Newt's newsletter this week is about Columbus Day (and I touch on the SC news)

The whole thing is worth reading, but here is an excerpt:

Our history is crowded with people who came to America and achieved what was not possible at home. For millions of immigrants, America has meant a life freer and more prosperous than they had before. And individually, they have made historic contributions to this country. Albert Einstein, one of our greatest scientists, immigrated from Nazi Germany. Sergey Brin, a founder of Google, came here from the Soviet Union. I. M. Pei, one of our greatest architects, was born in China. Alexander Graham Bell, Irving Berlin, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, and Madeleine Albright all immigrated to the United States.

From the beginning, being an American has meant striving to form a nation of people from such different origins as these. These immigrants and many others brought with them cultures and ideas that shaped our society profoundly. At times, these interactions have been far from perfect. But starting with the earliest settlers, the trend has been toward greater recognition of individuals' equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

(Going back to yesterday's great news out of South Carolina: I just wanted to say that Adam Waldeck, who will be heading up the Newt 2012 effort in the Palmetto State, is a great guy. He's done a terrific job as the campaign's Coalitions Director the last few months, bringing in diverse groups, such as those concerned with the Dodd-Frank bill, those in the Lean Six Sigma field, individuals wanting to enforce the 10th Amendment, and others.)

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

Newt's newsletter about the Gibson Guitar raid

(All the news the last few days pushed this back.)

Out of Tune and Out of Touch:

When I first read last week about dozens of federal agents descending on an admired American business with automatic weapons drawn, I thought the story was bizarre.

When I learned that what prompted this attack was the Justice Department’s interpretation of an Indian law, in a way that even India doesn’t interpret it, I could hardly believe it was true.

The government’s actions are so outside normal behavior, so lacking in common sense and such an outrage against the freedom of every American that it sounds like a scene from a dystopian novel.

...

Gibson Guitar makes very high quality guitars and attracts customers and tourists from all over the world.

Amazingly, this was the second assault on this small business. In 2009, federal agents seized six guitars, which they have not returned despite filing no charges in the investigation.

It is so bizarre it bears repeating. In 2009, armed federal agents seized six guitars.

...

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service apparently believes Gibson made inappropriate use of foreign wood under a 1900 law designed to ban materials illegally exported from other countries.

Gibson Guitar maintains it has papers from Madagascar in 2009 and India in 2011 proving the wood from both countries is legal, but hasn’t been given the opportunity to defend itself in court since the government has filed no charges.

There were apparently 26 armed federal agents assaulting Gibson Guitar in pursuit of endangered wood.

The Obama administration could use 26 armed agents to 1) help control the border; 2) fight drug cartels; or 3) hunt down terrorists.

But given the hard left bias of President Obama and his appointees, endangered wood from India was a higher priority.

...

Gibson Guitar’s CEO Henry Juszkiewicz has said that federal agents actually told Gibson its problems would go away if the company just moved its operations to Madagascar.

This is beyond ideology.

It is insanity.

Congress should investigate these bizarre events and the Obama appointees responsible for the abuse should lose their jobs.

Here is the local story about the government attack: Federal agents close Gibson Guitar plant in Memphis in search for ebony.

Between the National Labor Relations Board harassing Boeing about moving to Charleston, South Carolina -- but being perfectly okay if they moved to Beijing -- and now federal agents telling Gibson their problems would be over if they moved to a foreign country, is there any doubt why we have so many unemployed and underemployed?

Newt, it needs to be said, was the first to bring up the NLRB abuse at the CNN debate and the first to bring up the Gibson case at Monday's Palmetto Freedom Forum.

That is Leadership Now.

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.

Two pieces from Human Events: one by Newt and one about Newt

Newt put out his weekly newsletter today, and the topic was United Nations funding. Newt writes:

Only at the United Nations is it possible to imagine a Palestinian state announced on a meeting agenda.

U.N. corruption was on full display last week when, as the Hudson Institute’s Anne Bayefsky​ noted, the U.N. published its provisional list of speakers for the September opening session.

It listed the speaker from “Palestine” as the “Head of State” for the first time ever.

This is just a preview of a diplomatic crisis and an existential threat to the state of Israel that is shaping up for September.

The Palestinian Authority is promising to ram ahead with its bid in just over a month to be recognized as a state at the United Nations, and the General Assembly will likely approve it over the objections of the United States and Israel.

This will define a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, stretching to the 1967 borders and encompassing territory that currently is home to thousands of Israelis.

It is a dangerous plan.

It would violate every standing agreement the Palestinians have with Israel, including the Oslo Accords, to negotiate a final border agreement.

U.N. recognition would take place totally apart from any negotiation with Israel, and without the Palestinians renouncing violence or acknowledging Israel's statehood.

...

In spite of the U.N.’s totally dishonest approach to Israel, President Obama apparently retains faith in what is clearly a corrupt organization. The Administration’s commitment to “multilateralism” at the U.N. is nothing more than appeasement.

President Obama and the State Department must be clear with Western allies. They should reject action that would reward terrorist groups who refuse to abide by the basic principles of human dignity and freedom.

...

The United States has the leverage to prevent this diplomatic disaster if the Obama Administration wants to use it: we are by far the largest donor to the U.N., financing roughly a quarter of its entire budget.

We should be willing to say that if the U.N. is going to circumvent negotiations and declare the territory of one of its own members an independent state, we aren’t going to pay for it. We can keep our $7.6 billion a year.

