress?
Do you know something we don't? I haven't heard any rumors about him since he remarried.
We are on the same page.
If I knew them I'd be selling them :-) The GOP needs to start thinking again. One of the reasons (besides Iraq and corruption) that we just lost is because we offered no new ideas and people didn't like the direction we were going..."Stay the course" scared people. If the GOP sells the same old same old again - the voters will say again - "we know what that is like and we don't want it".
"He won the R straw poll this spring. I assume that support today still stands, maybe even stronger."
There's a fairly good sized contingent, that appears determined to run to the center in 08, and there is a very vocal contingent intent on preventing that. It has the potential to be a more colorful presidential primary than Republicans are accustomed to experiencing. I really can't say where any support for a Gingrich presidential run might lie at present. I have reservations about how well social conservatives would deal with him, for reasons that do not need to be rehashed to be understood. That's his challenge to overcome. If he does, I can support him. If not, he'd be better suited for a role more along the lines of Rove.
I'm sure Newt has learned much from his past. I think we should give them all the benefit of the doubt and let them get in the ring together and hash it all out. Voters will decide.
This forum is read by a lot of people and it may effect their votes.
Of course, you have McCain running who is a conservative like I'm the Pope
Or better yet, Rudy is running, who is pro gay, anti gun, pro abortion, real good leadership abilities but certainly lacks anything that resembles a conservative bone in his body
As for Newt, being chummy with Cankles Clinton, she is a Senator after all. Just because Newt worked with her doesn't mean he is her lap dog. After all that's the way adults operate.
Well, he committed adultery while married to his second wife. That is certainly forgivable. So now he is married for the third time. If you are saying that he has learned to keep his fingers out of the cookie jar, that is good news.
Newt threw Romney's name out there for consideration as someone he believed was trying to carry Reagan's ideas forward. Make of that what anyone will but, to me, it sounds as though conservative 'leaders' are casting Romney's name out to see if it takes root. They did the same with Allen, but Alen self destructed in his campaign. Though in strict fairness more have been tossing Romney's name then tossed Allen's name.
I doubt this statement is completely accurate. I think it's more fair to say if Newt cannot find a suitable surrogate catching fire for these ideas that doesn't carry his baggage, THEN he'll run.
Personally I HATED his stint with Hillary on healthcare and I don't completely trust him. But I'm admittedly desperate for a national politician that doesn't run from conservatism or attack his "friends" while kissing the cheeks of his enemies at every opportunity. If Newt wants to help cultivate CONSERVATIVE platforms and promote CONSERVATIVES for office and be one of the main voices for CONSERVATISM that is fine with me. So long as it's conservatism, not Hillarycare, he promotes. So of like Toomey does with the CFG, only on a wider scale.
It's clear there needs to be an alternative organization to counter the RINO establishment's influence in primaries and policy promoted once in office. If Newt is volunteering to help run such an operation, he should be helped. We need such an organization. And Newt is not bad when it comes to creativity, brainstorming, and articulation. It would probably be the best place for him, suiting his talents.
It's the weaknesses in his character that tend to be enhanced when he's serving in a poliical office that are the problem. Without the tempations that sort of power offers him, he might be an asset.
I am saying I haven't heard that he has or hasn't, though if he decides to run we may hear one way or the other very fast.
Actually, with a sitting Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Democratic controlled Senate, Newt accomplished quite a bit
Also parts of the Contract were not actually laws being passed, but policy changes in the way we were governed
Gingrich/Bolton. That would be a great pair IMO.
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