Joe Gaylord

In my last post, I quote Joe Gaylord on a possible Gingrich run. As Thomas Beaumont made clear in that article, Gaylord would have a substantial role in such a campaign. And that is just natural since he has been Newt's right-hand man for many years. From his bio on AmericanSolutions.com:

Serving as the senior counselor to Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Speaker dubbed him the 'irreplaceable man' for his work as principal architect for the House leadership in mapping out and leading the effort to execute a blueprint to elect a Republican Majority in the House in 1994. For his achievement, his peers in the American Association of Political Consultants named him Co-Campaign Manager of the Year. He led the successful effort for the House leadership to re-elect the Republican House majority in 1996 and 1998 -- a feat not accomplished since the days of Herbert Hoover.

He has recently written his third book, Campaign Solutions, available for free in PDF or audio format.

A quick three-minute video from him:



Newt recounts a conversation weeks before the Revolution:

September 17, 1994, was the day that Joe Gaylord briefed the GOP team. We had a team that was going on a campaign swing on September 17 -- Dan Meyer, Steve Hanser, Kerry Knott, Joe Gaylord, and myself. Literally, as we were taking off at National, I asked both Kerry Knott, who headed up our planning operation, and Dan Meyer, what were we planning on the night after the election? At that time, I was still the minority whip and Bob Michel was still the GOP leader. I said, 'On election night, are we planning for me to be minority leader or to be Speaker?' And Gaylord broke in and said, 'Well, you better be planning to be Speaker, because you’re going to be.' Dan Meyer then turned to him and said, 'OK, before we do anything else, explain this prediction.' Gaylord started in Maine and, by memory, went through every congressional seat in the country and came up with a 52-seat gain. I think we gained 53, so he was off by 1.