Video of Newt on Bloomberg TV

Link.

Newt had most re-tweeted post two days in a row

On Thursday, Newt tweeted:

Obama proves once gain he is the most effective food stamp president. Record levels were reached in May: http://t.co/LQiPlAE

On Friday, Newt tweeted:

The Obama disaster continues. Highest food stamp level and lowest credit rating in history in the same 24 hours.

Both of those topped all 2012 Presidential candidates in the number of re-tweets they received for the day, according to 2012twit.

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:

Link.


Link..


Link.


Link.


Link.

Newt's Thursday in Iowa

(I apologize for not getting this post up until now.)

Thursday, Newt started the day speaking to an audience of fifty at the Cedar Rapids Country Club. In it, he continued his call to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill and other job-killing government actions. “You have a government whose attitude towards business is, at best, destructive. You have policies of regulatory overkill. You have threats of the cost of health care," IowaPolitics.com quotes Gingrich as saying.

Jason Clayworth of The Des-Moines Register wrote: "Gingrich said the act [Dodd-Frank] 'is an overwhelming requirement for local small banks, unfairly inhibiting growth of small firms and driving down the price of housing.'

"The crowd applauded loudly when he advocated the act be repealed."

From Hannah Hess:

The substance of the former speaker’s resume, which in addition to Congress includes writing more than 20 books and gaining stature as a public speaker and historian, impressed 63-year-old Cedar Rapids farmer Dwight Hughes.

"He understands history. He understands politics. He understands business. He’s an excellent communicator. He has a vision," Hughes said. "I mean he has the whole package."

As the owner of Hughes Nursery and Landscape, Hughes said looks for a candidate who understands private enterprise.

"We don't need a whole lot of government intervention. The more that government comes in and puts in restrictions and rules and setbacks, more policies and procedures, it just holds back private enterprise," Hughes said. "In my view, nothing happens in America until somebody sells something -- until there’s commerce. And without commerce, you don’t have any tax money."

Here is a slideshow that IowaPolitics.com put together of the event.

Alexandra Moe of NBC News took this picture of the event:

Alex Moe on WhoSay

From The Quad-City Times:

He’s the only candidate in the racer who has been working with the military since 1979, Gingrich said, the only one who has created two Republican congressional majorities, who authored the Contract with America, balanced a budget for four years, passed tax cuts that lead to job creation and lower unemployment.

"I’m trying to run an adult campaign with an adult conversation," Gingrich told about 50 members of the Linn Eagles, a GOP fundraising group, at a luncheon at the Cedar Rapids Country Club.

Dan Seufferlein, a Cedar Rapids attorney, appreciates that approach.

"He’s engaging voters with his solutions...he's treating us as if we are adults," said Seufferlein, who introduced Gingrich.

Gingrich’s solutions are his appeal, added Dean Rothchild of Cedar Rapids.

"He has a record of accomplishments," said Rothchild, who said that if he goes to the straw poll he’ll "probably mark down Gingrich’s name."

Later that night, Newt attended a lawn party in Des Moines. Even though it was in the rain, there was still about 80 people attending.

Alexandra Moe tweeted during the event:

@newtgingrich: "We will have a contract with America if I am the nominee" #decision2012

She took these two pictures:

Alex Moe on WhoSay


Alex Moe on WhoSay

Jeremy Danilson, the President of the Drake Law Republicans, took these pictures:

Getting introduced by his Iowa Finance Co-Chair Greg Ganske:


Sharing his solutions.


Talking to the media.


After the event.


(Follow Jeremy on Twitter here.)

20,000!

I apologize for not having any posts written -- should have a few tomorrow -- but just wanted to say thank to all the readers of this blog. With 52 more views, this site will have had 20,000.

Newt had a very good day in Iowa. Sorry again for not having any posts up about it yet.

Will Newt adding staff get as much attention?

