TheTeaParty.net hosting a tele-forum with Newt Thursday night

From the group:

Join this exciting LIVE tele-forum and listen to the man who’s not shy about calling out Obama, saying that "Nothing will turn America around more than election night when Barack Obama loses decisively.” This is YOUR chance! Newt will be discussing his newly announced plan with YOU, the Tea Party! Sign up for the opportunity to ask Newt Gingrich questions. To participate in this event, please submit your information below, and we will call you when the event starts next Thursday, 9:45 PM ET, September 29th.

Join the conversation on Twitter by using the hash tag #teacyber.

Go to their website to sign up for the event and/or get more information.

Tea Party Nation Founder endorses Newt for President

Judson Phillips, who started Tea Party Nation, today announced he is endorsing Newt for President in 2012. Here is the full story on Newt.org. Please read the full story, but here is a snippet:

Gingrich is the candidate who has the vision to fundamentally change the Federal Government. Gingrich has the unique capabilities to be the field general. He is the big idea man, much as Ronald Reagan was.

Gingrich against Obama is a great contrast. He has a track record of accomplishments and has worked at the national level. Gingrich can rightfully claim credit for everything from welfare reform to balancing the budget. Obama can offer nothing against him...

Newt Gingrich is the right candidate to not only help us take this country back from socialism, but roll socialism back.

I am thrilled to endorse Newt Gingrich to be the Republican nominee and the next President of the United States.

Newt's campaign notes the following facts as well:

-- Since the origins of the movement in February 2009, Newt has met with tea party leaders in 41 cities, from California to Connecticut.

-- He has spoken personally with approximately 3,000 tea party activists.

-- He also spoke at the first ever Tax Day Tea Party Rally in New York City to a crowd of 13,000 people.

-- As part of the Newt 2012 campaign, Newt launched Team Ten -- a grassroots online tool on Facebook to assemble ideas from Tea Party activists throughout the country on how to return power back to the states and the people, as the Tenth Amendment instructs.

Newt.org also brought up that this news is on the heels of the Columbia, South Carolina, Tea Party leader endorsing Newt.

Improving poll numbers, improving fundraising numbers, higher numbers of volunteers, and two important Tea Party endorsements. All adds up to momentum.

Submit questions now for GOP Twitter debate

You can now submit questions for the Twitter debate among Republican Presidential candidates next Wednesday.

Teaparty.net, which is helping put on the event, sent out an e-mail Tuesday in which they "thank the presidential candidates who have showed the courage to participate in the first-ever Tea Party Presidential Debate. In this age of political consultants and calculated political risk, the candidates who are willing to participate in a new debate format with a groundbreaking debate platform deserve a lot of credit!"

The debate will be held 3:00-4:30 PM EST July 20th.

Human Events: "Why Newt Gingrich Will Be a Formidable Contender"

Tony Lee, who is covering the 2012 Presidential election for the conservative newspaper Human Events, wrote an article touting Newt's "politics, policy, and publicity."

"Last week, Newt Gingrich showed why he will be a more than formidable candidate," Lee wrote. "During a series of events, he displayed how he can combine politics, policy, and publicity to leverage his ideas and brand."

Lee then recaps Newt's week. It started with a tele-townhall with Tea Party groups in which "Gingrich showed his depth and range on a variety of issues ranging from immigration, to allowing people to opt-in to a flat tax rate, to criticizing President Obama for seemingly caring more about offshore drilling in Brazil than in America."

Then he called on George Washington University to invite Paul Ryan to give a response to President Obama's speech in which he attacked Ryan after inviting the Wisconsin Republican to it.

Newt told CNBC host Larry Kudlow that he would not reappoint Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In front of Tea Party groups in Charleston, South Carolina, Newt ran through what his energy policy would look like:

1) Replace the Environmental Protection Agency, which has become a job-killing regulatory engine of higher energy prices, with an Environmental Solutions Agency that would work cooperatively with local government and industry to achieve better environmental outcomes while considering the impact of federal environmental policies on job creation and the cost of energy.

2) End the ban on oil shale development in the American West, where we have three times the amount oil as Saudi Arabia.

3) Give coastal states federal royalty revenue sharing so that state’s budgets directly benefits from offshore development.

4) Enact a loser-pays law to force the losers in environmental lawsuits to pay all legal costs for the prevailing side, which will reduce frivolous lawsuits that are employed simply to stop energy production.

5) Finance cleaner energy research and projects with new oil and gas royalties.

6) Appoint a commission of engineers and scientists, not politicians, to study the damaged nuclear reactor in Japan and determine if any changes need to be made to US nuclear power standards.

Gingrich wrapped up his week at the Brookings Institution ,at which he gave a detailed speech about health care policy.

Lee concludes:

When on his A-game, Gingrich is an intellectual force and heavyweight who knows how to market his ideas in a compelling way that is understandable by the general public. Gingrich is also savvy and nimble in framing how his ideas can be solutions for contemporary problems that the country faces at the moment.

The more the 2012 contest is focused on wonkish policy, Gingrich will have more of a homecourt advantage and the better off he will be.

Lee's point about Newt being able to market his ideas is an important one. He not only is the best ideas man in the party; he also is the one who comes up with such slogans as "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less."

Newt's day in New Hampshire talking with tea party and local GOP groups

Yesterday, Newt met with "[a]bout 15 people" affiliated with tea party and GOP groups in New Hampshire at the Orchard Street Chop House -- a local steakhouse -- and the topics discussed included energy policy and balancing the federal budget.

Newt criticized the current administration's policy of restricting American energy -- while at the same time subsidizing foreign exploration. "Obama praises Brazilians for drilling offshore but stops Americans," the former Speaker said. "We need an American energy policy."

