Newt's Friday in Iowa

Newt, fresh off a good day in Iowa Thursday, once again started the day on Friday calling for the repeal of Dodd-Frank. He attended the Broker Dealer Financial Services Conference in Altoona.

His Press Secretary, R.C. Hammond, live-tweeted the speech:

Newt is outlining challenges facing the country. Lists amnesia of U.S. History among younger Americans as one of the problems.

Newt: Obama's bureaucratic socialism. They don't own your company, they just tell you how to run it.

NG cites NLRB complaint against Boeing as example of Obama bureaucrats trying to take over and run an American company.

NG tells story of IA Bizzman who has stopped hiring in the U.S. because govt is too much of a burden.

Thur, NG called for Cong. to return to session to take up emergency job measures. Cited opening energy dev. and repeal Dodd-Frank #1 step

NG: Dodd-Frank is to banking as Obamacare is to health.

Can't make this up, NG was just asked by an Iowan: How come when you switched to a non traditional campaign you became the best candidate?

Later, Newt was at "the Johnson County Republican's "Eastern Iowa Picnic and Rally to Meet the Next President."

And he really impressed the audience. Both Alexandra Moe of NBC News and Stephen Schmidt of Iowa City Patch tweeted that Newt got the longest applause of the four candidates. Kathie Obradovich of The Des Moines Register tweeted: "Gingrich is putting on a clinic on how to give a stump speech. The audience is eating it up."

Obradovich and Schmidt live-tweeted the vent. Here are some of their tweets.

Obradovich:

Gingrich: I’m not here to ask you to be for me. … I’m here to ask you to be with me. #iacaucus

Gingrich says Obama "combines radicalism with incompetence." #iacaucus

Gingrich: Abolish the death tax permanently. It is an immoral tax. #iacaucus

Gingrich: The largest number of Americans in history is on food stamps....I would like to be the biggest paycheck prez. #iacaucus

Schmidt:

Gingrich says Liberals are afraid of US finding more oil and gas in this country so their arguments about scarcity would go way #iacaucus

Alexandra Moe, who is covering Iowa for NBC, tweeted: "Large group chatting in foyer with Gingrich and Santorum while Pawlenty is speaking #Iowa."

IowaPolitics.com later wrote:

Four Republican presidential candidates each gave a crowd of more than 400 eastern Iowa Republicans a laugh at President Barack Obama’s expense Friday night, but it may be former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich who laughs the loudest if his applause translates into support.

More from Hannah Hess:

But it was Gingrich’s 20-minute speech that sent the loudest waves of applause and laughter reverberating off the cinder block walls.

Gingrich branded Obama’s presidency as a “remarkable” combination of “radicalism and incompetence,” called repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act approved during his presidency a “no-brainer,” and encouraged the crowd to start working with him to change the country’s policies before the next election.

The 68-year-old career politician, professor, historian and author has been in politics longer than any of the other candidates who addressed the eastern Iowa crowd Friday. He proved that he knows how to deliver a stump speech.

Julie Crook, a 63-year-old from Newton who said she is still undecided about who she will support for 2012, found herself putting her hands together most during Gingrich’s speech, the third of the night.

“He had a very dynamic message,” said Crook, a quality control inspector at Hanson Directory Service, Inc. “What he wants to do with the government if he became president is what I would want to do to. So I was very impressed with that.”

Gingrich’s message centered on an economic policy modeled after former President Ronald Reagan’s initiatives that would include cutting corporate tax rates, deregulating the economy and capitalizing on American energy reserves. He delivered his speech while casually leaning against a podium plastered with a poster of Reagan.

“If you drop the (corporate) tax rate to 12.5 percent, you will get more money out of General Electric than you’re getting at 35 percent,” Gingrich said as an example of his policies, compared to the current administration. “Because 35 percent is getting zero, because they hire hundreds of tax lawyers to avoid the taxes. If they’re 12.5 percent, they’ll fire half the lawyers and write the check.”

The audience roared with applause.

Here are a few pictures the website took of Newt:

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