The entire press release from Newt 2012:

Atlanta, GA – Newt Gingrich has made several staff hires and recruited Latino activist Sylvia Garcia to lead his campaign’s efforts to include Hispanic voters as part of the broad coalition of conservatives the campaign is building.

“Our country has a choice of two futures,” said Gingrich. “On one hand you can have bigger government, smaller citizens, fewer choices and less of your own money. On the other we have the Republican Party that puts freedom and family first, empowers entrepreneurs, rewards those who work hard and will defend our country. This is the future I believe we can have and I think Americans of all backgrounds should be part of it.”

“The Newt 2012 model is inclusion not outreach,” added Garcia. “We want to engage Hispanic Americans in creating solutions to our country’s most pressing challenges. We are not asking people to be for a candidate, we are asking to be with a movement. That will be Newt 2012’s commitment.”

Sylvia Garcia has worked in journalism, marketing, public relations, and business development for the American Hispanic market for over twelve years. She graduated from the University of Miami in Broadcast Journalism and Spanish Language. She has worked in Latin America, Spain, and the U.S. In 2005, she joined Gingrich Communications as Hispanic Inclusion Director. Together with the Speaker, she is a founder of The Americano, the first bilingual Conservative site for Hispanics.

Crissy Mas is the campaign's HIspanic volunteer coordinator. She has worked in the political arena since her graduation from Catholic University in 2006. As an undergraduate she was involved with the College Republicans and served several consecutive internships both in Miami and Washington D.C. with Gingrich Communications. Following graduation she worked for a non-profit organization and full time for a lobbyist firm in Downtown D.C. while earning her Master’s degree in Congressional and Presidential Studies at Catholic University. She traveled extensively in Europe and speaks both English and Spanish. She has a strong Cuban American heritage, her father was born in Havana, Cuba. She has assisted with outreach for The Americano and event planning.

In addition, Newt 2012 is expanding its staff roster adding fundraising, field and communication staffers.

Newt 2012 welcomes Andrew Bell, a Fayetteville, North Carolina native, former White House Intern, recent NC State graduate, and research assistant for State Senator Richard Stevens. Andrew will serve the campaign in several capacities, assisting in field, policy and political work.

Orange County California native Michelle Selesky will wear two hats. Deputy Press Secretary liaising with talk radio and television as well as leading inclusion efforts in Asian American communities. Michelle is an alumna of UCLA where she was Team Captain of the women’s gymnastics team and is semi-fluent in Vietnamese.

Amy Pass will lead fundraising operations. Pass most recently worked for American Solutions where she was responsible for major donor fundraising. Pass assumes the responsibilities of Christine Hall who is headed to work for an issue advocacy organization. Amy graduated from the University of Georgia in 2002 with a degree in Business Administration.

Whitney Smith joins the fundraising operation as deputy finance coordinator. Whitney is an Illinois native who graduated from Western Illinois University. Whitney began as an intern for Gingrich Communications and most recently worked in fundraising and events at American Solutions.

Cynthia Meyer is the campaign’s video editor. Meyer is a proud Texan who is finishing her undergraduate studies at The George Washington University. She has previously interned for International Republican Institute, the Republican Governors Association and Governor Rick Perry’s successful reelection effort.

Cartersville, GA native Jacob Hawkins is overseeing volunteer operations out of the campaign’s Atlanta headquarters. Most recently, Hawkins was an aide for Georgia State Senators Jack Murphy and Butch Miler. In addition, Hawkins has volunteered for several state house races.

I am gonna venture a guess and say this will not receive anywhere near the amount of attention as when the consultants walked out. Funny how that works.

A Recap of Newt's conference call on Dodd-Frank repeal

(I meant to have this up a few hours ago, but a computer error on my part delayed it.)

Wednesday, Newt was on a conference call concerning the repeal of Dodd-Frank, which he is saying is to finance what Obamacare is to health care. He wanted to hear from community bankers and realtors how the legislation -- whose stated purpose was to end "too big to fail" but is actually just making big banks bigger -- is hurting them. Newt said at the beginning of the call that he has been "very surprised how this has bubbled up the past two weeks."

