Newt wants to debate President Obama seven times next year

Today, Newt laid out the challenge to President Obama should Newt get the Republican nomination: Seven, three-hour debates in the tradition of Lincoln-Douglas. In Springfield, Illinois, with no moderator, just a timekeeper.

And a teleprompter if the President wants one.

Bob Vander Plaats: Newt can contend in Iowa if he "can identify resources"

Bob Vander Plaats, an important conservative voice in Iowa, echoed fellow conservative Hawkeye Steve Deace's criticism of Rick Perry's position on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants -- and the Texas Governor's characterization of opponents to that policy.

FoxNews.com:

And Vander Plaats, head of the Iowa Family Policy Center, was surprised that Perry made no attempt during his follow-up remarks Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida to adjust or explain himself on immigration following Thursday night's assertion that those who disagree with him "have no heart."

They further quote Vander Plaats:

Vander Plaats had expected Perry to win the Iowa caucus and said the Texas governor enjoyed lots of evangelical support only 3 weeks ago, but now he is suggesting that Iowa could warm to another Republican contender. He argues that if Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich can identify resources, or if Herman Cain and Ron Paul can convince people they are electable, or if Michelle Bachmann can regain momentum, the Hawkeye state and its caucus could be within their reach.

"There is a huge opening in Iowa. Right now the first in the nation Caucus state is completely up for grabs," Vander Plaats said to Fox News.

The resources Newt 2012 needs are campaign funds and volunteer hours. Please give what you can in terms of either. And if you can't give either -- or already have and can't give anymore -- keep spreading the word to friends and family. Have them sign up on Newt.org -- preferably Newt.org/volunteer -- and have them do the same.

I keep saying it, but it bears repeating again: Iowa is roughly four months away. Plenty of time to go.

(And it needs to be said that Newt is already showing improvements in terms of money and volunteers. We just need to keep it going.)

(Video) Newt's entire speech at Friday's Florida CPAC

Link to cpac.org.

30,000!

This blog eclipsed the 30,000 pageview mark tonight. And when the views from those who are subscribed -- whether the morning e-mail or other feeds -- the total is almost 33,000.

Thanks to everyone for their support!

Steve Deace has some harsh words for Rick Perry

I try to stay positive on this blog, but here is a very important story that should be getting more attention. Steve Deace was one of the most influential voices in the Iowa Caucuses four years ago and was largely credited with Mitt Romney's disappointing second place finish. Today, Deace said on his radio show of the Perry campaign: "“This is like watching a sweater unravel."

From Tony Leys of the Des Moines-Register:

“He’s like an NFL quarterback who has a contract holdout. He’s not there for the preseason, he’s not there all off-season. He signs on the Monday before the season starts, and he’s the star quarterback, so you put him in right away,” Deace said. “His timing with his receivers isn’t there. The nuances and the changes they made to the playbook to get ready for a new season – he hasn’t caught up to those things yet. And, lo and behold, before you know it, your team is 0-2 – and 0-2 teams don’t make the playoffs.”

On the in-state tuition for illegal immigrants issue:

Perry was defending himself against allegations that he encouraged illegal immigration by supporting a Texas plan granting in-state college tuition to the children of illegal immigrants. The governor said that if critics disapprove of educating such young people, “I don’t think you have a heart.”

Deace said that stance is insulting to many conservatives, who think it’s unfair to offer discounted tuition to illegal immigrants while denying it to U.S. citizens who live in other states. “That’s going to kill him. That’s stuff Barack Obama says,” Deace said. “You don’t walk into a Republican primary audience and say stuff like that to them. … To say stuff like that to a Republican primary audience shows a guy that’s defensive, unprepared and unpolished.”

Full video of Newt's answers from the Fox News Debate

Link.

What they tweeted about Newt during tonight's #gopdebate

Katy Abram, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 912 Founder (and the woman who confronted Arlen Specter at town hall meeting over Obamacare):

Newt totally rocked the unemployment question #gopdebate

Drew Cline, New Hampshire Union Leader Editorial Page Editor:

Newt with best answer so far. Actually, Newt with only direct answer so far. #gopdebate

Fellow Presidential Candidate Buddy Roemer:

Newt is correct. Unemployment benefits must be tied to work or work training.

Matt Lewis, Senior contributor at The Daily Caller:

Good answer from Newt!

Noel Sheppard, Associate Editor of Newsbusters.org:

.@newtgingrich steals the show again!

Emily Miller, Senior Editor of The Washington Times opinion pages:

Tom, Newt is the MASTER of debates. He's an artist.

Guy Benson, Townhall.com Political Editor:

Newt brings the house down.

Jedediah Bila, author and columnist:

Newt puts the focus back on school choice. Great point.

Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation:

Gingrich has the best school plan out there. #teapartynation #gopdebate #gop2012 #tcot

Alan Gable:

Newt just went Reggie Jackson on this thing. 3 homeruns in the same night. @newtgingrich

Eric E. Harrison:

Meanwhile I continue to get excited every time Newt gets asked a question. He offers best articulation of conservatism of any candidate.

Sarah Rumpf, Florida blogger:

And once again @newtgingrich is the smartest man in the room. #FloridaP5 #gopdebate

Dennis Ross, U.S. Representative (FL-12):

Very true. RT @JedediahBila: .@newtgingrich has consistently brought specifics to these debates. Glad he's in there speaking his mind.

Pamela Engstrom, Tea Party Leader in Dallas:

@Newt2012HQ @newtgingrich Newt is on fire tonight. Highly intelligent answers show vast experience.

Alexandra Moe of NBC News:

Gingrich gets loud applause: Nothing will turn America around more than when Barack Obama loses on election night decisively #gopdebate

New York Post Editorial Board:

Newt gets biggest applause of night; "Fastest way of turning America around is when Barack Obama is defeated decisively." #gopdebate

Rod D. Martin, President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies:

Megyn right: Newt most statesmanlike, got off most statesmanlike moment. #gopdebate #teaparty #tcot

Larry Sabato, Director of University of Virginia Center for Politics:

This professor's grades: Romney B+, Newt B+, Cain B, Johnson C+, Perry C,Huntsman C, Paul C, Bachmann C-. No A student.

Newt's newsletter on the 21st Century Contract with America

Newt opened this week's newsletter:

Seventeen years ago next Tuesday, on September 27, 1994, House Republican candidates signed the Contract with America.

The debt we owed President Ronald Reagan was captured in the Washington Post’s headline “GOP Offers a 'Contract' To Revive Reagan Years."

As the Post reported:

"More than 300 Republican lawmakers and candidates yesterday pledged that if they take over the House next year, they will resurrect the Reagan agenda that drove the party's success in the 1980s -- promises of balanced budgets, tax cuts and defense buildups.

"House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (Ga.), poised to become Republican leader in the next Congress, proclaimed the photogenic rally on the Capitol steps "an historic event" that would change the government as much as the New Deal did. The 10-point agenda, he said, gives Republicans a positive platform and a response to charges that their only message is opposition to President Clinton​."

We ran an ad in TV Guide that was two full pages. It had no pictures and no attacks on President Clinton or the Democrats. It was totally positive and issue-oriented. The ad outlined the ten bills we pledged to vote on in the first 100 days if we were given a majority.

The result:

The American people liked our positive focus on issues enough to give us the greatest vote increase in American history for any party in an off year. Republicans gained 9 million more votes while Democrats lost a million votes.

After discussing President Obama's plea that "if you love me, you've got to help me pass the bill -- go and read that part please -- Newt continues:

As President Clinton noted on Sunday talk shows this week, we were able to work together through divided government to balance the budget, reform welfare, cut taxes and bring unemployment down to 4.2 percent.

It took real maturity and discipline, and a focus on doing what was best for America, to get a Republican Congress and a Democratic President to do that much despite divided government.

Here is the link to the full newsletter again.

A terrific newsletter and a great lead-in to a week from Thursday when he unveils the 21st Century Contract with America.

This Thursday -- either tomorrow or later today, depending on when you're reading this -- is the Fox News Debate. Hopefully Newt knocks it out of the park two Thursdays in a row and continues the momentum. We're just about 4 months out of Iowa.

#withNewt

New Rasmussen 2012 Poll: Newt has moved into third place in another poll

Just as with every poll but one from last week, Newt has moved into third place in another poll. (The one poll Newt was in fourth place last week was one that Ron Paul polled ahead of him, and Paul has no chance to win the nomination.)

There is another debate Thursday for Newt to keep the momentum going. To help Newt win the future, please consider contributing either money or your time to the campaign.

(I am assuming most reading this blog are signed up to receive e-mails from Newt.org, but on the off chance you aren't, Newt sent out an e-mail today with this promotion:

Between now and September 27th, if you donate $19.94 or more at Newt.org, you will be entered into a contest to get a first glimpse at the new 21st Century Contract with America before we officially unveil it in Iowa. The winner will also receive an autographed copy of the original Contract with America and a call from me.

You can enter to win without contributing money by clicking here.

Article on Newt's efforts to repeal Dodd-Frank

From MortgageOrb.com:

As part of his campaign to seek the Republican Party's presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich has made the repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act a key element of his proposed domestic policy. During the summer, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives hosted a number of meetings and telephone conference calls with mortgage bankers and business leaders to discuss the Dodd-Frank Act's effects on their operations and the economy.

