Audio of Newt being interviewed by Martha Zoller

Link.

Videos of Georgia Representatives endorsing Newt for President

The campaign today sent out a press release (which I posted here) touting some of their endorsements from the state of Georgia.

It then tweeted four videos from four of the elected officials from the press release:

Sean Jerguson.



Matt Hatchett.



Harry Geisinger.



Paulette Braddock.

Newt 2012 Press Release on Georgia Endorsements

Link.

Atlanta, GA - With hours to go before the Georgia GOP straw poll in Perry this weekend, the Newt 2012 campaign announced a list of Republican lawmakers and elected officials who have endorsed Newt Gingrich for President.

Georgia Legislators:

State Sen. Judson Hill (R-Marietta). Hill is chairman of the Senate Government Oversight Committee and has turned to Gingrich for ideas on health reform.

State Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta), chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee. Cooper has been a longtime ally of Gingrich.

State Rep. Joe Wilkinson (R-Sandy Springs). Wilkinson is chairman of the House Ethics Committee and served in the Reagan Administration.

State Rep. Harry Geisinger (R-Roswell). Geisinger first served in the House from 1969-1974 and was re-elected when Republicans took the Majority in 2004. He used to be a guest speaker in Professor Gingrich’s history classes at West Georgia College in Carrollton.

State Rep. Sean Jerguson (R-Canton). Jerguson is chairman of the Cherokee County legislative delegation.

State Rep. Paulette Braddock (R-Hiram). Braddock is a freshman from Paulding County who is assisting on the Newt 2012 leadership team in Georgia.

State Rep. Matt Hatchett (R-Dublin). Hatchett is one of the Governor's floor leader and a small business owner from middle Georgia. He now holds the seat currently held by former longtime minority leader Rep. Dubose Porter.


Georgia officials

Governor Nathan Deal.

Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens

Public Service Commissioners Stan Wise and Lauren “Bubba” McDonald.

Members of Congress

U.S. Rep. Tom Price of the 6th District; U.S. Rep. Austin Scott of the 8th District; U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of the 11th District and U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston of the 1st District.

Former Georgia Governor and United States Senator Zell Miller, is national co-chairman of the Newt 2012 campaign. Georgia’s current Governor, Nathan Deal, is the other co-chairman of the Newt 2012 campaign.


“The Georgia Republican Party has come a long way,” Gingrich said. “I am proud to have the support of my fellow Republicans.”

Gingrich went on to say that his relationships with some elected officials go back forty years or more when Republicans were hard to find in Georgia.

“I have known some of these folks since my first days in Republican politics,” said the former House Speaker. “Together we have worked to make America stronger, freer and more prosperous. With a new President we can go even further, and I am grateful to have them on my team.”

State Rep. Joe Wilkinson, who worked in the Reagan White House press office, called Gingrich “America’s Winston Churchill.”

“They too had to turn to the brightest candidate and the one with the most vision to save their nation,” Wilkinson said. “Newt is the candidate who can save and restore America.”

NOTE: Gingrich will attend the Georgia Republican Party annual Fish Fry in Perry, Ga. this coming Saturday. Newt will arrive at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Article about Newt's New Hampshire Visit

From the Manchester Union-Leader:

Republican Presidential Primary candidate Newt Gingrich brought his message of reinventing government to Freudenberg-NOK’s Manchester Seal Technologies factory Thursday.

“We need a 21st century Food and Drug Administration that is designed to be in the laboratory, learning the science and accelerating moving science to the marketplace.

“Health will be the biggest job sector in the world and if the U.S. is the leading producer of new medicines, new breakthroughs, new technologies those jobs will be here, it will be just like this plant,” he said.

Freudenberg-NOK managers held an hour-long discussion with Gingrich of their lean manufacturing and Six Sigma achievements.

...

Gingrich said that by one estimate applying lean Six Sigma to the federal bureaucracy could save taxpayers $500 billion a year.

Gingrich advocated freezing current tax rates; going to a zero capital gains tax rate; going to a 100 percent tax deduction for new equipment; reduce corporate taxes rates from a top 35 percent to 12.5 percent; abolish the death tax on family-owned businesses.

“Congress frankly the first week of September ought to repeal the Dodd-Frank Bill,” he said. He also urged repeal of the Sarbannes-Oxley bill.

The Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies business has $60 million to $80 million a year in revenues from New Hampshire operations, with 250 employees in Manchester.

Newt and Callista to be in Chicago Sept. 4 to screen Nine Days that Changed the World

Here is the Facebook event page.

From that link: "Speaker and Mrs. Gingrich will screen 'Nine Days that Changed the World'. A book and DVD signing will be held prior to the screening."

Looking ahead, the two will also be screening A City Upon a Hill in conjunction with the Tampa Bay Young Republicans September 13.

A week later, on September 20th, they will be in Sioux City, Iowa, to screen Mine Days that Changed the World with KFHC Catholic Radio.

On October 4th, with the Columbia (S.C.) Tea Party, A City Upon a Hill will be shown.

Newt's op-ed on Warner-Webb energy bill

From the op-ed published by The Virginian-Pilot:

The Webb-Warner bill would establish a revenue-sharing plan that would direct half the public revenue from offshore energy development to the federal government and half to Virginia.

The commonwealth would receive 37.5 percent of any revenues, and an additional 12.5 percent would be set aside for land and water conservation projects, public transportation projects and alternative energy development projects.

The offshore oil and gas industry could add more than 15,000 jobs in Virginia and add $3.2 billion to the commonwealth's economy, according to a 2009 report by the American Energy Alliance.

The Norfolk area is primed to benefit from that growth due to its good location and harbor, with its shipbuilding infrastructure already in place. The bill could give Norfolk an early-mover advantage, since the Obama administration has blocked leases off other Atlantic states as well.

The bill also calls for a new resource assessment of the mid-Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf.

The last estimate was completed in 1984, using technology that is now decades out of date. That estimate suggested the area could have as much as 750 million barrels of oil, but with new exploration and drilling technologies, it could contain billions of barrels.

Outdated research like what we have for offshore Virginia has often dramatically underestimated the potential of American energy. The estimate of the Bakken formation in North Dakota, for instance, has jumped 2,500 percent since 1995 due to new technology. The amount of natural gas in shale has increased our estimated supply of natural gas fifteenfold in the last decade.

Just a fourfold increase in the oil estimated off Virginia would mean reserves of 3 billion barrels. That supply would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and under Virginia's revenue-sharing plan, half the revenues it produced would go directly to the commonwealth and millions more would go to the Virginians working in jobs created in areas like Norfolk.

New oilfield innovation has turned around a 25-year decline in American oil production, and domestic supplies are growing once again, but American production could grow even faster if President Barack Obama's unnecessary regulatory barriers were removed.

The plan to allow Virginia to move ahead with offshore drilling is a truly bipartisan proposal.

The Senate bill is sponsored by the Democratic senators and supported by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell and by both candidates for Virginia's U.S. Senate seat in 2012, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen.

The House should move to pass the bill immediately and challenge Senate Democrats to approve the proposal of their colleagues. Then Obama would have to decide if he wanted to veto a plan that would create jobs, increase revenues and produce more American energy.

Newt's newsletter: "The Super Committee Disaster"

From this week's newsletter:

Nothing illustrates the gap between Washington and America better than the difference in reaction to the "Super Committee" that the debt ceiling deal set up to cut spending.

In Washington, a 12-member group with tremendous power to dictate the details of debt reduction is seen as a great idea.

Outside Washington, people applaud every time I condemn the process.

The rest of America sees a plan to skip 523 members of Congress while focusing power on a select 12 as a dangerous centralization of authority.

People instinctively understand that their Senators and Congressman will be on the outside lobbying the "powerful 12."

Ninety-seven percent of the American people have now lost representation in critical decisions about the size and scope of their government.

The rest of America also intuitively understands the absurdity of reducing the 217 committees and subcommittees that normally contribute to policy decisions in the House and Senate to one "super" committee for the whole Congress.

The group Strong America Now estimates that Congress could save $500 billion per year simply by modernizing the federal government's management system. They argue that the Lean Six Sigma technique for dramatic cost reductions could identify billions in savings with a careful examination of processes and expenditures across the government.

If that sounds implausible, consider that the Defense Department has already used Lean Six Sigma to save more than $22 billion, increasing productivity 1,000 percent in some facilities.

The Strong America Now estimate is more than three times the goal of the Super Committee. You can learn more about anti-waste budgeting and Lean Six Sigma in my newsletter here and at StrongAmericaNow.com.