He has mentioned repealing the bill that was passed last year about twenty times the last three weeks -- including on The O'Reilly Factor Monday, Sean Hannity's radio show, and CNBC's Squawk Box Wednesday -- and will give speeches on it in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Thursday and Des Moines Friday. "With a little bit of help" -- from everyone, not just community bankers and others in the business -- Newt believes the movement for repeal "could grow explosively."

(Newt believes repealing it could happen with the current Senate and President, if done properly. He called for building the case over the next couple of months, have the House repeal it as a jobs issue, and then target those Democrat Senators up for re-election in 2012. He compared it to welfare reform, which President Clinton vetoed twice, and only signed when it was passed the third time on the eve of the election.)

If you go around the country and ask community bankers about the law, they will, Newt said, say that Dodd-Frank is driving down home prices, contributing to the lowest housing prices since the Great Depression. It is also burying the smaller banks under paperwork, killing them off. And Newt then made the Hayekian point that such a central plan is naturally rife for corruption.

The legislation creates, in Newt's words, "bureaucratic socialism," whereby the government leaves the impression that the bank or other entity is still privately owned but control every facet of its' operation through standards and other regulations.

Newt, as well as a couple of the other people on the call, pointed out the bureaucrats tasked with implementing the 2300 page bill are extremely risk-adverse -- to the point, said Newt, that they are threatening to kill the entrepreneurial spirit this country was founded on. The bill was almost doomed from the start because, as Gingrich pointed out, two of the men most responsible for the financial crisis -- Chris Dodd and Barney Frank -- were put in charge of reforming the system. They left Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which were at the heart of the mortgage collapse -- untouched. Gingrich called for "very substantial reform," of them calling the two government-sponsored entities "too large" and "too cumbersome."

A few of the people on the call made the point that Newt is the only 2012 Presidential candidate actively pushing for the repeal of Dodd-Frank. As The American Banker said of Newt last week, "he sounded a lot like a community banker."

Video of Newt on Squawk Box Wednesday

Link.

Newt and Callista will be in Tampa Bay September 13

They will be screening A City Upon A Hill. The event will be hosted by the Tampa Bay Young Republicans.

Here is the event page set up the group.

Sign up here to receive e-mail updates from the group -- including when tickets are released.

You can follow the Tampa Bay Young Republicans on Twitter here.

Want to intern/volunteer at Newt's Miami office? Or make calls in Georgia?

Newt's campaign Twitter account sent this out earlier:

"The Newt 2012 Miami HQ is looking for interns/volunteers. Please message @crissymhere if interested."

Also, Newt Volunteer's Facebook Page had this:

Georgia folks: 2 ways to help

IOWA PHONE BLITZ
Phone banking this week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday: 10 am - 4 pm. Calling directly into Iowa to garner support for Newt!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR
GA GOP Fish Fry
August 27th, 11:30am - 2pm
401 Larry Walker Parkway, Perry, GA 31069

*We will be passing out literature, stickers, recruiting supporters, and enjoying a great event with several elected officials

Human Events reviews the first Twitter Debate

My apologies for not seeing this before today, but Tony Lee of Human Events had a very interesting take on the Twitter debate that took place almost two weeks ago:

While only Michele Bachmann​, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson, Herman Cain​, Thad McCotter​, and Rick Santorum​ participated, Gingrich showed his savvy in answering questions in 140 characters while also utilizing the medium to his advantage, something which has been a trademark of the former Speaker of the House.

For instance, at one point in the Twitter debate, @secupp asked the debate participants, "As Pres, if you could enact any policy to fix the economy w/o congressional approval what would it be? Be specific"

While the other candidates responded by tweeting they would repeal ObamaCare or eliminate agencies, @NewtGingrich was savvy enough to reply first by tweeting that "I wouldn’t even if I could b/c congressional passage offers legitimacy of the consent of the governed to the law."

