Good story about Newt's campaign in South Carolina paper

From an article in the St. Andrews Patch a voter says why he is going from Cain to Newt:

Brent Rutherford, who recently moved to the Midlands from Alabama, said he likes Herman Cain, but is leaning more and more heavily to Gingrich each day.

...

"But I'm coming around to Newt and I'll probably vote for him because he's smart and he's got real ideas," Rutherford continued. "And bottom line, I think, is that Newt is probably the closest of these candidates to being a real, true Reagan conservative. And that's what I want, that's what I want more than anything."

On the NLRB overreach, on which Newt has been ahead of other GOP candidates in criticizing:

As for the one of the other hot topics in the state -- the ongoing battle between the federal National Labor Relations Board and Boeing's new Charleston plant -- Gingrich told reporters he's been urging House Republicans to simply "zero out the (NLRB) and quit funding it. When you have a runaway bureaucracy, you have an obligation to get it under control," he said.

"I think they ought to have, absolutely, a prohibition against the kind of destructive activity, not just here, but across the country, that the (NLRB) has been engaged in," Gingrich added. "It is absolutely outrageous. It is destructive to every right-to-work state in the country, and what it will end up doing is driving jobs overseas."

(Video) Newt on campus of Iowa State University from 9/30/11

Link.

(Video) Newt speaking in Dawsonville, Georgia, on new Contract

Link.



Thanks to William Wade, who I have quoted before on this blog, for helping set this up.

Newt himself gave a shout-out to Will on Twitter:

@Newt2012HQ we just had a great event in dawsonville hosted by will wade and focused on the 21st century contract with America

Newt more popular than Perry and Romney in three polls from PPP

Public Policy Polling, after teasing these three polls the last few days, today released in full their latest surveys of Republican voters in North Carolina, Nebraska, and West Virginia.

Newt is in second place in all three -- in second place all by himself except in North Carolina, where Romney ties him -- and Herman Cain is riding a good stretch to first place in all three.

Newt also out-ranks Perry and Romney in terms of favorability, which is simply the number of those who view a candidate favorably minus the number of those who view the candidate unfavorably.

North Carolina:

Newt: +27 (58/31)
Romney: +19 (50/31)
Perry: +7 (44/37)

Nebraska:

Newt: +17 (49/32)
Romney: +11 (45/34)
Perry: 0 (35/35)

West Virginia:

Newt: +24 (50/26)
Romney: +15 (42/27)
Perry: +13 (38/25

Newt's favorability in North Carolina, notes PPP, is up 28 points the last month.

More info from North Carolina:

-- Newt leads among moderates, 27% to 18% for Romney.

-- Newt's support is across the board: 53/30 among moderates, 60/30 among "somewhat conservative" voters, and 64/26 among "very conservative." Among men, he's at 62/31. Among women, he's at 53/30. He gets a greater share of his support from women, 18%, than men, 15%. (Will the media report that? Ha. Right.)

From Nebraska:

-- Newt, once again, leads moderates, 21% to 17% who are not sure and 15% for Cain.

-- Newt is at 46/31 among women and 53/34 among men. He draws 16% of the vote among males and females alike.

From West Virginia:

-- The moderate Republicans in this state, for whatever reason, like Perry and Romney much more than in other states. (Could be a small sample size problem, or maybe it's real.)

-- Women voters approve of Newt 40/26 and men approve of him 59/25. Once again, he receives equal support from the two genders, 18% from each.

Sorry for all the numbers, but there was a lot of good news in today's polls. Newt has plenty of room for growth in his overall support given his favorability numbers.

The fact that he is beating Romney among moderates in some states is very encouraging, as that means Newt is not just competing with Cain and Perry (and others) for the conservative vote. He can pluck a good portion of the moderate vote as well. No other candidate has shown the ability to appeal to both moderates and conservatives as well as Newt does in these polls.

Newt 2012 is on the upswing thanks to all the great supporters who stuck with Newt during rough times. But in order to turn out the vote in Iowa in three months (and quickly followed by New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida), Newt will need volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls, and money to get his message out.

For those of you in Iowa and New Hampshire, Newt will be opening up offices later this month.

Short recap of Newt 2012 Volunteer Conference Call

Today, Newt, Jacob Hawkins (the campaign's volunteer coordinator), and Adam Waldeck (Newt 2012's Coalitions Director) were on a call with some of the campaign's volunteers.

Newt noted the recent upward movement in the polls as well as just a general strengthening of the campaign. To offset the money of Romney and Perry, this campaign, said Newt, "will have to use your time and intelligence."

Jacob said that in the coming weeks there will be a website dedicated solely to volunteer operations.

Adam said a handy part of the new Contract was that it made it easy to identify possible coalitions to build out.

(Video) Newt at Iowa GOP Headquarters Thursday

This was the day the 21st Century Contract with America was unveiled. (These are just portions of the event.)

Thank you to the Urbandale GOP for providing the video.

Link to Part 1.



Part 2.



Part 3.

Newt's speech outlining the 21st Century Contract with America

So I am late posting this, but here is Newt's speech laying out the 21st Century Contract with America:

More good polling news, from West Virginia and Nebraska (and North Carolina)

(Update: since I first published this, Public Policy Polling has released the headline numbers from their North Carolina poll. Newt is tied for second in the Tar Heel State.)

West Virginia and Nebraska, of course, are not going to be early primary states, but I think today's bit of polling news from Public Policy Polling is important.

What they found is that Newt is in second place in both states (WV link and NE link), trailing Herman Cain in both, and just as importantly, his favorability numbers are moving up.

