Dick Morris: Gingrich would clean the floor with Obama in a debate

After endorsing Newt Gingrich for President a few months ago, Dick Morris, who battled Newt during the 90s when Gingrich was Speaker, again spoke highly of Newt last night.

Appearing on The O'Reilly Factor, Morris said that among the other prospective GOP candidates, Newt was the only one who "could absolutely clean the floor with Barack Obama in a debate, because he can handle him, intellectually." In the above column, Morris put it this way: "He can match Obama’s words and overmatch his intellect. Newt’s teleprompter is inside his own mind."

Morris also predicted last night that Gingrich would win the GOP primary.

Gallup memo: Most wide open GOP field since '72

A new Gallup Poll has the four GOP front-runners -- Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich -- bunched up between 19 and 13 percent. Romney and Palin both draw 19% support; Huckabee, 16; and Gingrich at 13. Romney and Palin's support has not changed since September, while Huckabee and Gingrich have each gained four percentage points in the two months.

Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones writes of the race at this very early part, "The current results on Republicans' presidential nomination preferences suggest the 2012 contest could be more wide open than any since the winners began to be determined largely through state primaries and caucuses in 1972."

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post quotes a GOP consultant who worked on Romney's 2008 Presidential campaign as saying, "There has never been a field as wide open as this one is. Ever."

The liberal website Talking Points Memo put together the results of a series of Public Policy Polling polls, and they illustrate just how jumbled the race is.

Joe Gaylord

In my last post, I quote Joe Gaylord on a possible Gingrich run. As Thomas Beaumont made clear in that article, Gaylord would have a substantial role in such a campaign. And that is just natural since he has been Newt's right-hand man for many years. From his bio on AmericanSolutions.com:

Serving as the senior counselor to Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Speaker dubbed him the 'irreplaceable man' for his work as principal architect for the House leadership in mapping out and leading the effort to execute a blueprint to elect a Republican Majority in the House in 1994. For his achievement, his peers in the American Association of Political Consultants named him Co-Campaign Manager of the Year. He led the successful effort for the House leadership to re-elect the Republican House majority in 1996 and 1998 -- a feat not accomplished since the days of Herbert Hoover.

He has recently written his third book, Campaign Solutions, available for free in PDF or audio format.

A quick three-minute video from him:



Newt recounts a conversation weeks before the Revolution:

September 17, 1994, was the day that Joe Gaylord briefed the GOP team. We had a team that was going on a campaign swing on September 17 -- Dan Meyer, Steve Hanser, Kerry Knott, Joe Gaylord, and myself. Literally, as we were taking off at National, I asked both Kerry Knott, who headed up our planning operation, and Dan Meyer, what were we planning on the night after the election? At that time, I was still the minority whip and Bob Michel was still the GOP leader. I said, 'On election night, are we planning for me to be minority leader or to be Speaker?' And Gaylord broke in and said, 'Well, you better be planning to be Speaker, because you’re going to be.' Dan Meyer then turned to him and said, 'OK, before we do anything else, explain this prediction.' Gaylord started in Maine and, by memory, went through every congressional seat in the country and came up with a 52-seat gain. I think we gained 53, so he was off by 1.

Des Moines Register: "Gingrich takes steps toward a presidential run"

Gingrich made a quote to a Texas NBC station that him and wife Callista were "organizing" their enterprises to clear the way for a run last week.

In a column by Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register, Newt once again talks of having to organize them in such a way to make a run at the White House. Beaumont writes, "Gingrich did not take similar steps to deal with his personal and business arrangements before ruling out a 2008 run, aides said."

Joe Gaylord, "Gingrich’s closest political counsel," said that he "would be very surprised" if there is not a Gingrich candidacy. "Does he want to run? You bet. Does he think he can figure out a way to do that? Yes. But he’s got to go through all the processes to make sure he can do it financially," Gaylord said.

Beaumont then sketched a possible outline of a campaign: "Gaylord, an Iowa native, likely would play the role of senior adviser in a Gingrich presidential campaign. Sam Dawson, another longtime Gingrich operative who was part of the 1994 House majority victory, also would be expected to take on a national campaign leadership role, aides said."

Estimating that he spoke to 39,000 people while campaigning for the mid-term elections, Gingrich said, "I have some sense for what’s working and what isn’t....We haven’t had the kind of sweeping reform capability that is survivable since Reagan."

"Gingrich plans to test the reaction to the themes when he addresses the Republican Governors Association meeting in San Diego this week and during four Web-based policy seminars," Beaumont added.

More Quick Hits

From CNN's website:

Next month the former House Speaker makes a high profile visit to South Carolina, another important early voting state in the presidential primary calendar. According to a GOP source, Gingrich keynotes the Spartanburg Republican Party's Bronze Elephant Dinner on December 16.

In their latest analysis of their polls, Public Policy Polling writes:

Newt Gingrich's one and only lead in this round of 18 polls comes from North Carolina where he gets 23% to 19% for Huckabee and Palin and 14% for Romney. Meanwhile Huckabee matches his largest lead in any individual state in Kentucky where he gets 26% to 19% for Palin, 17% for Gingrich, and 13% for Romney. Gingrich and Huckabee splitting these two states is somewhat emblematic of the fact that for either to win the GOP nomination may take the other not running since a strong across the board performance in the South would be vital for both of their chances.