We don’t need to fund a corrupt institution to beat up on our allies.

That is exactly how President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker handled a similar drive to force Palestinian statehood in 1989.

...

That is the resolve we need to show today. Washington should make clear immediately that it will not accept dangerous stunts that threaten Israel’s survival.

When the U.N. is set to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state and Israel is the only country in the world not even permitted to determine its own capital, something is very wrong.

The time to stop this disaster is before it happens. The time for Congress and President Obama to set out the cost of a United Nations betrayal of Israel is before the General Assembly meets.

Here is the link to the full newsletter again.

Also appearing on HumanEvents.com today was an article by Tony Lee, who is helping cover the GOP Presidential Primary for the conservative publication.

Some excerpts:

"We had a group of paid professionals who had not worked for me before," Gingrich said. "If I were to do it over again, I would not have hired the paid professionals."

When the consultants left, Gingrich had to reboot his strategy, and said he would finally run the campaign he had always wanted.

Gingrich rattled off what seemed like an idea a second, which included repealing the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley Acts that he says are discouraging investors. He called President Obama​ an "anti-American energy" President. He called for a modernized Food and Drug Administration that can help create jobs. He spoke of Executive Orders he would sign on his first day in office and ways to make the legislative process in Congress more open and transparent to gain back the trust of the American people. He cited his time in Congress, when he believes he was responsible for balancing the budget and helping end welfare programs and begin the modernization of some previously untouchable entitlement programs.

Gingrich said he's building a "substantive, solutions-oriented" campaign with positive ads and speeches. He also said he'll be upbeat at the debates and hinted he would not cut down his competitors.

"My debates will be positive," Gingrich said. "Not so much about Obama and maybe not about the news media, but I will be [positive] about the other candidates."

In the pre-social media days of campaigning, Gingrich probably would have had no chance of reviving his campaign.

But with the proliferation of social media that makes access to information cheaper while proliferating it at a rapid clip, a candidate can gain momentum as fast as he can lose it.

With a lean budget, Gingrich will rely ever more on social media to put himself into the conversation.

For instance, his campaign to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill cost the campaign nothing because it took them three hours to set it up on Facebook. The same is true for video and telephone conferencing services.

And today, Gingrich rolled out a “Team 10” initiative, which is “about reasserting this basic principle, and creating smaller government by working together and being bigger citizens” and reminding Americans that the country “is exceptional because we believe sovereignty begins with the individual” and “we loan power to the government, not the other way around.”

According to a press release, Tea Party and 912 Project leaders will lead Team 10, and through a Facebook app, they will solicit ideas on how to limit Washington’s overreach and enforce the 10th Amendment.

In addition, according to the release, “through voting, online and in-person events, and talking with each other, the best of these ideas will eventually become a ‘10th Amendment Enforcement Act,’ and “as the Republican nominee, Gingrich would include” it as part of a new Contract with America.

These initiatives that integrate social media with politics and policy put Gingrich ahead of the curve, which is why he scoffed at unsubstantiated rumors that many of his Twitter followers (Gingrich was ahead of the curve in successfully adopting the medium) were artificial.

“Folks who want to criticize me about using technology should come on [Google +] with me and create a hangout,” Gingrich said, insisting that unfounded rumors that a majority of his Twitter followers were artificially generated were “baloney.”

Gingrich also noted that he is proud that he has called for the Republican Party to be a more inclusive to minorities and noted the diversity of his audience at a recent Iowa campaign event.

“We did an event in Des Moines last Thursday night, and we had over 20 Chinese-American students,” Gingrich said, noting such diversity is sometimes lacking in Republican audiences.

Gingrich feels confident enough in his ideas that he still sees a viable path to the nomination.

“As the economy gets worse and the world gets more dangerous, people will look up and say, ‘Who could debate Obama successfully next October and who could actually govern effectively if they were elected?” Gingrich said. “And that will steadily lead to an increase in support.”

As proof, Gingrich cited a recent Johnson County event in Iowa in which, according to him, “Every reporter who was there said the room changed decisively when I was there, and the people walked out saying ‘He’s the guy [to beat Obama].’ ”

The coverage of Gingrich’s event in Johnson County backs up Gingrich’s claim. Reporters from outlets across the spectrum noted that, among the four presidential candidates who were present at the event, Gingrich received the longest standing ovation and generated the most buzz.

Here is the full article link again.

Newt's "10 Steps to a Stable Governing Majority"

From his weekly newsletter:

1. Do not focus on November 2012. Instead, focus on January 2021. The goal between now and January 2021 should be to govern so well, communicate so clearly, and include Americans from all backgrounds so consistently that a second wave of House Republicans will be sworn into office in January 2021 to build a better future around our values and principles.

2. Fight for the values of the American people. Set up a series of choices in which you are defending the values and beliefs of the vast majority of American and the Democrats are defending those of the Washington establishment and left-wing elite.

3. American Exceptionalism Matters. Americans overwhelmingly believe America is an exceptional country. Yet President Obama and many Democrats seem intent on denying it. This has clear implications for policy debates, which can be framed around the historic American habits and principles that are the source of our exceptionalism.

4. Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less. Americans want an American energy policy (see our work at American Solutions) while Obama wants to borrow from the Chinese to buy oil from the Brazilians. An American energy plan from the House GOP would create a clear policy choice and put Republicans on the side of the American people.

