Great quote

From Politico's story "How Mourdock took down Lugar":

“The message to the establishment is, ‘You’re our servants. We’re the masters. Do what you’re supposed to do, adhere to the Constitution or we’ll fire you,’” said Greg Fettig, founder of Hoosiers for Conservative Senate and the grass-roots leader whom many Mourdock supporters credit with sparking the anti-Lugar movement last year.

That sums it up pretty well.

The next Mourdock (and the next Lugar)

Tonight, the conservative movement struck a huge blow against the Republican establishment -- as well as Barack Obama and John Kerry -- when Richard Mourdock thumped U.S. Senator Dick Lugar in the Indiana Republican Primary.

I've long been a fan of Mourdock's. In fact, I started a blog last April dedicated to him beating Lugar, but with the Gingrich campaign taking every second of my free time -- and then some after a while -- I only had published two posts.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a call from the National Republican Senatorial Committee asking for -- what else? -- money. When I told the caller that I was not interested in giving money to the NRSC or any other GOP group, he asked, "Aren't you a Republican?"

"No, I vote Republican, but I'm a conservative." Of course, to the D.C. crowd a Republican = a conservative, so it took me a while to get it through his head that when I like a candidate, I give directly to that candidate or to a PAC such as Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund.

I stumped him when I asked: "So, what position has the NRSC taken on the Lugar-Mourdock race?" He acted as if he had no idea about the race -- which means he either was lying or had been living under a rock.

As sweet as replacing Barack Obama's favorite Republican with an outstanding conservative like Mourdock -- which is far from a "tragedy," as John Kerry put it tonight -- was, we need to do more.

I'll be adding on to the site, listing some of the conservative candidates who deserve our support and posting updates on their campaigns.

The one race I want to quickly highlight tonight is the Texas Senate Republican Primary. Ted Cruz, a rock-solid conservative, is gaining in his race. The election is May 29.

Read what Jim DeMint and The Madison Project say about Cruz.

Here is Cruz's website.

We need to repeat the Indiana Senate race over and over, finding the next Richard Mourdock to dismantle the next Dick Lugar.

New focus and (somewhat) new look

I have been thinking of what I wanted to do with this blog. I didn't really think there was much of a demand -- or need -- for another blog that deals with just commenting on issues, legislation, etc.

So I thought I might try to focus on elections and how we can take the Republican Party away from the old order.

I hope you'll like what you read, and as always, e-mail me with any comments or suggestions at joshgosser1776 @ gmail.com.

Newt has had a partially torn Achilles for nearly a year

Robert Costa of National Review has another terrific piece out in which he tells of the last days of Newt 2012.

He leads with the biggest revelation:

Since last summer, Gingrich’s right Achilles’ tendon has been slightly torn, but in order to keep his hectic schedule, he left it untreated. On the trail, Gingrich’s limp became more evident each passing week.

“For a guy who’s not known for being in shape, he’s physically tough,” says Joe DeSantis, one of Gingrich’s senior advisers. “He’ll walk miles. He’s been walking around with this torn tendon. It probably needs surgery, and he’s just walking around with it. Why? Because he won’t take time off. And he still carries his own bags. He won’t let other people help him.”

In my time around Newt -- when there was plenty of walking to do -- I had no idea about the injury.

I encourage you to read the whole piece, but one more excerpt:

But on DeSantis’s desk, below snapshots of his 18-month-old son, one item went untouched: an unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. It was given to him by one of the campaign’s consultants months ago, when a Gingrich victory was a long shot but within the realm of possibility. Next to the whiskey is an empty plastic cup. “We were going to crack it open if we won,” he says wistfully.

...

It is the end of a grueling process. “What I always find remarkable is [Gingrich’s] ability to work while tired,” DeSantis says. “Newt figured out how to take five-minute naps to get him through a 16-hour day. You see him exhausted, about to shut down, and then he can flip a switch and be completely animated and alive. Then, when he leaves, he knows how to grab a nap right after an event. I’m not a doctor, but there’s got to be something in his physical constitution that allows him to operate without sleep.”

A minute before we part, DeSantis shuffles some papers. The suit jacket he wore for much of the past year hangs nearby, gathering dust. He’s in a white short-sleeved shirt, jeans, and loafers. Vince Haley and R. C. Hammond, Gingrich’s press secretary, are grabbing coffee down the street. They’re in casual garb, too, as are the interns and tech staffers, who are quiet as they wheel boxes of material, piled atop metal dollies, out of the building. In a few weeks, Gingrich’s production company will move into this space. He’ll go back to making historical documentaries, writing books, and helping Republican candidates. The vast consulting empire he once oversaw has disappeared. What’s left, other than some posters and framed pictures of Newt’s glory days, is a small group of youthful staffers — Haley, DeSantis, and Hammond — who stuck by their boss for a year, through massive highs and depressing lows. DeSantis, leaning against his wall, musing about what’s next, won’t open the bottle, but he pauses and smiles. A toast, he says, to all of it.

