Video of Newt on the Fed: "Bernanke is misguided"

Link.

Newt calls for no tax hikes in debt ceiling deal. Will be on Fox and Friends Sunday Morning.

Newt wrote an op-ed for National Review about how Republicans need to resist any deal that raises taxes:

Republicans should reject the establishment’s demand for a tax increase. There is plenty of money to be saved from a bloated government without giving Washington one penny of higher taxes.

The pressures from the Washington establishment to raise taxes are unending. This has been true for at least 30 years.

When Pres. Ronald Reagan adopted the Kemp-Roth three-year tax cut, the establishment hated it. Both Democrats and Republicans in the establishment hated the idea of allowing the American people to keep their own money.

I was there and I fought the 1982 tax increase that the establishment had foisted on President Reagan. He presently figured out their game and rejected all other efforts to get him to raise taxes.

When Pres. George H. W. Bush pledged, “Read my lips, no new taxes,” the establishment was determined to force him into breaking his word. I led a majority of House Republicans in voting no when the tax increase came up in 1990.

When I was Speaker, we balanced the federal budget by cutting taxes to increase economic growth, reducing spending, and reforming government. These policies led to four straight years of balanced budgets and the repayment of over $400 billion in federal debt. Unemployment dropped from 5.6 percent to under 4 percent.

With more jobs, people left welfare, left unemployment compensation, left food stamps, left Medicaid, and went back to work taking care of their families and paying taxes.

This two-step process of reducing government spending and increasing government revenues was a major factor in our ability to balance the federal budget.

In light of Friday's anemic jobs report, Newt said "[e]very conservative should say, firmly and loudly: NO.

America is over-spent, not under-taxed."

Newt on what should be done:

What Congress should be doing is passing a Balanced Budget Amendment as Senators DeMint and Snowe suggested, cutting unnecessary spending through dramatically reducing fraud (maybe $120 plus billion a year), bringing private-sector management techniques to government that would eliminate vast layers of bureaucracy (between $125 billion and$500 billion a year), and creating an American energy policy to create American jobs and keep $400 billion plus a year here at home that is currently going overseas for energy. (See my paper on the debt ceiling at Newt.org for more details.)

Newt will be on Fox and Friends at 9:00 AM ET Sunday Morning.

He will be on Sean Hannity's TV show Tuesday night from the site of his townhall meeting with the Charleston Tea Party.

Newt will be in Twitter GOP debate

Dick Morris, who will be the moderator, confirmed that Newt will be in the July 20th TeaParty.net GOP Twitter debate.

I will post more details as they become available.

Newt will be having a townhall in Charleston, South Carolina, July 12

Here is the Facebook event page.

It will be with the Charleston Tea Party 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM.

North Charleston City Hall
2500 City Hall Drive -- Council Chambers, 3rd Floor
North Charleston, SC

Join with other Gingrich supporters on newt50states.com

I have finally got the website up. I will still be adding things, but please take a look and consider signing up on your state page.

Invite any friends or family who might be interested to sign up as well.

Link.

Newt and "niche issues"

A recent Washington Post story highlights Newt's focus on what the columnist Philip Rucker calls "niche issues."

So at a private fundraiser last week in Newport Beach, Calif., he devoted much of his speech to the disease.

In the audience, it turned out, were four members of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Orange County chapter.

“This is great,” they later told Gingrich, according to an aide. “You get it!”

Texas U.S. Representative Michael Burgess, who has endorsed Newt for President and who wrote an article with him about the flat tax, said that Newt "probably" understands Alzheimer's better than anyone.

From Rucker:

After Gingrich announced his candidacy in May, his first speech was to a convention of Alzheimer’s advocates. There, he warned that the disease could cost the government some $20 trillion over the next four decades. He told the industry group that Alzheimer’s research is “grotesquely underfunded,” and he pledged to invest more public money in finding a cure.

Rucker:

But as Gingrich sees it, Alzheimer’s, as well as other niche topics such as military families’ concerns and pharmaceutical issues,are priorities for passionate patches of the American electorate. By offering himself as a champion of pet causes, Gingrich believes he can sew together enough narrow constituencies to make a coalition -- an unconventional one, yes, but a coalition nevertheless.

Of course, the implication is that Newt is only now paying attention to those issues in order to gain a political advantage.

Tony Blankley, Newt's Press Secretary when he was Speaker, wrote a column in order to disprove that.

From that article:

To read the article in question, one would think Newt had thought up this little “niche” Alzheimer issue a couple of weeks ago -- just in time for his revived campaign. Well, in fact, I remember Newt talking to me about the coming crisis in Alzheimer’s back in the 1990s. And in 2007, the Alzheimer's Association along with the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease called for the creation of the Alzheimer’s Study Group. Newt was named co-chairman, along with former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey.

As to the issues and costs of taking care of our military families, anyone remotely familiar with the projections of the defense budget knows that if we don’t improve the attitude toward and better manage the costs of taking care of our military and veterans and their families, we will risk lower volunteer rates and unsustainable cost increases. Once again, Newt has been advocating shrewdly about this matter at least since the 1990s, when he used to discuss it with me and others. Of course, Newt came from a military family, so he had an unfair advantage in understanding the issue.