Newt on why the act needs to be repealed:

Gingrich: Dodd-Frank is a regulatory Tower of Babel that is paralyzing the American economy and depressing home values. The legislation itself is over 2,300 pages in length and requires federal regulators to come up with more than 400 rules, which will expand the law by another 5,000 pages. It contains so much complexity and uncertainty as to how it will be applied that it is depressing normal lending and borrowing across the country, especially among small community banks and their small business borrowers.

We know from experience that a largely free economy is the best system to provide jobs and prosperity. We also know from experience, both here at home and abroad, that a command and control economic system run by bureaucrats of the central government is a recipe for economic decline.

They asked Newt what the most common comments from those affected by the act are:

Gingrich: The common theme of these comments is the sheer uncertainty of what the law requires and deep anxiety about the amount of arbitrary power that this bill invests in unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. The uncertainty about what Dodd-Frank regulations will look like a month, a year, or five years from now makes decision-making impossible and freezes up even more investment.

Despite the fact that Dodd-Frank ended up being over 2,300 pages long, the most disturbing words and clauses may very well have yet to be written. This is a bill that allows bureaucrats to author 400 new regulations with little oversight, and also limits the extent to which we can predict damaging effects now.

There are obviously some aspects so devastating that they stand out: Lenders and Realtors have told us how disastrous the proposed Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) standards would be if they were to come into effect. They are sure that this rule will prevent hundreds of thousands of creditworthy Americans from accessing mortgages. Today's housing market, which is already mired in its worst slump since the Great Depression, will only get more miserable as fewer and fewer Americans are able to buy and sell their homes.

Community bankers are already bracing themselves for the cumbersome deluge of new regulations that will affect them disproportionally hard. Some community bankers have said that in order to afford the towering compliance costs, they may be put in a place where they will have no choice but to either merge with another institution or go out of business.

On Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Addressing Fannie and Freddie should have been the first priority of any serious financial reform. The fact that these government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), which played such a critical role in the financial crisis in 2008, escaped unscathed - some would say they escaped even stronger - is testament to how misguided and confused the authors of this bill were.

It is absolutely critical for the private sector to assume a larger role in the mortgage market. Our continued dependence on the GSEs is simply unsustainable. American taxpayers have already paid out about $150 billion in bailout funds, and are likely exposed to hundreds of billions more in liabilities. Dodd-Frank further harms private-sector lenders with new byzantine regulations and penalties, such as those surrounding the QRM rule. While that happens, Fannie and Freddie will only get bigger and continue to distort the housing market on the backs of the American taxpayer.

After we repeal Dodd-Frank, we must gradually scale down the role of the GSEs in the American housing market, eventually breaking them up and beginning the process of privatization.

On the "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau":

Dodd-Frank is an economically and constitutionally destructive piece of legislation, and the CFPB is its corrupted foundation. Only Congress could create an agency that invests all of its power in one single, unelected bureaucrat, and then claim that doing something like this could actually help "consumer protection."

Read the whole interview here.

Newt answers questions submitted by a Tea Party group

Link.



(I was informed that a video I sent out recently of a interview Newt did on Bloomberg TV did not work. Here is a link that should work.)

Details about Newt's campaign stop in Iowa today

From Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines-Register:

Gingrich and [Ron] Paul had dueling presidential campaign events today: both were billed as town hall meetings and both began at 2 p.m. in Sioux City.

It offered a rare chance to get a side-by-side look at events for the two GOP candidates.

Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker from Georgia, drew a slightly bigger crowd – about 40 more people than Paul, a longtime congressman from Texas.

...

More people came to Gingrich’s event than were at Paul’s across town -- about 215.

Because the event took place on Morningside College’s campus, it instantly had the atmosphere of a college lecture. Although they nodded and laughed at points, the audience was more subdued than the Paul crowd. Gingrich attracted more young people: It was an even split with half college students, half older Iowans.

Jacobs notes that Newt spoke for just a few minutes, then opened it up for questions from the audience.

Jacobs:

THEMES: Anecdotes about the 1980s, 1990s and the Reagan administration; the 10th amendment; the military; harsh criticism of the Obama administration; the Contract with America introduced 17 years ago and the one he intends to unveil Sept. 29.

REACTION: Ted Brian, 43, a teacher who lives in Sioux City, said he thought Gingrich came across as trustworthy and believable.

“The thing that impressed me the most about the speech was that he seems to have specific ideas and specific programs he wants to either implement or cut,” Brian said. “And he doesn’t seem afraid to talk about those specifics.”

Jacobs quotes Newt:

“I do not ask anyone to be for me. I’m asking people to be with me because I think this is going to eight years of very hard work. … If you try change of this scale, you’re going to have things that don’t work very well.”

(Video) Newt interviewed by Bloomberg TV

Link.

In addition to the usual substance, Newt discusses the state of the campaign toward the end of the interview.

More details on the 21st Century Contract with America

From Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines-Register:

Newt Gingrich promised to lay out a “very visionary” new Contract with America during a speech next week in Iowa.