5. Focus on Communication. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a rule: "First you win the argument then you win the vote." In the end, having the right policies won't matter if you fail to communicate them effectively. The budget debate will be an example of where this is essential.

6. Inclusion, not outreach. Outreach is when insiders make a decision and then start calling people to tell them what it is. Inclusion is when they are in the room to discuss the challenges and help reach the decisions. Inclusion will require deep changes in scheduling, staffing, internships, communications, and networking.

7. Be smart, not cheap. Get to a balanced budget by being smart rather than cheap. Cutting spending in areas that produce long term savings, such as the National Institutes of Health is destructive to the goal of a sustainable, balanced budget.

8. Boldness will be rewarded. House Republicans should consider it their duty to pass the changes America needs and rally the American people to put pressure on the 23 Democratic Senate seats and the Democratic president. The country will only understand the need to replace Democrats in the Senate and the White House if they see House Republicans offering bold solutions. House GOP timidity would lead the tea parties and activists (including talk radio) to focus their frustration on House Republicans. Boldness will convince them to focus on Democratic opposition to our solutions.

9. A Contract with America in 2012. Begin now to develop bold proposals for a 2012 Contract with America including a Tenth Amendment implementation bill and a job creation bill, featuring tax cuts, deregulation, litigation reform, and American energy development. The American people need to see what a Republican team would be like so they have a lot of reasons to give us 40 more House seats, a dozen Senate seats and the White House.

10. Cheerful persistence will be the key habit for success. There will inevitably be tension, arguments, frustrations and internal dissent and conflict. Working through issues with the leadership so a unified Republican team can be creative and effective will take enormous patience and persistence. It is best done cheerfully.

Newt also mentions that the Gingrich Foundation is honoring the Autism Society this month.

Libya

Newt's newsletter, devoted to Libya.

A video and a timeline refuting the flip-flopping charge.

Roundup: Bush Tax Cuts, Obamacare defunding, General Petraeus, and more

-- Newt will be in North Carolina soon: "Former U.S. House speaker and possible presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will be the keynote speaker Thursday at the Wake County Republican convention....'We are delighted Speaker Gingrich has chosen to come to Raleigh at this important juncture,' [Susan] Bryant [the Wake County GOP chairman] said in a statement. 'He is one of the premier public speakers of our time, and his understanding of the important issues facing the nation today is unmatched.'"

-- In an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, Newt and Peter Ferrara argued for extending the Bush tax cuts:

If the president had his way, the two top income tax rates would have increased by nearly 20% this year, counting his proposed phaseouts of deductions and exemptions. The capital gains tax would increase by nearly 60%, counting the new ObamaCare tax on investment income in 2013. The tax rate on dividends would nearly triple, counting the new ObamaCare tax as well. The Medicare payroll tax would increase by over 60% for the targeted income earners.

But after the stunning Democratic losses in the midterm elections, Mr. Obama finally agreed to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for two years, for everyone. And that has allowed the breathing room for the long-overdue recovery to begin to sprout. Unemployment declined last month to 8.9%.

...

Indeed, if the Fed has to reverse its loose monetary policies to avert rising inflation, the contractionary impact of higher interest rates and a slower increase in the money supply, combined with higher taxes, could lead to a horrendous downturn. Working people, not the rich, would be hurt the most, losing jobs and wages as a result.

To avoid that, this year the House Republican majority should pass a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts. Even that is just a beginning. To touch off a boom—and secure a prosperous future for all Americans—what's really needed are additional, sweeping rate cuts on both individual and corporate income.

-- The Washington Post reports of Gingrich's appearance Friday at the National Press Club:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that he expects President Obama’s health care bill to be repealed by the spring of 2013.

But even if Republicans can’t get to repeal, Gingrich said, the bill is doomed because GOP House leadership will refuse to fund it.

“He can block them from repeal,” Gingrich said at an event in Washington this morning. “I don’t think he can coerce them into funding.”

...

“The president would have to go to the country and say, ‘I’m going to veto this bill on behalf of more spending, a bigger deficit and a bigger Washington bureaucracy,’” Gingrich said. “I think that Speaker (John) Boehner and Majority Leader (Eric) Cantor are absolutely committed to refusing the fund the implementation of Obamacare.”

-- From his weekly newsletter:

During the president’s press conference Friday on rising energy costs, he sought to assure the American people that gas prices would not rise too much because other oil producing countries have “committed to filling any gaps” in supply.

This isn’t the first time the administration has said this. In February, the Deputy Secretary of Energy said he hoped “spare capacity” in other countries “will be brought to bear so that it will continue to support our economic recovery.”

Since President Obama took office, gas prices have increased over 90 percent.

After presiding over this enormous rise in prices that are putting a greater and greater strain on family budgets, imagine the naiveté of hoping OPEC and other hostile and unstable countries will “continue to support our economic recovery.”

-- Also from the National Press Club appearance:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday he continues to have faith in Gen. David Petraeus' strategy in Afghanistan and encouraged other GOP presidential hopefuls to consult the top U.S. commander about his war plan.

Newt responds to CPAC critics

From his weekly newsletter:

During my speech to CPAC, I tried to lay out a substantive and compelling alternative to Obama and the Democrat's left wing governance, focusing on American energy and environmental policies. I proposed an aggressive, all-American energy strategy that would dramatically boost all sources of energy production in our country.

