Posted on 01/25/2012 9:37:18 AM PST by CutePuppy
In the 13 years since he suffered a string of political setbacks and quit the third most powerful job in Washington, Newt Gingrich has been busily laying the foundation for a comeback to an even grander perch.
On any given day, the former Speaker of the House can be found on a chartered jet headed to Iowa to train future GOP candidates through his American Solutions group, or in Phoenix discussing ways to lower health-care costs with drug makers through his for-profit Center for Health Transformation. He might also be in Philadelphia, narrating a film produced by Gingrich Productions, or in Texas, reaching out to conservative Latino leaders through his bilingual news and commentary website, the Americano.
Now, as Mr. Gingrich prepares to launch a run for president as early as this week, this network of advocacy and for-profit groups is providing a publicity and policy machine without parallel among his likely Republican rivals, few of whom have stirred excitement among donors and activists.
His network has amassed more than 1.7 million voter and donor contacts and raised $32 million between 2009 and 2010 -- more than all his potential 2012 rivals combined. ..... < snip >
..... After raising money through one of his groups, Mr. Gingrich funneled $150,000 in seed money to a successful campaign last fall to oust three Iowa Supreme Court judges who supported gay marriage.
"Newt's role was quiet and very low key, but it was pivotal," said Bob Vander Plaats, a well-known Iowa conservative who led the anti-judges campaign. ..... < snip >
.....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Interesting side note about Bob Vander Plaats, who sounds like a wannabe king-maker - in Iowa, he was the one who gave a shot in the arm and resuscitated the struggling campaign of Rick Santorum by giving him a late endorsement, over other not-Romney candidates, while Newt was bombarded by millions of dollars in negative ads. (Vander Plaats: Santorum is Romney's Nightmare - Newsmax, by Martin Gould, 2012 January 06)
..... Vander Plaats has now gone two for two with his endorsements, having put his weight behind Mike Huckabee at the 2008 caucuses. ..... < snip > ..... "If it had ended up with either Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry doing well last night, I would have said the same, I would have been all in for them. But it wasn't." Vander Plaats said he had considered Gingrich, Perry and Bachmann before giving his backing to Santorum. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... Vander Plaats has been getting much of the credit for propelling Santorum to within eight votes of Romney in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses. He endorsed the former Pennsylvania senator in December and has seen his chosen candidate's meteoric rise to the top of the GOP pile. Donald Trump is one of many who say Vander Plaats' endorsement was vital to pull Santorum away from the bottom of the GOP pile. Now the president of The Family Leader is convinced that Santorum has the staying power necessary to keep him in the race against Romney for the long run. ..... < snip >
In May 2008, at the conference in Las Vegas where he was a featured speaker, Newt suggested to the audience that someone should print stickers "Drill more, pay less." Later, American Solutions group expanded on the idea by starting an online petition "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" which gathered more than a million signatures a month, and which later that year, during Republican convention, became a "Drill, Baby, Drill".
The petition gave the American Solutions wide recognition and it now claims a donor list of more than 300,000 (including hundreds of professionals and small-medium business donors) in addition to the 80,000 names on Renewing American Leadership list. Together, with American Solution's 1.3 million email contacts, that comprises a total of 1.7 million potential voters.
“If we weren’t in a period like this, facing incredible dangers across the board, I wouldn’t make much sense as a candidate. But we are in such a period.”
Exactly right! In an ordinary year, Romney would be running away with the nomination. This year, need someone to shake things up to their core, and Mittens just isn’t up to the task.
Looks like a guy who’s out there starting small businesses, creating jobs, being an entrepreneur...isn’t that what Mitt says is HIS greatest qualification?
bttt
Your right! we need Newt. he has the grand ideas that will get our country on track!
What is your point?
The knock on Newt from some quarters is/was that (discounting "herding" experience being Speaker) he has/had no "executive" or private sector experience.
Looks like not only he has extensive private sector experience, which also created for-profit and non-profit companies from scratch (and creating many pricate sector jobs in the process), but it also shows how much of his activity was oriented toward helping conservative causes, organizations and people / candidates.
What have Romney and Santorum done for conservatives in the same period of time, except running or preparing to run for political office?
Romney, as Warren Buffett said, "... makes his money the same way I make my money ... he makes it shoving around money.".
"Shoving money around" in and of itself is not an "executive" or "job-creating" experience as Romney tried to claim. When he was called on it by Gingrich, he tried to explain it by saying he created jobs by "firing people" and in the same way as Obama's bailout of UAW.
We bought his DVD with the walking tour of Washington DC or whatever the title was. It was a very good DVD with lots of little facts not a lot of folks know. It helped us enjoy our trip to DC over the 4th of July in ‘08 before O’bambi moved into town. Looked it up “Rediscovering God In America”. It was very nicely done.
This is the most information I’ve seen on Newt. It’s a keeper and should be spread far and near, especially to the doubters.
AWESOME!
Most people don't know or understand what he is really trying to do, when all they see is distorted headlines or hear incomplete information from biased third parties.
For example, Newt is often accused of being a "big government progressive," yet this line tells a lot about his "small government" conservatism, and his pragmatic approach to thinking and testing different ways of actually implementing the ideas:
"It was very much, 'Do these ideas work or not work?' " said Chris Littleton, who attended the session as head of the Ohio Liberty Council, a conservative activist group. "He was clearly trying to formulate a platform." < snip > ..... Mr. Gingrich tossed out ideas for revamping the Environmental Protection Agency, replacing it with a joint venture between business and government that would make sure environmental regulations don't stifle job creation. He also proposed getting the private sector to help slash regulations across other federal departments.
Remember that it was Gingrich Revolution that made Clinton announce in 1995 (after suffering massive defeat in 1994 Congressional elections) "The era of Big Government is over." Yet since Gingrich left Congress in 1999, we saw nothing but growth of government, under Republican Congress and Senate and under Republican President.
Bump for later
Newt ping
Very interesting article
Article was published in May 2011, but most of it is not something that is well known by “regular” people, even many of those who, on surface, seem steeped in politics.
Well this sure explains why the 'pink' mafia, and/or Jon Stewart media has their panties in a wad.
yes, I saw it was from 2011, thanks
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