Going back over the last year, you can trace the campaign's highs and lows by reading some of Costa's pieces for NR.

Back last June, he interviewed DeSantis about a lot of the staff quitting.

Then, in late October, about a month before the height of Newt's surge, he wrote a piece that, while doubting Newt would jump to the top of the field, was really the first article by a serious journalist that gave the campaign a real shot at winning the nomination.

He recently wrote another article about Newt: "Newt in Autumn."

When a lot of the conservative media -- including many of Costa's colleagues at NR -- bashed Newt, Costa was always a fair voice.

My mom

In April 2009, my mom was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Throughout the next two-plus years, I took her to many of her doctor appointments. After I started helping out on the official campaign -- on the Twitter and Facebook accounts, etc. -- she would brag to her oncologist and others about it.

When I returned from my first trip to the campaign, she got a huge kick out of the stories -- I am usually fairly quiet, but you couldn't shut me up for a few days, as I was always remembering some detail I had forgotten earlier -- and the pictures of the trip.

My next trip to Iowa was going to be for the Ames Straw Poll, but about a week before, my mom regressed and had to be into hospice. I didn't really want to tell anyone on the campaign -- for various reasons -- what was happening, but I had to tell Adam Waldeck that I wouldn't be able to make it to Iowa. His response -- something like "I knew it...you're joining Perry's campaign -- was able to make me laugh. (My response to him was "Nope...Bernie Sanders 2016.")

On the day of the Ames Debate, she was able to come home. So I dropped her off and hurried -- Twitter debate duty was in less than an hour! -- to get her favorite Mexican food. Thankfully, she was able to eat it with no problems, something that became more rare.

That night, as I mentioned in my last post, was really the night Newt 2012 started going up.

Unfortunately, my mom was slowly losing her two-and-a-half year battle and had to be placed back into the Hospice house at the beginning of September. I mentioned in my post yesterday that the day September 13 -- when Allen Olson endorsed the campaign -- really stuck out. The reason I still remember the date is that the next morning, at about 5:30, I got a call saying that my mom had had a rough night and, while she wouldn't be aware I was there, if I wanted to say goodbye I should hurry.

I got my shoes on and got in my car. As I was backing out of the driveway, though, I got another call. She had passed away.

I called family members after I got to the Hospice house. While waiting for my grandparents to arrive, the only thing I really remember was tweeting the link to Olson's Facebook post on why he was supporting Newt.

It was nice over the next few months to have the campaign to pour all my free time into. Like I said yesterday, it helped me get over the rough time. I had had a long time to come to grips with the inevitable, so it didn't hit me real hard when it finally happened. But I have no doubt the campaign helped me out.

Thank you to everyone who has read this blog and who I have communicated with.

My plan is to keep all the posts on here, but I will start posting on more general topics. I hope you will like it!

The thrill of a lifetime

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

I jumped on the Newt for President bandwagon back in August of 2006 -- and never stepped off it.

I started ramping up this election cycle in November and December of 2010, blogging about him and connecting with other Newt supporters whether here, Facebook, or Twitter.

My first contact with the campaign was soon after Newt's Meet the Press interview in which his comments about the Ryan Budget were taken out of context. I asked R.C. Hammond, the press secretary, how I could help out. He soon e-mailed me Adam Waldeck's number.

The next day, I called Waldeck, at the time the campaign's Coalitions Director and who, within months, would be dispatched to South Carolina to head up Newt 2012 there.

I've been asked how I came to be on the campaign by a few reporters -- and they are always shocked when I tell them I wanted to join at one of the lowest points. Nothing had changed in my mind -- Newt was the best candidate in 20 years and second best in 80 years -- and I was determined as hell to get him elected.

There were plenty of anxious times over the summer, of course -- and whether Adam knew it or not, he helped keep my spirits up by always having a nugget of good news.

Or, on the morning of June 10 -- the day after a lot of the staff quit -- he was able to somehow make me laugh by e-mailing something to the effect of, "I'm still here." Newt was going to have a conference call with tea party and 912 leaders across the country later that day, and Adam was letting me know about it.

My girlfriend was having to watch her nephew and his step-sister that day, so I ended up listening to the call -- still bewildered from the day before -- in one of the few quiet places in the house: the stairwell.