For a full overview of my case against the Super Committee and an alternative method to balance the budget in a publicly accountable way, you should watch the speech I gave last Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation.

I think you will agree that targeted savings with full representation for all Americans is a better solution than unaccountability and concentrated power.

Let me know: Would you prefer the 12-member Super Committee or the involvement of all 535 members of Congress?

Click here to vote.

Letter to the editor: "Gingrich shows intelligence"

On Tuesday, Newt's campaign Twitter account linked to a letter to the editor from Bristol, Virginia.

It reads:

During recent months, pollsters have called asking who I support for the Republican candidate for president. My answer: "Newt Gingrich or Mike Huckabee." Because Huckabee has declined, that leaves Gingrich.

Gingrich is a smart man. He knows the political system. He says what he thinks. There is very little equivocating. Some say he is too brusk and combative. Harry Truman didn’t mince words and people knew where he stood and why.

In the Iowa debate, Gingrich spent little time attacking other candidates but said what he thought about Congress adjourning and the president leaving for vacation while a committee of 12 takes over the job of sorting out the mess we are in. He said the committee was the dumbest thing that had ever happened: 520-some representatives abdicating their responsibility and the president relaxing while the country is in turmoil. I say if the 12 can do the job – why do we need the 500-plus? Just fire them; think of the money we will save.

It is said that Gingrich has "baggage" (in the negative sense). To be practical, I ask "who doesn’t?”

Through the years other presidents have had baggage but theirs was not allowed to be viewed by the public, at least until they were out of office. Only lately with the speed of communication and the "got-cha" mentality of the press has a person’s character been under such scrutiny, for better or worse.

This is not to excuse deliberate wrong doing. The media have a responsibility to hold a bright light on the actions of our elected officials but at times a little compassion and understanding and civility should be taken into consideration.

There are those who will have a partisan objection to this, but that’s the way I see it.

Sam Y. Perkins

Bristol, Va.

Video of Newt's interview with Sean Hannity Wednesday

Link.

Audio of Newt on Howie Carr's Radio Show Wednesday Night

Link.

Watch this at WRKO

NewtGingrich360.com

Brandon Todd, who started Teabook.org, has recently started newtgingrich360.com.

Teabook.org has about 12,000 members (including me for about a year), and -- according to Todd -- "it looks like Teabook [has] overwhelmingly changed its preferences to Gingrich." He wrote that the day after the Ames Debate.

I will be cross-posting the content from this blog over there, and please sign up on the site. It will almost assuredly be the most important Newt supporter website within a short amount of time.

Newt Gingrich Named #6 Most Influential Person in Healthcare

From Newt 2012:

Atlanta, GA -- Modern Healthcare has named Newt Gingrich #6 on their list of most influential people in healthcare. No other Republican presidential candidate is included in their list of 100.

“Newt Gingrich has spent more time and energy developing and popularizing free market healthcare solutions that would save lives and save money than all the other candidates combined” remarked Dr. Michael Burgess, Republican Congressman from the 26th district of Texas.

“As Republicans look for the right candidate to repeal and replace Obamacare, Modern Healthcare has reminded voters that Newt Gingrich’s status as an expert ant thought leader in health care policy is unmatched by any other candidate in the field,” added Burgess.

...

As a candidate, Newt is calling for the creation of a 21st-century Food and Drug Administration that shortens the time it takes private companies to deliver new cures and treatments to the patient. Gingrich cites the current FDA’s costly requirements as obstacles in gaining approval for new drugs and medical devices.

“Major reform at the FDA will help firms get products from the research laboratory to the marketplace faster,” Gingrich said. "The current FDA model takes too long, allows people to die in the interim, raises the costs so dramatically that small start-ups couldn't possibly bring new ideas to the table and is in effect driving jobs overseas."

Gingrich also points to electronic medical records as another way to improve health. "Faster access to information in real time allows doctors to make better decisions.”

Most notable, Gingrich wants to invest more in creating public-private partnerships to fund brain science and research with the goal of finding cures for costly diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Gingrich notes that delaying the onset of Alzheimer's by just five years would save $10 trillion in public and private costs by 2050.

Read further about Newt Gingrich’s “Patient Power” plan to improve healthcare quality, lower costs, and insure every American without mandates at http://www.newt.org/solutions/healthcare.