I also proposed replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with a new Environmental Solutions Agency which would focus on technological solutions to our environmental challenges and adopt a collaborative approach with business and local government, instead of the command and control regulatory model of the EPA.

...

The record crowd of over 11,000 attendees reacted strongly to this vision for lower energy prices, more jobs, better environmental outcomes and a safer America.

It was clear watching the crowd's reaction to my speech and the speeches of others that the conservative movement is energized by the possibility of winning an epic election in 2012. It's also clear they expect real conservative reform from a new conservative president and Congress.

Maybe that optimism and energy made some people nervous.

Before the event was even over, the mainstream media was hard at work trying to pour cold water on the fire that has been lit across this nation.

This article from the Associated Press sums up the doubt and skepticism that so many in our elite media seem intent on sewing amongst the American people.

The not-too-subtle message from these guardians against high expectations is crystal clear: Don't get your hopes up. Real change isn't possible in America. You might as well stay home.

In fact, this piece of conventional wisdom is both historically wrong and insidious.

History shows that real change is possible, but only if the American people are informed and engaged.

He then cites Ronald Reagan and the 1994 victory he led as "successful conservative reform[s]" that succeeded "because they understood that real power resides with the American people, not in Washington."

This rule was described to me by an associate of Reagan's as, 'I show the American people the light. They turn up the heat on Congress.'

Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator, but he can better be understood as a great educator. He thought that if he could use his platform as a national figure to inform the American people, they would provide the pressure to implement conservative reform.

That's how Ronald Reagan was able to cut taxes, reduce spending, and reform burdensome regulations to revive the American economy despite having to deal with a Democratic Congress that was opposed to his agenda. Reagan understood that the American people would pressure the Congress into doing the right thing. All Reagan had to do was champion policies that reflect American values and treat the American people with respect by being honest and clear about the facts.

...

Similarly, when I was Speaker, the Republican Congress was able to achieve its principal goals despite having to work with a liberal Democratic President. We balanced the budget while cutting taxes and increasing military and defense spending. It is a historic fact that Clinton never proposed a balanced budget. It was the Republican House that made it happen.

...

All this was possible because we understood that President Clinton would eventually yield to the demands of the American people. That's why after twice vetoing another one of our principal goals, welfare reform, Clinton eventually signed it in 1996, before he ran for reelection. He knew he wouldn't be able to stand the heat from the American people if he didn't.

He then discusses the campaigns that preceded those two conservative reforms:

Ronald Reagan and the Republican Congress under my Speakership also delivered on our goals because the preceding election campaigns focused on the issues, not on personalities.

In 1980, Reagan offered a bold, competing vision for America's future that outshone the malaise and weakness of Jimmy Carter. He promised to cut taxes to boost economic growth, to renew America's strength in the world by standing up to the Soviet Union, and to restore America's civic confidence in its founding and unique purpose (American exceptionalism).

With a weak economy and the hostage crisis in Iran in 1980, Reagan could have simply run as 'not Carter' and emerged victorious. But then he would not have had a mandate to govern, and would never have been able to achieve his principal goals.

Similarly, in 1994, we explicitly crafted the Contract with America campaign around conservative reforms that we understood had overwhelming support in America (if not in the editorial pages of the NY Times) but had nonetheless been blocked by the Democratic House.

Consequently, despite having a liberal Democrat in the White House, we still managed to achieve a balanced budget, welfare reform, tax cuts, increased military and defense spending, and more.

Perhaps Republicans could have won control of the House in 1994 by simply running against Clinton. However, the Republican landslide would not have been as large, and we certainly would not have had the mandate necessary to enact real change.

As he has in the past, Gingrich criticized the 2004 Bush re-election effort for not engaging John Kerry on the issues:

I wrote a white paper in 2004 pointing out that on over 70 key issues, John Kerry was on the wrong side of public opinion by larger than a 70-30 margin. An election campaign run on these issues would put John Kerry at an impossible disadvantage and could have led to a landslide result with a true mandate for President Bush to govern.

However, the choice in the minds of most American voters in the fall of 2004 wasn't over two competing visions for America; it was between forged National Guard papers and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth commercials. Accordingly, more people turned out to vote against John Kerry than to vote against George W. Bush. With no mandate to govern, is it any wonder that Bush's subsequent attempt to reform social security was dead on arrival?

Newt similarly attacks the 2008 McCain team that did not show how radical then-candidate Obama was.

Looking forward:

We will need candidates that have a clear and substantive plan to govern and who can explain conservative solutions to the American people in a way that gets them excited and engaged.

We will need a new Contract with America in 2012.

A new Contract with America with specific, substantive, conservative solutions to the great challenges facing our nation is the only way to gain the mandate from the American people needed to bust through all the embedded interests in Washington and the state capitals that will oppose change.

If a new conservative President and Congress develop and win based off of a new Contract with America in 2012, there is nothing that can stand in the way of true conservative reforms that will create jobs, make America safer, and maximize individual freedom and dignity for all Americans.

Newt's newsletter previews his CPAC speech

In today's newsletter, Gingrich describes the setting in which the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will take place.

Over 10,000 conservatives attended last year's CPAC, worried about the left-wing overreach of the Obama administration and determined to do what it takes to defeat the Left at the polls in November.