Gingrich then tweeted "Big impact can be made with executive orders though. I would stop EPA from regulating carbon & abolish all White House Czars"

By acknowledging the importance and legitimacy of Congress, Gingrich, in a savvy way, put him on the side of limited government conservatives who worry about any branch overreaching their constitutional authority. It

Then after the debate had wrapped up, Gingrich tweeted his followers to join him on the new social media site, Google +, which is a hybrid between Facebook and Twitter, for another discussion.

And at the very beginning of the debate, Gingrich used the one external link that each participant was allowed to link to an introduction video he specifically made for the event.

Can you guess which word Newt most often uses on Twitter?

Human Events had an interesting article today about how the 2012 Republican Presidential candidates are using Twitter. They linked to a sort of word cloud using what each person tweets.

Here is Newt's.

Surprised what the most commonly used word is? Me either.

Video of Newt on the O'Reilly Factor

Link.

The Gawker Story (Update: NBC's Social Media Director tried to correct Gawker shortly after story's release.)

This afternoon, Gawker, a self-described gossip site, published a story alleging that many of Newt's Twitter followers were fake. Their "source" was allegedly a former Gingrich staffer who, of course, would not go on the record.

Newt's spokesman, R.C. Hammond, tweeted tonight: "@Newtgingrich's 1.3 million followers are legitimate. @Gawker 's "source" is not. Story untrue."

Then some other staffers -- and a former one -- had some fun with the story:

Steve Everley, who used to work at American Solutions but is now not in politics (just energy policy issues), tweeted: "The question isn't "are Newt's followers legitimate?" but rather "who still reads Gawker?"

Tim Cameron tweeted at the author of the story: ".@johnjcook when u were writing that story on Newt didn't it seem a little off to u? Like wouldn't these 'companies' be on FEC disclosures?"

Adam Waldeck: "curious if this was the "former gingrich staffer" gawker talked to on their twitter story." He then posted this picture:

Link.



Newt 2012 Intern Adam Savader: "I can't stand listening to people refer to Gawker's @johnjcook as a reporter, journalist, columnist, or writer. The man is a hack!"

(If you are not already following them on Twitter, please do so.)

(Update: The aforementioned Cameron found out that Ryan Osborn, the social media director at NBC News, tweeted to the author of the Gawker story: "Newt was on Twitter's Suggested List which is how his account gained most of its followers." Undeterred by facts, the author does not retract any of the story.)

(Another update: Jacob Hawkins of Newt's campaign brought attention to a story that Osborn linked to in which the "Suggested Users" feature is described.)

Amity Shlaes: GOP should "Pull a Newt" on deficit talks

Shlaes, who wrote the terrific book The Forgotten Man, which corrected many of the falsehoods of the economic history of the Great Depression, writes:

Thank goodness for Mitch McConnell. Thank goodness Republicans in Congress didn’t “pull a Newt.” Welcome, Clinton Era II.

That’s the conventional wisdom about the budget deal reached July 31. Commentators are emphasizing the statesmanship of the Senate minority leader. Without the Kentucky senator’s diplomacy, the radicals in the Grand Old Party might have played too rough and shut down the government, as House Speaker Newt Gingrich did in the 1990s, rather than giving in to President Bill Clinton on the budget.

Therefore, we have avoided calamity. If the Tea Party leaders, sons of Newt, keep quiet, we may even move into a balmy period of growth and narrowing deficits, just like during the late 1990s, the thinking goes. This attitude is reinforced by McConnell’s loud suggestion that Gingrich’s intransigence damaged the Republican “brand.”

Gingrich recently said that McConnell represented a “Washington version of reality that’s just not true.” And he’s right. The conventional wisdom is contrived. The debt-limit deal, which will cut more than $2 trillion in spending over the next decade, is impressive. However, a little more Newt would have got the bond market something it would like even better: a tougher and more enduring commitment from U.S. leaders to reduce our debt and deficits.