Jennifer Keefe writes:

But foremost on the minds of those in attendance was the need for balancing the federal budget and tackling the country's deficit — tasks Gingrich said are completely possible because he was responsible for doing just that as Speaker of the House under former President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999.

"We've got to go back to a balanced budget. We didn't raise taxes, we cut taxes," he said of his tenure as speaker. "We wanted to create jobs. I'm the only speaker of the house to balance the budget."

...

Gingrich echoed the conservative principals of those Tea Party activists in attendance as he denounced the Department of Education as a "centralized bureaucracy" and said power should be given back to the parents. In general, he said, power should be in the hands of local school boards and county officials.

(Another article about the meeting says that Newt called for the abolition of the Department of Education.)

As Newt likes to do, he talked of the larger conservative movement, not -- as most candidates do -- just his campaign:

[Gingrich] said he would be a presidential candidate whose mission is not just to win, but to initiate a political movement and really create a different model.

"An aggressive, confident president who knows what they were doing could get a lot accomplished in a short time," he said.

"Gingrich said the next presidential election will be decided on three issues: values, economics and national security," writes Clynton Namuo. Gingrich added that currently America is failing in all three areas.

This meeting is another example of Newt courting local tea party groups.

Newt is gaining influence within the Tea Party

Given the Tea Party's dramatic influence on the upcoming midterm elections -- whether one looks at the moderate Republicans they have already played a part in defeating or the Democrats they will knock out on November 2 -- many have begun to speculate on the movement's role in the 2012 Presidential race.

The first part of that race, of course, is deciding who the GOP will nominate to take on President Obama. The general consensus has formed, within many conservative circles as well as liberal, that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be the movement's favorite.

However, a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that, in the words of Pater Wallsten, "One third of Republicans support the tea party so strongly that they describe themselves as part of the movement more than they identify as Republicans. Among this group, Mr. Gingrich is considered the GOP's "most important leader."

Palin, however, does win among the Republicans who while supportive of the Tea Party movement "identifies more as Republicans."

The article also discusses the two different manners in which Gingrich and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney have prepared for possible White House bids.

The reason they have followed different paths is simple: they simply view the movement differently. Whereas Romney, according to his advisers, "is betting that the tea-party groundswell, while energizing fiscal conservatives, doesn't mark a fundamental shift in the preferences of GOP voters." Basically, the movement will wither and not have an influence for much longer.

Gingrich's view as described by Wallsten:

[Gingrich] views the tea-party revolt as the dawn of an enduring movement, and he has spent more time courting tea-party activists than forging ties to Republican party leaders. Mr. Gingrich has recast his American Solutions group, launched in 2007 to press for expanded oil drilling and other policy initiatives, into a tea-party clearinghouse of sorts -- creating a curriculum to teach activists, small business owners and first-time candidates how to run campaigns. He is keeping in touch with this potential army of volunteers.

So when it comes to building a base of support for a 2012 run, Governor Romney has courted a lot of party leaders. And Newt "is traveling the country to build alliances with local tea-party activists in key presidential primary and caucus states....assign[ing] a full-time staffer at American Solutions to recruit and work with local activists across the country. Many of those now in his database live in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- key early-voting states in the presidential primaries, where Mr. Gingrich has devoted time to meeting them in small groups."

Wallsten then gives the story of one such meeting:

Elisabet Wilson, a tea-party activist who lives near Greenville, S.C., said she received a call from a Gingrich aide last spring seeking her attendance at a May roundtable with the former speaker at a local hotel. When she arrived, she found a group of nearly 30 fellow activists.

"He went around the room and asked each of us, why did you get involved?" Ms. Wilson said.

Ms. Wilson later agreed to serve as a state coordinator for American Solutions.

Wallsten continues, "Mr. Gingrich said American Solutions was intended to boost the conservative movement whether or not he runs."

"It's certainly probably broadly helpful (to a presidential campaign), but it's not designed for that,' Gingrich said." "We're happy to share our ideas and our information with everybody, with all the different candidates."

Newt with Georgia Governor Perdue

Numerous states -- fourteen at last count -- have filed a lawsuit against the federal government since the passage of Obamacare, with more contemplating one. Georgia is an interesting case, because it's Attorney General, a Democrat who is running for governor, has refused to file any such suit. However, the current governor, Republican Sonny Perdue, is in favor of one.

The day after Thurbert Baker announced his decision -- saying he looked at the Constitution and "came away with the feeling that there really is no legal basis" for suing -- Perdue said he would name a "special Attorney General" to challenge the federal health care legislation. "The governor said the state will probably go it alone on the suit to avoid any costs," wrote the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "If Georgia joined with the other 14 state challenging the health legislation, it would incur some legal costs, Perdue said."

On the Thursday after the vote to pass a bill that is clearly unconstitutional -- if for no other reason than the federal government will require each citizen to buy a product or be put in jail -- Perdue and Newt Gingrich held a joint press conference discussing ways to roll back and replace the bill.

Newt condemned the threats against elected officials that have been on the rise -- though the media only seem to cover voice mails to Democrats and not when the second-ranking House Republican gets his office shot up -- but added: "But look, I think there’s something very disingenuous about the Democratic leaders who attacked the tea party movement, who refused to hold town hall meetings, who refused to go back home, who kept the Congress locked up in Washington, and are now shocked that people are angry."

"I think the Democratic leadership has to take some moral responsibility for having behaved with such arrogance, in such a hostile way, that the American people are deeply upset," Gingrich added. "So let’s be honest with this. This is a game that they’re playing." He went on to say the Democrats ran "a machine that used corrupt tactics that bought votes that bullied people, and as a result has enraged much of the American people."