This historic attendance at CPAC in 2010 was followed by a historic election, in which we saw the largest one party pickup in the House of Representatives since 1948. It was an enormous victory for the power of conservative principles.

Of course, after such a historic victory, there is the question, "Now what?"

Remarkably, attendance for this year's CPAC will be even larger than last year's record attendance. Almost 12,000 people have registered. It is clear that the momentum against President Obama and the left is building as people realize the 2012 elections will be a decisive moment for the country.

The needed strategy:

Many conservatives, however, also recognize that the next two years should not only be spent preparing to win at the polls. We must also develop broad support for a governing agenda that can be implemented by a new conservative President and conservative Congress.

In other words, CPAC this year will be important not just in outlining why we must reject the left wing governance of the Obama administration and Reid Senate, but also in articulating what a center right coalition would replace it with.

He previews his speech:

With this challenge of replacement in mind, I will focus my speech tomorrow at CPAC on one such area that badly needs replacement if we are to keep America safe and create robust economic growth with millions of new jobs: American energy policy.

I will be driving four main themes during my speech:

* It is in our national security interest to produce more American energy. We must reduce the world's dependence on oil from dangerous and unstable countries, especially in the Middle East.

* In contrast to this urgent national security need, the Obama administration's policy has been almost the exact opposite of what is required. In effect, they have been waging war against the American energy industry.

* A comprehensive energy strategy that maximized all forms of American energy development would not only make the US and our allies dramatically safer, it would make us much better off economically.

* Part of this strategy would be to replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency ] that achieves better environmental outcomes through an emphasis on the transformative power of new technology and a collaborative approach with industry and state and local governments (as opposed to the bureaucratic, regulatory model of the current EPA that does more to kill jobs and halt American energy development than it does to protect the environment).

You can watch my speech live at 12:30 ET tomorrow by signing up at the CPAC website.

Newt quotes from Reagan's 1978 CPAC address:

"The themes of a sound foreign policy should be no mystery, nor the result of endless agonizing reappraisals. They are rooted in our past -- in our very beginning as a nation....Our principles were revolutionary...Our example inspired others, imperfectly at times, but it inspired them nevertheless...To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world -- nothing more and nothing less."

"To carry out that purpose, our fundamental aim in foreign policy must be to ensure our own survival and to protect those others who share our values. Under no circumstances should we have any illusions about the intentions of those who are enemies of freedom."

"...If we are to continue to be that example -- if we are to preserve our own freedom -- we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination."

On what our foreign policy goals should be:

First, it must be the policy of the United States to defend consistently and resolutely the standards for the universal rights of man outlined in the Declaration of Independence and codified into law in the Constitution.

This principle has much deeper and more complicated ramifications than a shallow support for democratic elections. Instead, we should be on the side of genuine freedom for the people of the world.

The fact that the two U.S. backed democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq are refusing to protect the religious liberty of Christians and other minority religions (or worse, are complicit in their persecution) is evidence of a total lack of clarity regarding the purpose of US foreign policy. (See here and here for examples.)

Newt closes with:

This is our generation's rendezvous with destiny. And ultimately, Ronald Reagan's most instructive message for meeting our challenge would probably be, "I did my generation's job. Now it's your turn."

Gingrich versus Obama on "Winning the Future"

In 2005, Newt wrote Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, wherein he laid out his solutions on everything from health care to education to preserving our culture.

In last night's State of the Union, President Obama's theme was "winning the future."

Gingrich noted this in his newsletter this week, under the headline: "Winning the Future...couldn’t have said it better myself!"

He continues:

I started with my first State of the Union as Speaker when I sat behind President Clinton because there has been a lot of speculation about whether President Obama will move to the center as President Clinton did after the 1994 Republican revolution.

Of course, President Clinton’s flight to the center is credited for saving his presidency after a devastating defeat just two years into his first term.

So after an even greater Republican landslide in 2010, and as President Obama eyes a tough reelection with an economy in much worse shape, the question is whether President Obama will make a similar move to the center and try to co-opt much of the Republican agenda as his own.

Well, it certainly felt like "déjà vu all over again" this weekend when people started emailing me asking how I felt about the President picking the theme winning the future" for his State of the Union address.

I wrote a book in 2005 called Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.

Was President Obama setting the stage to adopt elements of my 21st Century Contract with America, just as President Clinton embraced the original Contract with America?

He compares and contrasts his vision with the President's:

What we heard last night did echo some themes from Winning the Future.

The basic plot was expressed – the need to compete with China and India, reform our tax code, stand up for human rights across the globe, defeat the terrorists, solve the challenge of illegal immigration, and improve math and science learning.

But it was clear that when it came down to hard policy proposals (with a few exceptions), the President’s vision was still big government dressed up in moderate clothing.

The most obvious example was in the President’s disingenuous suggestion of a 5 year discretionary spending freeze as a way to deal with our huge deficit. This after two years of a spending binge unlike this country has ever seen.

Tying in Obama's reference to Sputnik and his tax plan, Gingrich writes, "The only proposals we heard from President Obama to cut taxes were on the condition that other taxes were raised. Reshuffling our corporate tax code is not going to create jobs." He then quotes JFK from 1962, who said:

Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits... In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.

On the comparisons between early 1995 and today:

This brings us back to my first State of the Union as Speaker in 1995.

It is important to remember that President Clinton did not immediately move to the center. His famous declaration that "the era of big government is over" did not occur in the 1995 State of the Union. It was in 1996.