Consider what actually happened in the 1990s to Gingrich, the Republican Party and the budget deficit. He became speaker in 1995 brandishing the “Contract with America,” which promised to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. Rather than give in to a weak budget proposal, Gingrich forced a government shutdown not once, but two years in a row.

In the short term, Americans didn’t approve. CNN polls in July 1995 showed that 44 percent of Americans said Republicans were doing a better job of handling the budget than Democrats were. By Nov. 15 of that year, with the first shutdown underway, respondents had flipped, with 49 percent of Americans approving more of the Democrats’ approach and 33 percent preferring the Republican way.

But evidence that the shutdowns did longer-term damage to Gingrich, the party or the country is scant. Gingrich achieved much after the shutdowns, including negotiating welfare reform and some of the budget deals that led to the federal surplus a few years later.

Those who criticize Gingrich’s tactics in budget negotiations are forgetting the big story. President Clinton didn’t come into office as an austerity champion. He came to Washington to rearrange health care and promulgate Labor Party-style workplace reforms. Had Gingrich and the Republicans not been there, and had Democrats ruled both Houses, Clinton would have heeded deficit doves such as Labor Secretary Robert Reich and adopted a gentler plan for balancing the budget. Reich repeatedly criticized Clinton for “caving” on the deficit.

But thanks to Gingrich and others — especially the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Bill Archer — Republicans were able to win an agreement from the White House and Democratic legislators to overhaul welfare. The budget-reducing regime that Clinton and Gingrich had agreed to narrowed the deficit each year. Eventually, Archer even got Clinton to cut the capital-gains tax. Government analysts expected the deficit to shrink, but not as much or as steadily as it did.

...

A plan to do so might include a balanced-budget amendment of the sort written into the Contract with America. It may involve a new monetary law that gives the Federal Reserve less discretion in setting interest rates. It certainly should begin with a reform of Social Security. President Barack Obama’s own record, whether campaigning or promulgating his health-care policy, suggests that he, like Clinton, isn’t temperamentally inclined to go along with such ideas without mega-pressure from the opposing party.

Senator McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner won’t be able to apply that pressure without the help of that rash group, so capable of “pulling a Newt,” called the Tea Party.

The full article can be read here.

More from Newt's weekend in Iowa

From NBC's Alex Moe:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich made three appearances in Northeast Iowa on Saturday — a pancake breakfast, a parade, and a county fair — two of them tied to this town’s 45th Nordic Fest.

The festival celebrates the area’s Norwegian heritage, and it has been taking place there since 1967. Gingrich began his day eating pancakes and sausage at the Decorah Fire Department. He made his way around to every table in the two-room truck hall, shaking hands and asking for support in next year’s caucuses.

The former House speaker then made his way to the Annual Nordic Fest Grand Parade a couple blocks from the local fire station. Gingrich and his wife Callista (who is in town to play the French horn in her Luther College band reunion Sunday) rode on a float with hay pulled by a big red tractor. The banners on the sides read, “The Winneshiek Country GOP welcomes Newt Gingrich.” Amid other floats with Vikings, Wizard of Oz dancers, and clowns, the Gingriches threw candy and waved along the parade route.

After the parade ended, Gingrich commented on the ongoing debt crisis. He called President Obama “really irresponsible” and said he felt House Speaker Boehner’s efforts are “steps in the right direction.”

The last event on Gingrich’s public schedule yesterday included a stop at the Mitchell County Fair in Osage, IA where he again greeted Iowans asking for their support in the caucuses. “I will be the only Newt Gingrich on the ballot,” he said. Gingrich was escorted around the fair by State Rep. Josh Byrnes, who introduced the presidential hopeful to many locals, including small business owner Wally Rowcliffe.

Rowcliffe is undecided whom to support in the upcoming caucuses, but he noted, “Today would make a big difference, that he [Gingrich] had enough time to come and talk to us here in small town USA.”

The Gingrich campaign said the candidate will be back in the Hawkeye State later this week.