I've mentioned it plenty of times, but July 15 was my first trip to Iowa. I've linked to it many times -- and will again here and here -- because it will always be one of my favorite weekends. And no work-related weekend will ever top it.

At the end of the month, communications director Joe DeSantis e-mailed me asking if I would help out on the @Newt2012HQ Twitter account. I would try to answer any questions supporters or others might have as well as post content if no one else was around a computer or otherwise able to.

August 11 was the beginning of Newt's surge. It was the Ames Debate, and Newt was on fire -- taking down Chris Wallace especially. It also was the first debate that I helped out on the campaign's Twitter account, re-tweeting positive tweets that either I found or Dan Kotman and others found and sent to me. For each debate after, save one, that is how we did it.

The next memorable date I can remember is September 13. That was the day Allen Olson, the Columbia Tea Party leader, endorsed Newt. Awesome news! Later that month, Judson Phillips, a national tea party leader, followed suit.

The next couple of months featured more and more terrific debate performances.

Then came the peak of the surge. Newt soared to the top of the polls in Iowa, South Carolina, and Florida; he was closer than any candidate had been or would end up being in New Hampshire.

The Manchester Union-Leader endorsed him.

Walking into the Polk County (Iowa) GOP dinner on December 1st -- just a month before Iowans would caucus -- Newt was riding high. It may have been the high point of the campaign, with victory night in South Carolina the other possibility.

What I remember most about that weekend was when I first encountered Newt on the trip. He was sitting down being interviewed by Simon Conway, a big Iowa radio talk show host, and upon seeing me, Newt -- the front-runner for the GOP nomination while in a very important interview -- gives me a sly wink and doesn't miss a beat.

The time at the top was short-lived, of course. Romney's money men distorted and outright lied about Newt's record, leading to fourth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But on the back of two more outstanding debate performances and Sarah Palin's unofficial endorsement -- plus yeoman's work by Waldeck -- Newt won South Carolina on January 21st.

Eight days before Florida was to vote, Newt was up by a good margin. But once again, Romney pelted Newt was lying ads -- with assists from Santorum -- and Newt lost the state.

Who knows how things would have been different if Newt, instead of playing a calm figure in the first Florida debate and trying to look the frontrunner and more Presidential, had come out swinging. Chances are that the barrage of despicable ads would have been too much in any case.

I have plenty of awesome memories from the campaign -- and, as I'll write about tomorrow, it acted as a great therapist during some hard personal times -- and because of how great Newt would be as President, I will never regret all the work I put into it. It was a blast, and I'll never experience another campaign like it.

But it was, and will always be, the biggest disappointment in my life. Had Newt made it, this country could have been turned around so fast.

But now, the choice is Obama -- ugh -- or Romney, who, while better than Obama, is better in the same way that one broken leg is better than two.

(Update: Robert Costa of National Review, one of the best political journalists and someone who was very fair to Newt throughout the campaign, linked to my piece, tweeting "A Newt loyalist/activist reflects--a fun read"

Big day for Newt.org

After the news of Rick Santorum dropping out of the race surfaced, Newt.org was overwhelmed with traffic and crashed.

Within hours, Vincent Harris, who is on Newt's digital team, tweeted that "Might be a record day at newt.org in terms of donations.....2nd to SC perhaps"

How Santorum leaving will affect the race is not entirely clear to me. While his voters are more in line with Newt on the issues, some may fall in line and support Romney.

One thing for sure is that the move will not change the delegate math -- but that ship sailed a while ago. Newt has no path before the convention, but should he now win, say, North Carolina, Kentucky, Texas, and a few other states, it becomes a real argument in Tampa.

Combining that kind of momentum with another gaffe -- or two -- by Romney and/or his campaign, and suddenly Newt would have a real shot at the nomination.

"Newt in Autumn"

I recommend reading the whole article from Robert Costa, but here are some of the key excerpts:

He’ll reach out to delegates and give policy speeches. His campaign, in every sense, will be rescaled.

Haley understands why many politicos interpret Gingrich’s maneuvers as a retreat. But it’s not, he insists: It’s an adjustment as Gingrich plots a path to the GOP convention in Tampa, where the former Georgia congressman still very much wants to play a role. Haley’s job, as he sees it, is to keep the campaign in survival mode until then — out of debt, in the news, and prepared for a floor debate.

“We clearly have an opportunity to win,” Haley says. “Now, it’s clear from the delegate math that we have an almost impossible hurdle. But we also believe that Romney will have a very difficult time reaching the necessary 1,144 delegates he needs to be the nominee. If the Republican National Committee follows its rules regarding Florida and Arizona, Romney will probably not be able to get there by June.”