In fact, President Clinton fought us for months. He vetoed welfare reform twice. It wasn’t until he realized that he would lose reelection that he eventually relented, signed welfare reform, and adopted many other items in the Contract with America, including balancing the budget, tax cuts, and entitlement reform.

We didn’t do everything perfectly during our battles with President Clinton, but we won on the issues by being principled and tough – a lesson House Republicans should keep in mind in the days ahead....

If Republicans calmly explain to the American people why a simple freeze won’t do the job, the vast majority of Americans will immediately understand and side with them in their desire to oppose big government spending and restore limited government.

We can win on the issues today like we did in 1995.

Remember the 1996 Republicans were the first reelected House GOP majority since 1928. If you win for the first time in 68 years you are doing something right. Standing by our principles and standing up to a liberal President were the keys to that success.

Weekly Newsletter: Forever Stamp Folly

In this week's newsletter, Newt touches on the shootings in Arizona, writing that as more information surfaces, "the more clear it is he is a mentally deranged person who as early as his sophomore year in high school had fellow students and teachers worried about him."

He also writes about a Post Office decision. "This week," Gingrich writes, "U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahue plans to announce that all future stamps sales will be so-called 'forever stamps,' which can still be used even if postage rates go up."

Gingrich:

The Post Office will try to use any short term increase in sales from these forever stamps to solve their immediate fiscal problems. But if the Post Office is already having trouble operating at full capacity with current prices, imagine how difficult it will be to do so in five or ten years after inflation has pushed their costs up AND they are selling even fewer stamps because so many people already purchased them in the past.

In fact, this move is setting the stage for a future taxpayer bailout of the Post Office because it virtually guarantees its future bankruptcy.

he low price of stamps is not the reason why the Post Office is facing such huge deficits. The Post Office is seeking a 5.6% increase in the price of stamps despite an inflation rate of just 0.6%.

Instead, the Post Office is facing budget shortfalls because it is unwilling to engage in the necessary reform of its operations necessary in the modern economy.

As I discussed in To Save America, which is now out in an updated paperback version, the Post Office’s union work rules require it to pay a large group of employees more than a million dollars a week to do nothing. Instead of being able to lay off redundant workers, the Post Office (and by extension, every American who uses the mail) keeps them on salary through a program called “standby time.”

If the Post Office really wants to solve its fiscal challenges, it needs to engage in the difficult work of reforming its operating procedures, including its suffocating and costly union work rules like “standby time.”

Congress should block the Post Office from implementing this genuinely dumb move and force it to confront the true cause of its budget woes and implement real reform.

"Newly Elected Women Who Will Make History"

In his weekly newsletter, Newt highlights five women who won victories on November 2nd in, as many have called it, "the year of the Republican woman."

Gingrich writes:

Nine new Republican women won seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), this surpasses the previous high mark of seven newly-elected Republican women in a single election.

New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte became the only newly-elected woman to join the U.S. Senate, and three Republican women were elected as new governors in their state -- Susana Martinez of New Mexico, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma and Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Governor Jan Brewer won reelection in Arizona.

Republican women didn't just leave their mark in the U.S. House and Senate -- the National Conference of State Legislatures reports that Republican women gained more than 100 seats in state legislatures, from 529 in 2010 to 653 in 2011....

These women are defined by the values for which they stand -- job-creation, fiscal responsibility, excellence in education, health care reform, lower taxes, smaller government, and greater freedom.

They are role models, not only to women across the country, but to all Americans who are ready for real, transformative change. And just as they inspire us to become effective citizen leaders, these women, too, have mentors who inspired and guided them throughout their careers.

We are proud to highlight the newly-elected women who have made history in 2010 and the mentors who supported them through their journey.

He gives a short profile of the five.

Nikki Haley:

On November 2nd, Governor-elect Nikki Haley became the first female governor of South Carolina, the first minority governor in the state's history, and only the second Indian-American governor in United States history.

Haley was born in South Carolina as the daughter of Indian immigrants. A graduate of Clemson University, she worked as the Accounting Supervisor in a large corporation before helping her family's business grow into a multi-million dollar organization.

Governor-elect Haley first became a national sensation after her resounding primary victory in June of 2010, when she captured 65 percent of the vote in a run-off election. As the only female candidate running against three established Republicans in the race for Governor, Haley was helped by the support of the Tea Party movement and several endorsements, including Sarah Palin.

Her political debut began in 2004 when, as a relatively unknown candidate, she shocked the establishment by defeating the state's longest serving legislator in a Republican primary and was elected to represent the 87th District in the South Carolina House of Representatives....

Susana Martinez:

This year, Governor-elect Susana Martinez became the first female Governor in New Mexico's history, and the first-ever Latina Republican Governor. In 2010, New Mexico was the battleground for only the third female vs. female gubernatorial race in American history.

Replacing Democratic Governor Bill Richardson in New Mexico, Governor-elect Martinez ran on a platform to cut wasteful spending, reform education, lower taxes, and end 'pay-to-play' practices and other corruption in government to reform the state of New Mexico and continue her role as a dedicated public servant in her state.

Over the years, Susana Martinez has earned a reputation as a tough prosecutor, fighting relentlessly for the safety of children. In 2008, she was named Heart Magazine's 'Woman of the Year,' for her advocacy for children's safety, and in 2010 she was named New Mexico's 'Prosecutor of the Year.'