Quick Hits

MFrom the New York Times:

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is one of the biggest variables. Mr. Gingrich has not been openly buttonholing major donors for a presidential bid, fund-raisers said. Nevertheless, all the work he has been doing for his policy center, American Solutions, generating large contributions (the group is permitted to take in donations of unlimited size) and building donor lists, could form a strong financial foundation for a run.

From National Journal:

On NBC's 'Meet the Press,' former House GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich said that he would make a decision about running 'around February,' and that if he did decide to seek the presidency he would probably announce in 'late March.' Gingrich said he expected a full Republican field of 12 to 15 candidates, and he predicted 'you will not know who the (GOP) nominee is until very late in the spring of 2012.' Gingrich added that President Obama remains personally popular and that he would not be easy to defeat. 'This president has enormous capacity' to recover politically, said Gingrich. He cautioned that Obama 'is not beaten.'

Another quote on 2012

From a Texas NBC report:

'I think Callista and I will make that decision in February or early March,' he said. 'We run four small businesses, and we're organizing them right now so that we'd be able to run. I must say that the clear, vivid choice between where Obama would take us and what most Americans want to go makes it very appealing.'

Repealing Obamacare to be biggest "advocacy effort" of American Solutions

RIn an e-mail, titled simply "Repeal it," Newt slams Obamacare -- listing, among other things, the cost to taxpayers and small businesses -- and then lays out a course of action.

Put simply, as long as ObamaCare is the law of the land, America will not be providing an environment that allows businesses to grow, which means accepting stagnant growth and high unemployment as the new normal.

We shouldn't have to accept that. For that reason, we must begin the process of repealing this destructive law and replacing it with common sense health reforms.

Repeal and replace will not happen overnight and it will not happen after a week's worth of debate in Congress. Repeal will require a grassroots movement that puts strong and sustained pressure on Washington.

The time to start that movement is today.

Over the next few weeks we will be very active in starting the movement to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

We intend for this advocacy effort to be our biggest to date.

Thanks for everything you did to elect job creators last week, and thank you for all that you will do to keep the pressure on the new representatives in Congress to do the right thing.

"Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" was a game-changer and got 1.5 million signatures, so the group has a high standard to pass.

And in recent interviews, Gingrich has put the desired number of signatures at 50 million -- focusing on "every state where a Democratic senator is going to be up for re-election in 2012 -- drive them to vote yes." This petition drive would come after the House passes a repeal bill rather easily.

Gingrich continued, "Get the bill out of the Senate and then have a nationwide petition drive to the president, and seek to gather 50 million signatures so the president has overwhelming public pressure to sign the repeal of Obamacare."

CBS News breaks down 2012 GOP contenders

Of Gingrich, they write:

He'll be visiting three Iowa cities next week on a book tour and has for months been in and out of the state more often than a freight train of cattle. State Republican officials say Gingrich is very popular with the party's base of social and Christian conservatives, but also claims considerable support from the business community as well. At some past events, Gingrich has been urged to run for the top job by people who see him as the best man to take on Mr. Obama in a debate. Whatever the Washington political elite may say about Gingrich, he is popular in Iowa and party pros in the Hawkeye state now fully expect him to run. 'He's taking all the right steps in preparation of setting up a statewide organization,' one official said of Gingrich.

Newt discusses 2012; says he's "probably" in fourth place

Appearing on ABC's "The View," Newt was asked about 2012 and whether he planned to run. Per usual, he did not answer the question directly but did say that he would place himself in fourth at this very early point.

And a quick glance at most national polls show just that: that, in some order, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney garner more support.

However, Romney's support will likely erode as his Republican opponents make hay of the fact that Romney's signature achievement as governor of Massachusetts -- known as Romneycare -- resembles very much Obamacare. Romney will try to distance himself from the act, but when running in 2008, favorably cited the piece of legislation as a reason people should vote for him.

While not mentioniong Romney's name, Gingrich attacked MassCare earlier this year. As the American Spectator wrote:

'It's the forerunner of Obamacare,' Gingrich said when asked about the Massachusetts plan. 'It is a general model in a general direction and it's the general direction that's wrong. And that's why I'm suggesting you need to be thinking about fundamental change, not just marginal reforms.'

Writing about Gingrich's rankings of the contenders at this point, ABC's senior political reporter Michael Falcone writes, "Lowering expectations is an age-old political tactic and Gingrich is an adept practitioner." He then adds:

But with his busy travel schedule, his 2010 campaign endorsements, fundraising for his 527 group and the array of projects he is spearheading through his organization, American Solutions, Gingrich has been carefully laying the groundwork for a presidential bid....Before the month is over that tour will take him to several key battleground states, including Florida, Ohio and Virginia as well as Iowa, a key early caucus state where Gingrich is making three separate stops.