Newt Gingrich Healthcare Record

In 2003, Newt founded the Center for Health Transformation to develop free market healthcare reforms to foster a 21st Century System of health and healthcare that is centered on the individual, prevention focused, knowledge intense and innovation rich. Newt also served as the Co-Chairman of the National Commission for Quality Long-term Care and the independent congressional Alzheimer’s Disease Study Group.

As Speaker of the House, Gingrich’s leadership helped save Medicare from bankruptcy, prompted FDA reform to help the seriously ill and initiated a new focus on research, prevention, and wellness. His contributions have been so great that the American Diabetes Association awarded him their highest non-medical award and the March of Dimes named him their 1995 Citizen of the Year.

Newt to be at Jim DeMint's Presidential Forum

Newt's campaign confirmed he would take part in the Palmetto Freedom Forum, which is occuring in South Carolina over Labor Day Weekend and of which South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is a co-sponsor.

"Candidates will take turns fielding questions from the trio of panelists for roughly 20 minutes at a time," writes Peter Hamby of CNN. An actual conversation when determining who should be the next President -- what a concept!

In other news, Newt will be at the Georgia GOP Fish Fry this Saturday. It will be Noon to 2 PM.

Here is the Facebook event page.

Also, Newt will be on Sean Hannity's TV show Wednesday night.

Yesterday Marked Fifteen Years since Welfare Reform

Yesterday, Newt sent out two tweets from his personal account:

Link.

Today is 15th anniversary of welfare reform. The shift to state control and personal responsibility dramatically improved people's lives.

and

Link.

We should build on success of welfare reform by applying block-granting Medicaid and other means tested federal programs.

For a public policy course, I wrote this paper on welfare reform last year.

Newt to tour New Hampshire facility that uses Lean Six Sigma

On Thursday, Aug. 25, Newt Gingrich will visit the Manchester, New Hampshire production facility of Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies to observe how the company uses Lean/ Six Sigma processes in its manufacturing and business processes to improve quality, reduce waste and gain operational efficiencies. Gingrich is advocating Lean/ Six Sigma be applied to the federal bureaucracy to save taxpayers money and eliminate unnecessary waste and abuse.

...

Freudenberg-NOK is a leading producer of advanced sealing and elastomeric technologies for a variety of industries including automotive, aerospace, appliance, diesel engine, agriculture, construction, heavy industry, and alternate energy.

Newt's interview with Craig Ferguson from September 2009

Link to Part 1.



Link to Part 2.



It's quite funny.

"Why Newt Gingrich Should be The Republican Nominee for President "

Newt's campaign Twitter account (Newt2012HQ) today tweeted out the great blog post from Justin Gray "Why Newt Gingrich Should be The Republican Nominee for President. If you haven't already, please read it here.

Justin, again, can be followed on Twitter by following this link. Follow Newt2012HQ as well please. Re-tweet Justin's post, and if you are on Facebook, share it with friends.

(Video) Newt at Des Moines-Register Soapbox

Link to video.

"Gingrich Enlists Six Sigma Army."

(This is another story that has been pushed back. It was written the day after Newt's conference call on Lean Six Sigma, which I recapped here.)

From Lori Piotrowski:

On a teleconference call to hundreds of devoted practitioners of LSS, Gingrich sounded the clarion call.

He was hoping to galvanize Six Sigma users to help him educate the public.

“This hasn’t been presented to the American public,” and until they recognize what Six Sigma policies can do, they won’t ask for it.

"Give a speech to your Rotary Club, write a letter to the editor, give a tour of a Six Sigma facility to elected officials," he suggested.

Gingrich has been a follower of the Six Sigma management system for many years

....

Gingrich singled out the civil service and regulatory system as two examples of government waste. The civil service has a history of 130 years, and it is entrenched in the government, he added. "This is a fundamental change, and it won't be easy to do."

As Gingrich took calls from listeners, a general contractor from South Carolina talked about the amount of waste she sees in the multiple layers of management and asked what she could do to help.

Gingrich suggested that she write down the issues that she sees and send them to him. He is forming a committee to start looking at issues and begin to formulate a response.

"You don’t need to provide the answer to the problem. We start by looking at systems that will work rather than focusing on what is not," he emphasized.

"What was expected to be a small gathering turned out to be a packed house."

From a Maui TV station:

On Saturday night Gingrich met with Maui residents at the Door of Faith church in Wailuku.