It “will be 10 times deeper and more comprehensive than 1994,” he told an audience of about 40 people Monday night in Council Bluffs. “Because the truth is, while we changed the system some … we didn’t fundamentally change the underlying system.”

The new “21st Century Contract with America” will, he said.

Gingrich said his ideas, which he will unveil Sept. 29 in Des Moines, are “very big, and they’re exactly what Abraham Lincoln would have campaigned on.”

Monday night’s campaign stop, at Bent Tree Golf Club, centered on a screening of “A City Upon a Hill,” a documentary Gingrich and his wife, Callista, helped create about the concept of American exceptionalism.

Afterward, Gingrich spoke and answered questions for an hour, flexing his intellectual muscles and calling his campaign “the antithesis” of the other campaigns.

“One of the major themes of next year if I’m the nominee is going to be that (President Barack) Obama is the best food stamps president in American history and I’ll be the best paycheck president in American history,” he said.

“And I will be happy to debate Obama on any university campus in the country, including Harvard and Berkeley. I’m not afraid to debate this president anywhere, any time, on any topic.”

Gingrich had the audience laughing multiple times with quips and stories about his personal life, including his childhood ambition to be either a paleontologist or a zoo director.

After the 2½-hour event, Sam McManus, 58, of Council Bluffs said Gingrich’s pitch “changed my whole perception of him” from a has-been to a serious contender.

McManus’s wife, Anna, a railroad official, went even further. She said she was previously leaning toward Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, but “it’s going to take a lot to get me to go anywhere else now. Mitt is good, but he’s not going to have ideas like this.”

The original Contract with America presaged today’s tea party movement with its calls for smaller government, lower taxes and greater public accountability.

...

Gingrich’s two-day Iowa campaign swing continues today with a town hall meeting at Morningside College in Sioux City at 2 p.m.

Newt's campaign: "we’ve seen spikes in volunteers and donations"

From a pretty positive piece from RealClearPolitics:

Gingrich’s campaign is set to branch out and expand where it matters. Aides plan to open offices in Iowa and New Hampshire in mid-October and will move field staffers to both early voting states.

The campaign says that it has been inundated with encouragement and offers of support on the heels of the candidate’s recent debate performances.

...

"We continue to have a functional operation that was able to operate more effectively and efficiently financially," said Gingrich spokesperson R.C. Hammond. "Through the debate successes, we've seen spikes in volunteers and donations, so the resources exist for the campaign to function quite nicely."

Longtime Republican media consultant Lionel Sosa has been brought on to help with outreach to the Hispanic community

....

"The contrast that Newt wants the American people to see is his capacity and record as a leader versus Barack Obama’s capacity as a leader," Hammond said. "He will show the American people, 'I've led at a time when you’ve had to have one end of the government working with the other end of government. You couldn’t just speak from the bully pulpit. You had to go to the other side and figure out how to do it.' "

Newt to unveil outlines of new Contract with America next week

Newt appeared on 630 WMAL this morning, and their website quotes him:

"I'm developing a new approach with a new set of ideas. Next week we will unveil the outlines of the 21st century Contract With America," Gingrich told the WMAL Morning Majority.

He said the new Contract With America will do what the Obama administration has not.

"It's going to be very bold, it's going to be... the scale we need to fix the country," said the former speaker of the House.

Here is the full interview:

Newt discussing Agenda 21 in Florida last week

Link.

Newt's schedule for the next few days

Monday, September 19th:

Council Bluffs, IA – 6:00 p.m. CT – 912 Western Iowa hosts Newt and Callista for a screening of their documentary A City Upon A Hill.

Tuesday, September 20th:

Sioux City, IA – 2:00 p.m. CT – Lead at a Town Hall meeting at Morningside College with students, faculty and local citizens.

Thursday, September 22nd:

Orlando, FL – 4:30 p.m. ET – Participate in the Florida Faith & Freedom Coalition Presidency V Kick-Off.

Orlando, FL – 9:00 p.m. ET – Participate in the Fox News-Google Republican Presidential Primary debate.

Friday, September 23rd:

Orlando, FL – 7:30 a.m. ET – Speak at CPAC-Florida Chairman’s Breakfast.

Orlando, FL – 9:45 a.m. ET – Address attendees of CPAC-Florida.

Orlando, FL – 2:15 p.m. ET – Newt and Callista introduce their documentary Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny at CPAC-Florida on the third level in room S330C.

Saturday, September 24th:

Orlando, FL – 1:30 pm ET – Address attendees of Presidency V. NOTE: Newt 2012 is not actively campaigning to win the straw poll.

NOTE: Newt will campaign in Iowa on September 29th and 30th prior to traveling to Kansas City, MO to participate in the National Federation of Republican Women's 36th Biennial Convention on October 1st.

(Video) Newt's interview with Wolf Blitzer

Link.