PPP on Twitter:

Favorabilities with WV Republicans: Christie +43, Bachmann +25, Gingrich +24, Romney +15, Perry +13, Paul -20

@ppppolls:

Favorabilities with Nebraska Republicans: Christie +25, Gingrich +17, Bachmann +13, Romney +11, Perry even, Paul -21

They note Perry's collapse: his favorability among West Virginia Republicans was 52/9 a month ago. Today, it's 38/25.

None of this, of course, is final. But it means Newt is catching on, and when the new polls from Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina come out, they are most likely going to reflect his upward movement.

We have to keep going, though, so if you can, go to Newt.org and contribute money or time. If you can't do either -- or have already given all you can -- please keep spreading the word to your friends and family. Feel free to forward any content to them, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

Join the Newt 2012 Volunteer Conference Call Tuesday

I am sure most everyone reading this blog got the e-mail Sunday morning, but just in case, here are the details:

Tuesday, October 4th -- Newt 2012 Nationwide Volunteers Conference Call

Time: 10:15 a.m. EST

Call in Number: (805) 360-1000

Passcode: 394634#

Recap of my weekend with Newt 2012

(I am late with this, as I was hoping to do a recap each night, but after getting back to the hotel after long days, I pretty much crashed.)

This was my second trip to Iowa to travel around with the Gingrich campaign, and you can read my posts about that trip here and here.

This trip started early on Thursday. Since the unveiling of the 21st Century Contract with America was to be at noon, I left Topeka at about 7, and got there in plenty of time.

Soon after I parked and went inside the Principal Financial Group building in downtown Des Moines, Michelle Selesky and Andrew Bell of Newt's campaign walked up the steps. Neither traveled with the campaign the first trip of mine, and so it was nice to meet them after encountering them online some over the last few months.

I also got to meet another person I have been talking with online for a while now: Jeremy Danilson, President of the Drake Law Republicans. Him and his dad attended the event.

Here is the picture I took of the stage before people began walking in:

I helped sign some people in the audience up for e-mail updates as well as passing out some copies of the Contract and a few stickers.

Then it was time for the speech, and here was the view from my seat (taken before the event):

Andrew took this picture during the event:

From the speech, which was terrific, we had a little break for lunch and for me to get to my hotel to check in and drop some stuff off. Then it was off to the Republican Party of Iowa Headquarters, where Newt talked to a group of at least 100 about the Contract and the campaign. Jeremy also attended this event.

RPI picture:

As I wrote in my short recap the other night:

Here I helped pass out copies of the Contract to those entering. I started talking to a couple whose son is returning tonight from Afghanistan. She was obviously proud of her son -- rightfully so, of course -- so that was the main focus, but we did discuss Newt. Her and her husband are both big fans. We had talked before the speech, but afterwards, she came up and made a point of praising Newt's argument about military spending. Newt argued that when the United States slashes spending on our armed forces, we project weakness and invite hostile actions toward us. She was in complete agreement.

Newt then has an interview with Sean Hannity and a TeaParty.net tele-townhall to do. While Newt, Andrew, and campaign manager Michael Krull headed off to Fort Dodge for the townhall the following morning, I went back to my hotel.

I drove down in the morning to Fort Dodge, which is north of Des Moines. Andrew took this picture of the event, which started at 8 A.M. on a Friday:

It was a great speech, but the two moments that stand out the most:

When Newt was speaking, an older couple came in and grabbed a couple of chairs that were off to the side and sat near the doorway, a bit behind Newt and to the side. Newt turned and saw them, didn't break stride in his speech, turned back to the rest of the crowd, then stopped and said something like: You two can get a better seat if you would like. Then, smiling and chuckling, he added: "You know, as a former teacher, I get very nervous with students sitting behind me." The crowd loved it.

His other moment was when a man in the audience asked about the challenge of overcoming a media that is largely in the bag for President Obama. His most recent example was the lack of coverage in the mainstream media of the Solyndra scandal. Newt went through his answer and, after mentioning all the problems of the Obama Administration, closed with: "If you're Chris Matthews, it's been a bad year."

Then it was off to the Ames, Iowa, to the campus of Iowa State University for a town hall on technology.

Here is a picture:

An Iowa State College Republican, Caytlin Hentzel, tweeted from the event:

In the campanile room with Newt Gingrich. What a great friday #tgif #newt2012

We then walked to the Virtual Reality Applications Center with Iowa State House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, who endorsed Newt in January and is the chairwoman of his Iowa campaign. The technology they are working at there is simply amazing. I wouldn't know how to start to describe it.

From there, we had lunch -- I had a Reuben sandwich for the second straight day, this time at Hickory Park Restaurant.

Then it was time to drive to Kansas City. The next day, I met Newt's wife, Callista, for the first time as well as Anna Haberlein of Gingrich Productions. And Ellis, the Elephant!

Callista reading the book:

Newt was nice enough to sign two books for me that I brought from home: Winning the Future (picture link) and The Art of Transformation (picture link):

I also snapped a couple of pictures people asked to take with Newt. The last two events of the weekend were Newt's speech to the National Federation of Republican Women Convention and book and DVD signing afterwards. I got some more people signed up for the e-mail list as well as had a few great conversations with the attendees from all over.

I plan on making a few more trips to Iowa before the caucuses -- which could be as soon as the first week of January due to Florida moving their primary up to the last of January. The Newt 2012 Iowa and New Hampshire offices are opening up this month, and so I am sure I will be knocking on plenty of doors and manning the phone banks, getting people to travel into a cold, January Des Moines night for a few hours.

Right before I left, Newt signed for me a copy of Thursday's Des Moines-Resgister, which previwed the 21st Century Contract with America on its' front page:

Here is the full album of pictures.