Posted on 09/14/2007 8:12:13 AM PDT by jdm
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been toying with the idea of jumping into the GOP presidential contest, sat down with National Journal's Linda Douglass this week to discuss the 2008 candidate fields, the state of American politics and his own future. Edited excerpts follow. For previous Insider Interviews, click here.
Q: You said fairly recently that the Democrats had a very high likelihood of winning the presidency next year.
Gingrich: I think that the country, after the last couple of years, has a bias in favor of change -- I think probably starting with [Hurricane] Katrina and coming through Baghdad and the whole sense of too much spending. And you sense a lack of enthusiasm in the conservative base, and you sense a stunning level of intensity in the anti-war Left. And so you just look at the dynamics and you have to say the odds are probably 80-20 [in the Democrats' favor].
Q: 80-20?
Gingrich: Yeah. That's my guess. Now, it could change. If you had a [Republican] candidate who could break out and who could say, "Obviously, we need to change pretty dramatically, and the party of trial lawyers, public employee unions, [and] left-wing ideologues probably can't change," and could force Hillary [Rodham Clinton] or Barack Obama or whomever to be the defender of failed bureaucracies, then I think you could see a Republican win next year. But I don't think they can win by passively staying within the framework of where we have been.
Q: Let's talk about the Republicans who are in the race, starting with former Governor Mitt Romney. Is he the kind of visionary you think the country needs?
Gingrich: Look, I think there are three or four possible Republican nominees -- [Rudy] Giuliani, Romney, [Fred] Thompson, [Mike] Huckabee, and, based on his recent re-energizing, [John] McCain. All of them are smart people. None of them have yet broken out and begun to define a fundamentally different future.
Q: You did say at one point that McCain was deeply at odds with the GOP base and that that would affect his chances. You seem to have changed your view somewhat.
Gingrich: He has recognized that the Senate immigration bill that he supported was hopeless. McCain has moved much closer to the Republican base. The Republican base hasn't moved closer to McCain. And on issues of war and on issues of honor and military capability, John McCain has an extraordinary personal story.
Q: Giuliani supports abortion rights and certainly some forms of gun control. Isn't he also deeply at odds with the base?
Gingrich: I think part of the difference was that there are no Giuliani-Kennedy bills. There are no Giuliani-Feingold bills. Giuliani is a New York, moderate Republican. But he hasn't gone out of his way to pick fights with the Republican base.
Q: Fred Thompson's rollout has generally not gotten rave reviews. What do you think of it and of him?
Gingrich: I think that any Republican has to have a core, direct, compelling message of why they would be different than [President] Bush and why they would be different than Clinton. And they have to be able to say it in 30 seconds. And they have to be able to say it so that people in their living room believe it matters to them and their family. None of our candidates have yet found that rhythm.
Q: What aren't the Republicans saying that they should be?
Gingrich: We need very bold, dramatic change, change at every level -- from school board to city council to county commission to state legislatures to the presidency. That's what the Republican Party has to stand for. And, frankly, the Republican Party hasn't stood for that.
Q: You always say that what the country needs is a candidate with big ideas. Is there anyone in either party who has the kind of big ideas that you have been talking about?
Gingrich: [John] Edwards has a lot of big ideas, but they're the wrong ones. The country needs solutions, and we need an ability to come to grips with how much change is involved in getting to those solutions. I'm deeply opposed to launching campaigns on late-night television. I think it just trivializes the whole process.
Q: You are heading an organization called American Solutions for Winning the Future that is going to have workshops at the end of the month that will affect, you've said, your decision about whether to run for president. Why?
Gingrich: I reached the conclusion over the last five or six years that the scale of change we needed was not achievable in the current partisan political process. I set out to create an organization which would hold workshops, develop solutions, reach out to Americans in both parties, outline dramatically different ways of doing things. And then we are trying to set up a dialogue about the scale of change [that] people should expect. There is nobody out there prepared to say, on the Democratic side, "If we don't win in Iraq, here's how big the mess is going to be," with the exception of Joe Lieberman. There is nobody out there on the Republican side who is prepared to say, "You know, we are going to have to do it differently." I mean, "Stay the course" is not a rational option.
Q: What is going to happen at the end of this coming-together?
Gingrich: This is not about 2008. Very large public movements take a while to get off the ground. The only circumstance I can imagine under which [my wife] Callista and I would be faced with a choice about running this year would be if there is a vacuum in October so deep and people began to be so afraid of Senator Clinton winning that you could actually see by the end of October a scale of resources that would let you be genuinely competitive. The odds are, that won't happen. I'm very comfortable with projects that take more than a sprint.
