I went back and reviewed his record. He’s far from a big government RINO. As a pro-life congressman he was a Reagan Coalition member and Reagan Revolution fighter. As Speaker he led his new Republican majority (the Republican Revolution) to pass the Contract with America, cut the deficit, cut the taxes, reform welfare, block Clinton’s agenda, balanced the budget four years running, and extended the Reagan economy through the nineties. Not a bad job for a RINO. As a historian and an appreciator of our Christian Founding and our founding principle that our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are a gift of God, he’s a natural fit for the TEA Party Rebellion.
I agree, Jim.
And, for the rest of your young whipper-snappers here. Some of us are old enough to remember how effective he was during his tenure as speaker of the house. I am sure he rubbed some of the rinos the wrong way.
He certainly upset our dear little Mrs. Pelosi and her gang, who tried their hardest to get him, but he was cleared of any wrongdoing by the IRS, if I remember correctly.
My husband and I have decided that Gingrich gets our vote. But, we worry that Paul supporters will opt out/or that Paul will run as an independent, giving us Obama instead.
Perhaps all of us should read his books in order to measure the depth of his probe into the beliefs and principles of America's Founders.
Some time ago, one of my posts included the following thoughts:
As to an examination of the necessary qualifications for the American presidency at this critical juncture in America's history, we might consult an excerpted portion of the 1801 Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson for guidance on the seriousness of the undertaking:
(Excerpt) "Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
"About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
Now, the question is: which 2012 candidate possesses the intellectual qualifications and commitment to the Founders' ideas necessary to lead us to "retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety"?
My own personal belief is that Jefferson's advice is appropriate for all who love liberty and wish to help in restoring America as a beacon of liberty in the world.
The only antidote for the lies of communism and socialism--ideas which enslave citizens in every nation where they are tried--is truth, specifically the "self-evident" truths of the American Declaration of Independence which underlie its Constitution. Only a person who has studied those truths, as they were spoken and written by the Founders, can rebut the lies of those who believe they and their fellow oppressors are wise enough to make decisions for all the rest of us.
Is Gingrich the candidate who can articulate the ideas of liberty and rebut the ideas of those who rely on coercive power in government? If not, which candidate is adequate to the task? Listen carefully as we go forward. Check voting records and writings. Listen for the Founders' ideas of Creator-endowed life and individual liberty, freedom of individual enterprise, limited government power, and freedom for religion, and the rule of law. Then decide who will battle for liberty!
Prosperity, jobs, and freedom will follow if we "regain the road."