Dedicated to family values and private enterprise, Martinez is an ardent supporter of a balanced budget, lower government spending and Second Amendment rights....

Kelly Ayotte:

Before being elected to the U.S. Senate, Kelly Ayotte served for five years as New Hampshire's first female Attorney General. During her years as Attorney General, Ayotte won accolades as a prosecutor and presided over one of the safest states in the union.

Ayotte's work as the state's top law enforcement official earned her Manchester Union Leader's "Citizen of the Year" award in 2008, while New Hampshire Magazine named her one of the state's top-ten most powerful people and remarkable women.

Her husband, Joe, an Iraq war veteran, currently serves in the Air National Guard, and together they have created a successful landscape and snow removal company. Senator-elect Ayotte understands the impact of decisions made in Washington by government officials who have never been in any business -- large or small.

She is committed to fiscal responsibility, laying out clear plans to curb the size of government and cut taxes....

Nan Hayworth:

A doctor, mother, and businesswoman, Congresswoman-elect Nan Hayworth first decided to run in New York's 19th Congressional District to renew the promise of America.

As a retired ophthalmologist and former teacher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Nan Hayworth has advocated for the repeal of Obamacare and the replacement of the big-government healthcare law with real solutions including tort reform, health-savings accounts, and the opportunity to purchase insurance across state lines.

With Hayworth's victory, it is clear that New Yorkers and Americans are eager to put our country back on track to prosperity, job-creation, and common sense. She is determined to defend and promote our Constitutional freedom by placing power back in the hands of the American people, not the government....

Linda Upmeyer:

The first woman to be chosen House Majority Leader in Iowa, Linda Upmeyer, will be serving her fifth term in the Iowa House of Representatives, after first being elected in 2002 to represent House District 12.

Born in Mason City, Iowa, her father, Del Stromer, was a farmer and former Majority Leader and Speaker of the House. Her mother, Harriet, was a homemaker and longtime aide to Del.

Upmeyer grew up in Garner, Iowa on the family farm, eventually receiving her Masters Degree in Nursing from Drake University. A certified Family Nurse Practitioner, she was elected as the Republican Whip in 2008 and has served on numerous committees such as Human Resources, Natural Resources and Administrative Rules....

Newt concludes with: "The 2010 midterm elections have gone down in history, not only because of the largest Republican gain since 1948, but because of the new class of women leaders who define the conservative movement and America's first principles of freedom, small government, and faith in the American people. They are an inspiration to all Americans."

The Essential (and Exceptional) American

In his weekly e-mail newsletter, this one entitled "The Essential (and Exceptional) American," Newt lays out why the concept of American Exceptionalism is so important and why the left gets it wrong.

Asserting American Exceptionalism is not a vain exercise in building our national self-esteem by boasting about our country's great wealth and military capability.

It is also not an argument that says America can 'go it alone' on the world stage.

Nor is it a belief that America's success is pre-ordained by the Almighty, no matter what we do (which is not to say that the hand of Providence cannot be seen during key points in American history.)

Instead, American Exceptional ism is an idea as old as our country itself. The Founding Fathers understood that the vast resources at our fledgling country's disposal coupled with our puritan roots and lack of a feudal past meant that the United States was uniquely positioned to thrive as an exception to the corruption and poverty of other countries.

More importantly, they understood that the new nation was the first to be founded on the self-evident truth that individual rights come directly from God, not the church or a King, and that citizens loan that power to the state. In America, the individual is sovereign, not the government, which was a revolutionary break with previous forms of government in the world.

This relationship was expressed in our founding political document, the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Having defined it, Newt goes after liberal critics of it:

The Left routinely mocks the idea of American Exceptionalism, with one liberal writer recently dismissing it as an exercise in 'toasting our fabulousness.'...But what the Left fails to understand is that the relationship between God, the citizen, and the state, understood by our founding fathers and expressed in the Declaration, shaped the Constitution (which identifies the source of the new government's power as "We the people..."), our subsequent national policies, and our enduring understanding of American Exceptionalism.
America developed a free market economic system not based on some academic analysis that it is more efficient at creating wealth, but because if the individual is sovereign, the idea of the state trying to organize human activity is abhorrent, a violation of the individual's right to pursue happiness.

Instead, our country believes the proper role of government in the economic sphere is to create a framework that maximizes the ability of citizens to engage in free exchange, such as putting the weight of law behind the enforcement of contracts and by prosecuting fraud. It is not the role of government to try and redistribute wealth, create new entitlements or bail out politically connected special interests.

Similarly, America's great freedom of religious practice did not evolve based on a simple desire to create social harmony. It is a direct consequence of this historic understanding of the relationship between God, the citizen and the state. If "our Creator" is the source of our unalienable rights – including the right to know and worship God – then it is illicit for government to get between the citizen and the worship of God.

The modern distortion of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which has been used to justify the tearing down of crosses on public land and the harassment of civic organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, is an explicit violation of this natural order.

The Left hates the idea of American Exceptionalism because it sets boundaries on the power of the state. The Left's desire for ever bigger government clashes with the core principles of America's exceptional founding.

That's why the Left is engaged in an unending war in academia and Hollywood to reduce the exceptional nature of America's founding by trashing the integrity of our founding fathers and trying to paint our country's enormous and rapid rise in wealth and power as due to almost anything other than the freedoms we enjoy.