Q: You could imagine circumstances in which you might run for president in 2012?
Gingrich: I'd be the same age in '12 [that] Reagan was when he was elected in 1980. The most tempting thought about running next year is the idea of debating Senator Clinton. That would be fun.
Q: You have been critical of the Bush administration's handling of immigration and the war on terrorism. And you said that Republican candidates need to discuss the failures. Should the candidates be putting distance between themselves and Bush?
Gingrich: I think [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy said it very well when he said of the Chirac administration, "We need a clean break." There is no excuse for not controlling the border. There is no excuse for New Orleans being the mess it is. I think we ought to say these things are not right.
Q: Let's talk about Hillary Clinton. What do you think is her Achilles' heel?
Gingrich: I think the danger she runs is that in attempting to appease the left wing of her party she becomes unacceptable to the majority of Americans once they understand what she said she'd do. She is actually much more centrist than MoveOn.org. She is much tougher on military affairs than [her party's] Left. She is more rational, and I have very great respect for her as a hardworking professional. No Republican should think she is going to be easy to beat. But I have watched her now for a year be gradually pulled to the left. Her husband was too clever to do that.
Q: Do you want to run?
Gingrich: Not necessarily. I want to serve my country. I don't want to run as an act of habit. I have no great interest in going out to campaign. I have every interest in finding a generation of solutions. So if you said to me, would I be willing to serve my country, the answer is yes. But it won't bother me to spend all of next year running workshops and developing a new generation of ideas, and trying to be available for every American, not just Republicans.
No mention of Hunter.
Time for Newt to get over himself. He is a man of quirky ideas, not great ideas. Big difference.
You can’t take Newt’s 20 - 80 stuff seriously. Its a bit self serving, to say the least.
Why? So you can agree with her? That little 'debate' that you had with John Kerry a while back was very disappointing & demoralizing for a Republican voter.
He's lost it.
80/20 unless something changes, then it could be 50/50 or even wind up with a Republican victory...
In other words... nothing.
I agree with Newt Gingrich that if everything stays the same, the Democrats will win in 2008. But nothing is going to stay the same.
The 80/20 stuff is nonsense. It’s like betting on the baseball world series winner at the beginning of the season. Not many would have called Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, or Reagan, or Bill Clinton 100 days before the first caucus.
Go away, Newt, and take Larry with you. Both of you are dragging our cause down. Why don’t you get that, you spoiled brat?
I’m tired of this cry baby. He so desparately wants to be drafted into the race like Fred was. Him and Novak drive me nuts, they do more harm then good.
As quirky and odd as a man named Newt can be....
and yet, I continue to think he is more right then wrong and more right then most of the other choices out there.
I watched him in a debate against a very liberal former mayor of NY whose name escapes me, and I thought Newt kicked the crap out of him in every phase of the game. He is a very bright guy. And quirky... not doubt.
I think that Gingrich is overly pessimistic about the Republicans’ chances in 2008. The election is more than a year away and a lot can happen in that time. Moreover, I think that Gingrich could end up demoralizing the Republican base with this kind of prediction and with his very tepid support of the Republican presidential candidates. The last thing we need is a big dose of defeatism.
Wow, some leader!
More sniveling from the right, very unbecoming.
It is beyond me what people see in this man or how anyone could want him to run for President.
His day came and went.
He is completely full of himself.
No sale, Newt. You have too many nice things to say about Hillary. That tells me you’ve been in politics too long and your principles have been sanded a little too smooth in the polisher.
However, Hillary does not have the ability to convincingly lie like her husband and will have to continue to pander to the left and anti-war forces in her party. That coupled with her often shrill and condescending comments about how "WE" know what's good for you may sour her with rank and file voters. I fear that the far too early start of the campaign will give voters campaign fatigue and result in one of the lowest turnouts in history for a presidential election. That could sway things in either direction.
Newt is smart, I'll give him that. Will he make a good president? I doubt it -- that's what my gut tells me. He already proved that his political skills were best at siezing control of the House of Reps, but did not extend to actually running the place.
Bill Bennett said something this morning that resonated with me.
Now remember this is the guy that told Papa Bush not to go along with Sen. Mitchell and the tax hike.
He said something to the effect that the Dem's have blown it with the Petraeus add, and in effect it will have legs.
It is something to think about, they may already lost, they have not and maybe will not throw MoveOn.org overboard.
Rudi is a moderate republican my ass. He is a flaming LIBERAL. Simple as that Newt boy.
80%, isn’t that Rush has been saying about the odds of getting us getting stuck with Missus Clinton, as of right now.
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