As Romney and Santorum sling arrows at each other, “Newt will continue to make his case to the public,” Haley says. In the coming days, he will unveil more “policy solutions,” hoping to catch fire on a variety of issues, much in the way his “Newt = $2.50 gas” has generated enthusiasm from conservatives and scorn from the White House. Haley predicts that delegates will be paying close attention even if the Beltway press largely ignores Gingrich’s agenda.

It won’t be easy, Haley acknowledges, but he refuses to accept the conventional wisdom that Gingrich is finished. “In an environment where Newt is seen as the leading voice of the conservative movement, as the only candidate who wants to offer a true alternative to the president, he could rise,” Haley says.

And:

“Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve reassessed what has worked and what hasn’t,” DeSantis tells me as he watches Gingrich regale the college crowd. “We’re getting back to ‘core Gingrich,’ which is futurism in a proper context. Before, he’d bring up space, but it lacked a vision statement about 21st-century conservatism being based on technology and innovation. That’s one of the things that hurt us.”

Moving forward, “his strength is in the issues,” says Peter Ferrara, a former Reagan aide and a senior Gingrich policy adviser. “As people look around and realize that they don’t want to end up with Romney, he will begin to gain some notice. He’s the one who has been a conservative leader for over three decades. That will carry weight.”

The closing:

“The greatest frustration I’ve had since leaving the speakership is the denseness of Washington in accepting new ideas,” Gingrich told the Georgetown crowd. “We are surrounded by a news media that is cynical, and by consultants who are cynical, and by lobbyists who are cynical.” They think big ideas are “silly,” he complained.

“I haven’t done a very good job as a candidate because it is so difficult to communicate big solutions in this country,” he said wistfully near the end of his talk. “The entrenched structure of the system is so hostile to it.” The students nodded; some clapped. Gingrich didn’t pause. He didn’t smile. He wasn’t looking for a cheer. For what it’s worth, he was trying to make a point.

"Courage is being scared to death -- but saddling up anyway"

The quote is from John Wayne. When Newt toured the John Wayne Museum back in July -- shortly after Michelle Bachmann had some, uh, problems identifying where Wayne was born -- Newt 2012's new campaign manager Michael Krull saw the quote on a bumper sticker and bought it.

Later that night, as we were sitting in the hotel bar, Newt joked that it was a fitting quote given that just a month earlier -- after much of the campaign staff quit and journalists started writing the campaign's obituary -- Krull was asked to help steady the ship. Many reporters said the campaign would be ending any day, and none had the foresight to see the campaign rebounding.

On Tuesday, it was announced that Krull, who previously served as national director of American Solutions and who has been a friend of Callista Gingrich's for years, would be stepping down as the campaign manager. The campaign has moved into a new phase as it prepares for a debate at the GOP convention on who is the best candidate to take on President Obama.

Vince Haley, who has been the campaign's deputy campaign manager and policy director -- in addition to being key to the South Carolina Primary victory -- will replace Krull.

"Haley’s familiarity with Gingrich’s policy positions and his ability to highlight their significance were cited as reasons behind his new leadership role in the campaign," writes Joy Lin on FoxNews.com.

National Review's Robert Costa sent out a few tweets about the news:

"Smart of Newt to tap Vince Haley as he transitions to a small-ball strategy pre-Tampa. No one knows him better, played a big role in SC win" (link)

"The youthful DeSantis-RC-Haley crew stuck with Newt in the summer, they're sticking with him now. Newt loyalists. Serious about Tampa play." (link)

"Remember this? It was 9 months ago. I'm not saying Newt will win, but I'm continually fascinated by his survival. http://bit.ly/miCnlD" (link)

That piece he linked to in the last tweet -- which can be read here -- was an interview Costa did with Joe DeSantis, the campaign's communications director, shortly after the staff shakeup in June. In it, DeSantis laid out the vision that would end up getting Newt to the top of the polls.

No one thought it was possible in June for the campaign to survive until December, let alone walk into the Polk County GOP Dinner in Iowa on December 1 -- at which Newt gave the keynote address -- as the frontrunner for the nomination. But it did.

So forgive me if I don't rightly care what the mainstream media is now saying.

Is Newt 100% assured of being the nominee? Of course not. But neither is Romney, and Santorum is definitely not near a lock.

So as long as Newt is still standing, I'm with him.

Two videos of Newt in Louisiana on Friday

Here is Newt discussing how he would a general election against Obama:



Video of Newt discussing what he would do for the economy of the nation and Louisiana specifically.