Newt's daughter, Jackie, has a book out, titled The Essential American: 25 Documents and Speeches Every American Should Own.

You can sign up for Newt's weekly newsletter here.

Gingrich: "A victory over the political machine"

In January, the Supreme Court, ruling 5-to-4, finally struck a blow for political free speech in easing up restrictions, many of which were laid out in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. The case that was brought before the case involved Citizens United, David Bossie's production company, and their documentary "Hillary: the Movie."

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled that the movie, which went after much of Hillary Clinton's past history and policy views, "couldn't be aired or even advertised," wrote Newt in a January newsletter. "Their reason? Sen. Clinton was a candidate for federal office, so Bossie's film was illegal under campaign finance law."

Citizens United sued, saying the First Amendment did not allow the government to deny speech in such a way. The Supreme Court agreed. Says Gingrich:

And the Supreme Court decision announced last week was not only a vindication of the free speech rights of all Americans, it was a significant step toward dismantling the incumbent-protecting political machine created by bureaucratic campaign finance "reforms" like McCain-Feingold.

By declaring that government has no business suppressing the political speech of groups like Citizens United, the Supreme Court has begun to make it easier for middle class candidates to take on the rich and the powerful....

The Founders understood the importance of the unfettered right of citizens to complain about their government. They recognized the danger of politicians controlling or censoring the debate about themselves. That's why they wrote in the First Amendment to the Constitution that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech.

These words and this right have been stunningly perverted by laws like McCain-Feingold, which was explicitly a case of Congress making a law abridging our freedom of speech -- incumbent politicians attempting to censor the people's discussion of whether they should remain in office.

Associatioins of citizens -- such as corporations and unions -- are not subject to government bureaucrats' rulings any longer as to arbitrary limits. Included in that was an overruling of a provision of McCain-Feingold that said corporate-funded ads could not be aired sixty days before federal elections and thirty days before primaries.

"Citizens United v. FEC doesn't threaten our democracy. It strengthens it by making it easier for middle-class candidates to compete against the wealthy and incumbents," writes Newt.

Newt's solution:

Real reform under our Constitution will only come when Americans and associations of Americans are allowed to give unlimited amounts of after-tax money to the candidates and campaigns of their choice. Dnors should be given this freedom and required to post on the Internet every night what they're spending and how they're spending. That way, voters would know who is funding whom, and how much. Armed with that knowledge, Americans can be trusted to make an informed, truly democratic choice. Predictably, just the prospect of voters making such a free and informed choice has the Washington establishment machine up in arms.

Countering President Obama's attack on the Court -- in which he said "The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington -- Newt wrote, "This, from the president who negotiated back-room deals with special interests in order to force Democratic health care reform on the American people. This, from a president whose massive expansion of government into the private sector has set off a stampede of lobbyists to Washington to claim their piece of the taxpayers' pie."

"But even more glaring than the hypocrisy is the obvious contempt that supporters of bureaucratic campaign finance have for the American people."

Newt on reconciliation

In his weekly newsletter published by Human Events, Newt lays out the history of reconciliation, the procedural trick the Senate may use to pass "fixes" to their health care bill to make it more palatable to the House.

He does a great job of explaining what it is meant for -- legislation that goes about reducing the deficit in narrow ways or tax bills -- not for new entitlement programs. "The reconciliation process was only intended to be used for legislation directly related to meeting budget resolution spending and revenue goals."

Since reconciliation was started, it "has been used for 22 bills....Notice the similarity between them? All of these bills were obviously directly related to taxation and spending."

He then gives a few scenarios under which it may be used, including the most likely: the House passes the Senate bill and then the Senate turns around and patches a few disagreements. Of course, the bill will be immediately signed by President Obama should the House pass the original Senate bill. If that happens, the White House and Senate leadership may just undergo a half-hearted effort to pass the fixes.

The only thing that may force them to proceed with the reconciled bill is the lack of trust such a move would create in the House, especially among moderate Democrats. On the fence because of the bill's popularity, a major selling point to them will be that, "Don't worry about the problems in the Senate's bill. We will correct those." If they vote yes, confident that will happen, only to see Obama and congressional leaders give up -- after all, they already have passed "health reform" -- it would create bad feelings and make it less likely they would put their necks on the line the next time.

The last section of Gingrich's newsletter is entitled: "Republicans Must Vow To Replace the Left’s Health Bill." He writes:

If the Democrats are bound and determined to exert all their power and manipulate every rule they can to pass their big government health bill, Republicans may not be able to stop its passage.

We’ll find out today as President Obama is set to announce his recommendation on the way forward.

But no matter what President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid decide, the bottom line for Republicans is that they must stand with the American people in opposing this bill.

This doesn’t just mean voting against it and using every parliamentary maneuver available to delay its passage.

It also means running on a platform of replacing whatever left-wing health bill the Democrats manage to pass with real health reform that empowers patients and doctors, not bureaucrats, to bring down health costs. And delivering on that promise in 2011 if Republicans gain control of Congress.

And if President Obama is still determined to ignore the will of the people by vetoing the Republican bill after such a clear message from America, it means that the Republican candidate for President in 2012 must run on a platform that includes signing the replacement of the left’s big government health bill.

After all, no matter what dirty tricks the politician may try to get his way, in America, the people have the final say.