Newt on debt deal: "not a solution" to our "jobs and debt crisis"

From The Daily Caller:

“This agreement only sets the stage for an enormous amount of work going forward -- well beyond the next two years -- on how to create jobs, reduce government spending, return to balanced budgets and pay off our debt,” Gingrich said in a statement.

“If the ultimate result of this deal is a tax increase and/or debilitative cuts in our investment in national security, it will be a destructive failure,” he continued. “With so much work remaining to be done, this deal is yet another reminder of the urgent need to replace President Obama and his radical commitment to big government and higher taxes.”

Gingrich said that, if elected president, he would solve America’s debt crisis by focusing on job creation, keeping politics out of national security spending and reducing federal spending by restructuring government.

Newt: "I actually think ideas matter."

Newt sat down with the editorial board of the Marietta Daily-Journal last Thursday. It is too long to post even a majority of the interview, I will post quite a bit. Here is the full article.

On false, ugly rumors about him:

"I think you tell them the truth," Gingrich said. "And you say, 'I've done things in my life that I've had to reconcile with God and seek forgiveness for, and that's a fact. And I have a very strong marriage. I'm very close to both my daughters. I'm very close to both my grandchildren, close to my two son-in-laws.'"

Gingrich, who represented Georgia's Sixth District from 1979 to 1999 as a Republican U.S. congressman and served as House Speaker from 1995 to 1999, recalled a campaign he went through in Georgia.

"We had a candidate who was attacking me about family and my younger daughter did a commercial and just said, 'it's not true and it's not accurate.' I mean, the worst things said about me are simply not true, and I think both of my daughters are quite prepared to say those things are not true. Now, that means people attacking me aren't going to have a fight with me, they're now going to have to have a fight with Jackie and Kathy, and I think that becomes pretty convincing for people."

On his campaign:

Gingrich blamed the "elite media" for why his campaign had trouble getting traction.

"If you look at the news media coverage, the elite media went out of their way for seven or eight weeks to attack me," Gingrich said. "You had day after day people saying, 'well, his campaign's dead. He's gone. It's over.'"

He recalled a week where he campaigned at various town hall meetings in Iowa, each with a bigger crowd than expected.

"So I'm having a great time," Gingrich said. "Meanwhile, every night on every talk show various analysts, none of whom have been in Iowa, are all going, 'well, Gingrich is gone.' What that really did was is it affected our fundraising very dramatically, didn't affect voters, but it affected our fundraising very dramatically."

Gingrich referred to a news article that did an analysis of Twitter followers.

"And it says, 'now it's true that Gingrich has 1.3 million followers and (Michele) Bachmann only has 59,000, but she's getting more new people every week.' It turned out I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined, but it didn't count because if it counted I'd still be a candidate; since I can't be a candidate that can't count. So we've been a little bit like a sailing ship in the middle of a hurricane in which we are sailing straight into the teeth of the media, and that slowed us down."

Using political consultants, he said, was a mistake.

"And it was a serious mistake. Reagan did the same thing, and in 1980 in New Hampshire 13 senior staff resigned on the morning of the New Hampshire primary, including the manager and the top people. He brought in Bill Casey who was not a consultant; he was a top lawyer. Two weeks later Casey laid off 100 people. And I look back and in retrospect this was just a mistake on my part," he said.

In both the Reagan campaign and Gingrich's Contract with America, ideas were central but slow to mature. Reagan, for instance, didn't dramatically pull away from Jimmy Carter until the October debate, he said.

"What I say to conservatives is very simple. The first is it's October of 2012. Obama has a billion dollars to spend on lies designed to destroy the Republican candidate. The key is going to be the debates. Because the whole country will watch. And they'll either conclude as they did in 1980, remember, 'there you go again,' and they said, 'yep, got it,' and Ronald Reagan carried more states than FDR did in 1932. So who do you want to have on the platform with Obama? Who do you think can look him in the eye and have both the skill and the nerve for example to say, 'Mr. Obama, you have been terrific with food stamps, but that's not good enough for America.' Because if you don't have the nerve to say that you're not going to cut through the billion dollars of advertising."