What was expected to be a small gathering turned out to be a packed house

"We're clearly talking to 'Candidate Gingrich' now and I love being here, but we're also campaigning all through Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. We're on the way, we'll be in New Hampshire again this week and we'll be campaigning very intensely from now till Christmas," Gingrich says.

Gingrich will hold another public event at Seabury Hall in Makawao on Monday morning.

"Hundreds" attended the townhall.

Here is video from the event:

Newt 2012 has seen "an uptick" in donations since Ames Debate

Rebutting those who say Newt is not serious about raising money, Politico did a story in the middle of last week in which they quote Newt's spokesman R.C. Hammond: "[Newt] spends a lot of his days -- six or seven hours -- on the phone, goes to dinner, then goes into an evening session."

"Gingrich's campaign says he’s been on a circuit of unpublicized, intimate house parties," writes Kendra Marr.

"Small gatherings in people’s homes is low overhead on our end. Hearing Newt talk, explaining what he’ll do for the country -- it’s much more effective," Hammond said.

Marr: "His campaign says he recently saw an uptick in online contributions after the Republican primary debate in Iowa, where his criticisms of the supercommittee and the media drew the biggest applause of the night."

I don't ask for contributions to Newt's campaign often, but please go to Newt.org and give what you can.

Newt's newsletter on energy exploration

(So I have been late in getting this up, but there have have been a lot of things going on and I try not to go over five posts a day.)

But here it is. And as always to sign up for Newt's newsletter, follow this link.

Newt asked House Republicans to follow the lead of both Virginia Democrat Senators who have authored a bill that would open up offshore drilling. Which would, writes Newt, "create jobs, grow federal, state, and local revenues with no tax increase, and speed the production of American energy.

Since the vast majority of Americans favor an American energy policy for economic and national security reasons, this bill should be very popular with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents."

Further:

Offshore oil development could add more than 15,000 jobs in Virginia and add $3.2 billion to the Commonwealth’s economy, according to a 2009 report published by the American Energy Alliance.

Governor Bob McDonnell supports the bill. Both candidates for U.S. Senate from Virginia in 2012 (Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen) also support it. Since Kaine was previously Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, his support may make it easier for some Democrats to vote in favor.

McDonnell is a conservative Republican, as in Allen. So while some short-sighted conservatives balk at any idea of "bipartisanship," this bill is basically everything conservatives want in the area of offshore drilling.

Newt writes:

Senator Webb's statement described that the bill would direct the Department of Interior to include Lease Sale 220 in the nation’s 2012-2017 five-year oil and gas lease plan.

The area could have a resource potential of as much as 750 million barrels of oil, but again, that number is based upon seismic research done more than 30 years ago with technology that is out of date today. Given new exploration capabilities and new drilling technologies, the real number could be billions of barrels.

Such outdated estimates have often dramatically underestimated the potential of American energy. The estimate of the Bakken formation in North Dakota has jumped 25 fold (2500%) since 1995 due to new technology.

The amount of natural gas in shale has increased our estimated supply of natural gas by more than 15 fold (1500%) in the last decade.

A modest 4 fold increase in the oil estimated off the coast of Virginia would yield reserves of three billion barrels of oil—a supply worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

New oilfield innovation has turned around a 25 year decline in American oil production, and domestic supplies are growing once again.

American oil production could grow even faster if President Obama’s unnecessary regulatory barriers were removed. Drilling off the Virginia coast is an excellent place to start.

On the strategic value of passing bill that is great policy but also has significant Democrat support, Newt writes:

House Republicans should seize the opportunity.

They should pass the House bill exactly as it is and challenge the Senate to act on this bipartisan proposal.

There are a significant number of Democratic Senators who have said they favor energy development. This would be a chance for them to be bipartisan and solution-oriented.

With the support of some Democrats, President Obama would have to decide if he would veto a bipartisan bill that would creates jobs, energy, and federal revenues.

Offshore drilling has enormous potential to be a first step toward breaking gridlock in Washington and toward a real plan to American Energy for Prosperity. Washington should act soon on this truly bipartisan plan.

If the bill came up for a vote in the House, it would almost assuredly get some Democrats to vote for it. So would Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really table a proposal that has bipartisan support in both chambers? And if he does, it's a great issue to take to the American people in just over 14 months.