Here is the aforementioned speech to the Alzheimer's Association:

Newt: "One of our themes will be, 'We've done it before, we can do it again."

While a lot of the focus of the news on Newt's campaign debt, what has not received nearly that level of attention is the debt has been steadily going down every week since many of the staffers walked out on June 9th.

Politico:

"Since then, the campaign has been regrouping: Gingrich has taken cost-saving steps, such as flying commercial, and has focused on recruiting political professionals willing to volunteer their time to his effort."

...

“We’ve been weathering a storm and the ship is starting to right itself,” Hammond [Newt's spokesman] said. “The infusion of professionals volunteering their time and talent to the campaign is further proof we are weathering the storm and forging on.”

Newt:

“My path has always been to see whether substance could outlast gossip and whether or not you could mobilize enough people...who decide that having a real solution and having real knowledge and having actually done it,” he said. “One of our themes will be, ‘We’ve done it before, we can do it again."

Newt has said he expects the campaign's third quarter finances to be "very healthy."

How Newt will structure his campaign

Newt's campaign will not re-hire the same kind of expensive consultants who, on top of their own salary, spent the campaign into debt. Instead, they will get a boost from what Jason Clayworth calls "professional volunteer[s]." Former U.S. Representative Greg Ganske of Iowa is the latest example. He will serve as the Iowa finance chair of Newt 2012.

A few quotes from Clayworth's article:

"Reviews are being made and it’s possible that paid Iowa campaign staff will be hired but the center of the team will focus largely upon volunteers, Hammond said."

"As a campaign we have a lot of confidence in people who voluntarily come forward," said spokesman R.C. Hammond. "It's empowering and tough to question the dedication of a volunteer who is coming forward and saying, 'I want to help you.'"

"In addition to multiple ground-level supporters, several well-known Iowa political types have also stepped forward including Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton as Gingrich’s Iowa senior policy adviser and House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, R-Garner, the campaign’s Iowa campaign chairwoman."

Gingrich has a proven track record as a fundraiser: He raised more than $250,000 for Iowa GOP candidates in the last election cycle, Ganske noted.

Ganske said he believes Gingrich can revamp his campaign and become a major player in the Iowa caucuses by focusing on small events and gatherings that will cost the campaign little money but build his support.

R.C. Hammond also said that Newt will be in Iowa for 16 of the next 45 days.

Newt's Fourth of July

Newt walked the July 4th Parade in Clear Lake, Iowa on Monday. He estimates that in his career he has walked 150 parade routes.

Jennifer Jacobs quotes him when he was asked about the campaign: "Did there seem to be enough support to proceed?" Gingrich told reporters after the parade. "I just wish all the guys in Washington would come out and walk one parade with me and go to one town hall meeting with me. I think they’d have a different attitude."

From The New York Times:

"The attention comes and goes," Mr. Gingrich said, reciting rhythms of the Republican presidential race. "Sometime around October and November, it will settle down and be a race."

...

"I like campaigning face-to-face with people and being able to talk to folks," Mr. Gingrich said, adding that he intended to spend 16 days here in July and August. "It’s important to lay the base of support that will be there in January."

For all the speculation in political circles about the future of Mr. Gingrich’s campaign, there were no questions from Republicans who turned out for the parade.

They called out his name, waving him over for a handshake or a picture. He beamed as he walked from one side of the street to the other.

The sun was hot and the breeze was slow, but Mr. Gingrich barely broke a sweat. "Campaigning in August in Georgia is great training," he explained.

A gallery of pictures from the event.

With all the talk of a Bob McDonnell primary, remember this.

Anita Kumar of The Washington Post recently talked about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, one of the most popular governors in the country, and who -- or if -- he will endorse for President during the primaries.

McDonnell has spoken to former governors Romney of Massachusetts and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota numerous times, including last week. In February, McDonnell dined with Pawlenty in Richmond, raising more than a few eyebrows.

He has also spoken or met with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich several times. Romney, Pawlenty and Gingrich all came to Virginia to help McDonnell during his 2009 gubernatorial campaign.

One thing Kumar did not include in the story was this quote I wrote about two months ago:

New York Times: Other than Reagan, the most significant Republican in the last half-century.

McDonnell: Newt Gingrich. That Contract with America really changed the way Republicans approached government -- positive, problem solving, solutions and then getting things done.

I think that was a phenomenal turnaround.

That's not to say McDonnell will endorse Newt, but I think it would have been a worthwhile inclusion in the article.

Video of Newt with Lou Dobbs

Energy policy:


His campaign:

What is the first Google result for "Pawlenty flat tax"?

So I found out a couple of weeks ago that someone who clicked on this site searched on Google for "Pawlenty flat tax." Interested, I Googled the search terms.

I found out that, to my amusement, this post of mine, in which I criticize Pawlenty for not having a bold enough proposal, is the top result on Google.