On polling and the ability of the Internet:

Gingrich cited a Gallup poll that placed him fourth.

"And nobody is first by any big margin," he said. "The front runner who has the most money after five years of campaigning is at I think 19 percent and the 19 percent's not hard. When they did a poll recently in New Hampshire, and they said, 'Are you certain who you're going to vote for?' ten percent of the people said 'yes.' I mean, 90 percent of the people said, 'well, I'm not really sure,' so I start with the idea that this is a much more open race than people think it is, and it's a long way until the first delegates are picked in January. ... I believe if this was not a serious time I would have no hope. I believe this is such a serious time and Americans know it's such a serious time that they're going to look for a serious leader, so I think the talking points and the clever ads and the gimmicks are all going to disappear in the next five months."

The former speaker predicted he could win the nomination for under $20 million. The other day someone reminded him that former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue won the primary for under $250,000.

"People overvalue money and undervalue ideas. That's part of the core gamble of this campaign. I actually think ideas matter. I also think the Internet is such a collapser of cost. I mean, it's actually pretty ironic; one of the complaints the consultant said was that we were spending too much money. The day they left our budget collapsed dramatically, and we've actually raised more than we've spent every single week since they left ..."

Gingrich said he's running for president because the country is faced with three catastrophes coming down the road, one involving China, one involving the loss of American identity and one involving the Middle East.

If the U.S. doesn't fix its manufacturing, science and technological pattern the Chinese will be the leading country in the world, he said.

"And if they both own trillions of dollars of our debt, and they have a superior manufacturing system and a superior military, then our range of independence will be within the framework the Chinese tolerate," Gingrich said. "Now, I don't find that to be a very acceptable future. So I think you've got to rebuild our science, technology and manufacturing base in order to be able to rebuild our military with the recapitalization, and I think if you don't do that we will cease to be the most significant country on the planet, and it will literally dramatically limit our freedom."

Regarding the Middle East, Gingrich referenced a conference Iran held on terrorism.

"Now this is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world holding a conference on terrorism," Gingrich said. "Sixty countries went to the conference. The Secretary General sent a special envoy. Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan were at the conference. Now this means that after thousands of dead Americans, billions of American dollars, the two countries we've tried to help both thought it was better to irritate us than to irritate the Iranians. Now I don't think anybody in the Obama White House has a clue what that meant or how dangerous that is."

The first step is to recognize that radical Islam is real, large and sincere, he said. Moreover, a large part of the Pakistani government was protecting Osama bin Laden.

"If you had asked me - and I have a fair amount of knowledge about intelligence. I have fairly good ties to the Agency and the NSA - if you had asked me up until the week before we went in, I would have said to you, 'he's in a cave in Waziristan.' And if you had said to me, 'oh no, he is in a military city one mile from the national defense university, I would have said to you, 'that means a big chunk of the Pakistani government is protecting him. And that's a problem on a grand scale."

The problem is made all the more complicated with Pakistan harboring perhaps a hundred nuclear weapons, a few of which could be leaked to terrorists, he said.

What is needed is a fundamental overhaul of the U.S. intelligence laws to allow U.S. intelligence agencies to go back to spy work, he said.

"Because we today are so crippled by these various so-called reforms that we don't do spying. We rely on the Pakistanis to give us intelligence. Well, you just learned that the Pakistani intelligence system is on the other team."

On the home front, Gingrich called on the repeal of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which "is to financial services what Obamacare is to health."

He called on reforming the Food and Drug Administration to move new knowledge from the laboratory to the patient as rapidly as possible.

"Today you have an adversarial FDA which is killing the American health industry and driving jobs offshore, while killing patients by slowing down moving new things," he said.

He wants to replace the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with an agency that values economics and cooperates with rather than dictates to local communities.

"You got to replace it because the current bureaucrats at EPA hate business, hate local communities and are destructive of the American future," he said.

Gingrich ripped Obama's energy policy.

"We're the third largest oil producing country in the world," he said. "We have more hydro-carbon than any country in the world. Do you know how bad your government has to be to artificially create these shortages? It's maniacal. So one of the ads we're going to use next year is Obama in Brazil saying, 'I'm glad you're drilling offshore. We'd like to be your best customer.' And I'm going to say, 'there's a simple choice: everybody who thinks the American president should be a purchasing agent for foreigners, you want Obama. Everybody who thinks we ought to be salesmen for Americans, you're for me.'"

Video of one of the opening speeches at Newt's anti-tax rally

Link.



An impressive speech before last week's speech in Marietta, Georgia.

Video of Newt's Second Google+ Hangout

Link.



Newt touches on a number of topics -- the debt ceiling, education (with praise for homeschoolers), and how to help small businesses.

Here is the link to Newt's YouTube Channel.

Here is his Google+ profile.

A Newt supporter tells his story of being in Marietta this past week

Bryan Jacoutot -- BJacoutot on Twitter -- wrote about his experience seeing Newt 2012 up close this last week. I will quote a few parts from his article, which can be found here. (The whole thing is worth reading.)

Gingrich and I agree almost exactly on how to address the issue of immigration reform in this country. I think that at this point, it should be abundantly clear that neither a policy of mass deportation, nor mass amnesty is any sort of real fix to the problem.

...

“I think it has to be taken one step at a time,” Gingrich said. “Today if you’re trying to be here legally and some of you have friends who have been through this, it takes longer and is more expensive and you have to have a lawyer to deal with the state department, so it’s actually cheaper to hire a coyote to sneak into the country than it is to pay your legal fees to get into the country legally. That’s really dumb.” He also advocated for an intermediate step to legality without citizenship for illegal residents who have been here for a number of years. He argued that this “legal status” would get them out of “the grey zone” but not allow them easier access to citizenship than someone who has been waiting patiently across the border to come here legally.

What went largely unnoticed by the onlookers in Marietta this past Thursday was Gingrich’s reference to the highly touted business technique known as Lean Sigma. Gingrich himself only briefly mentioned it as part of his plan to help reduce government waste but the term stuck out to me as a person who has heard his father mention it on a number of occasions at the dinner table in dealing with his business. In a White Paper released by the University at Buffalo Center for Industrial Effectiveness, Lean Sigma is outlined and its successful implementation by the government of Eerie County, New York is highlighted. In a nutshell, Lean Sigma focuses on using facts, data, and statistical analysis to observe trends in all sorts of aspects of our day to day life, aspects that can include the execution of government. With the implementation of a “Lean Sigma based mentality” to how we operate our federal government, the amount of taxpayer dollars that can be saved by preventing governmental waste would be astronomical. This, however, requires taking a business minded approach when dealing with the government, a blend that Gingirch is well suited for following his many successful business ventures since his time as Speaker of the House. A successful application of Lean Sigma to the federal government could earn savings that would considerably dwarf any of the potential plans that our law makers attempting to balance the budget currently have out.

Ultimately, this is where Newt Gingrich separates himself from every other candidate in the running for the office of the President. I’ve mentioned this in earlier posts but it continues to hold true. His speeches aren’t wasted on rhetoric or conjecture. Rather, in a short time, he communicates brilliant ideas, and more importantly, workable plans for those ideas that are backed up both by experiential and learned knowledge. In electing any other candidate, we take a chance because we have no way of knowing if their ideas and rhetoric are backed up by substantive plans for execution. If you ask Gingrich about a campaign issue, he doesn’t stop at telling you what the problem is, he follows up with six ways on how to go about fixing it.

Well, I tried to only quote some of it -- ended up quoting a lot because it really gets the point across. Here is the link for the full article again. And here his Twitter account once again.