The Health Care Summit

On February 27th, President Obama hosted congressional leaders for a health care summit. In advancement of it, Newt laid out his vision, both in a Time article and at the Conservative Political Action Conference, for how Republicans should handle it; many conservatives bashed him, with some wanting to boycott the event altogether. To them, even saying "bipartisanship" was treasonous; a member of redstate.com created a thread titled "Newt Gingrich is a freaking idiot." But Newt's idea of bipartisanship is much different than, say, Lindsay Graham's, which the critics did not understand.

Much of what the Republicans did at the summit -- list specifically what they had problems with and offer alternative solutions -- was what Newt advocated; he did not advocate for an agreement for the sake of a deal.

The Republicans came out looking so good, with even the mainstream media saying they had concrete proposals, that many who called for them to skip the event -- including radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity -- admitted they were wrong; Limbaugh doing so just a few hours into the summit.

Those two did not viciously attack the former Speaker the way many online. And worse, none of them retracted their criticism of him after the fact that his strategy worked out very well. While the effort the Republicans put forth may not, in the end, stop health care reform from passing -- but it did stop the media from prattling on about the "party of no" and put a good face on the party.

Newt hosted a health care summit of his own -- much like he has had held his own job summits the same week as Obama's -- and filmed a recap of it.

Making a trip to Iowa

As he has done several times, Gingrich will be heading to the first presidential caucus state in late May. He has already visited New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in 2012, in January.

"Newt certainly hasn't ruled out a run and Iowa is an important political state for 2010," said his spokeseman Rick Tyler. "I know he has his mind focused on 2010, and he will be doing what he can to help the party."

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.

Newt's new PAC

Since leaving office after the 1998 elections, Newt has only started groups that advocated certain policies and had no hand in elections. Shortly, however, he will be starting a political action committee, with the same name as his 527: American Solutions. The goal of the PAC will be to support candidates who stand and fight for the policies that the 527 advances.

American Solutions raked in the third-most dollars -- 22.7 million -- of all 527s in 2008. And since it's inception three-plus years ago, $38 million.

Starting a PAC is often a sign of gearing up for a presidential run. When combined with his usual barnstorming of the country for candidates this year -- "Gingrich said that wants to be active for GOP candidates in the '10 midterm elections" -- he will have a lot of goodwill built up among elected Republicans, as well as getting a chance to talk to voters. And the latter's importance cannot be understated.

Pollster Frank Luntz, who worked with Gingrich on the Contract with America, found that when people in his focus groups during 2006 heard Gingrich, they "ignored, or in some cases forgot, the controversial nature of Gingrich's speakership," as Matthew Continetti wrote. "The words he spoke were like nothing they had heard from anyone else," Luntz says. "While he didn't start either session with any measurable support, he ended both Iowa and New Hampshire sessions with the most new converts."

That is important because despite staying in the headlines pretty consistently in the eleven years since resigning as speaker, a Pew Research Center poll found that 26% of the public is undecided about him. His favorability split is 35/38, but if the remaining quarter of the electorate -- as well as "soft" opposition -- find his message as appealing as the focus groups that did not come in as Gingrichites, he could improve those numbers a lot. Having a full debate of the issues over the course of 2011 would likely benefit him more than any other candidate heading into Iowa and New Hampshire in the early part of 2012.

Newt hints at run in National Journal interview

In a recent interview with National Journal, Newt Gingrich said that 2012 "is different" than either 1996 or 2008, the two other times his name came up in presidential speculation.

How realistic a run in '96, right after he became the Speaker, was is in doubt. It was bandied about in some circles, including by Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard, and somewhat considered by Gingrich himself, but it never got close to happening. "I knew in '96 that it was hopeless. You couldn't have taken over the House for the first time in 40 years, be in a middle of fairly profound series of reforms, and cheerfully go off to run for president. It's not physically doable, it's absurd."

But leading up to the 2008 race, he thought about it more seriously, but once again a new venture played a part in him turning down the opportunity. He had just started American Solutions for Winning the Future, an issues-based 527 that is non-partisan, in late 2006 and did not want to abandon it. He also realized just how bad the environment was for Republicans, though he and American Solutions -- through the Drilll Here, Drill Now, Pay Less petition did a lot to change that, bringing the GOP in the lead in polls before the financial crisis hit.

"I would have been so critical of the Republican policies that other than William Jennings Bryan in 1896, I couldn't imagine a circumstance where it made sense to. I was very acutely aware of how hard '08 was going to be and how likely it was that we were going to lose. '12 is different."

James Barnes writes, "One sign that Gingrich may be more serious about a presidential run in '12 than he was in the past is his recognition that in order to capture the GOP nomination he cannot get into the race late, as he thought he could in '08."

"One of the things I learned was that you have to start much earlier than I thought you did," said Gingrich. "It's just an objective reality of the way the modern system works." Back in 2007, he dismissed the idea of having to start a campaign early, waiting until September 29th to decide. That fact he has been talking for months about deciding in February or March of 2011 is a good a sign as any he may very well be very serious about running.

Barnes continued:

As he reflected on the arguments of a potential campaign, Gingrich mused, "I think that the three questions are: who are we [as a country], what do we have to do to compete successfully with China and India, and what threatens us and how do we stay safe?" If a GOPer could effectively organize a campaign around those themes, Gingrich said, "You'd be a [Ronald] Reagan or bigger majority coming together to say, 'Yep, that's the direction I want to go in."

Liberal political scientist: Gingrich could be a formidable opponent for Obama

Analyzing Gingrich's CPAC address, Thomas Schaller -- a political scientist at a Maryland unversity who has been published in, among other publications, The New York Times and The Washington Post -- says on fivethirtyeight.com that Newt "(a) is the darkhorse 2012 candidate who could very well win the GOP nomination; and (b) could, if nominated, present a formidable challenge to Barack Obama's re-election."

On another website, Schaller expanded on his thoughts:

Gingrich may be the one candidate who can appeal equally to both mainstream and Washington Republicans, as well as the outsider, conservative wing of the party….He has a track record for knowing how to beat Democrats. And whatever one thinks about some of his futuristic ideas, he’s at least a guy with a vision and some fresh thoughts about policy -- as opposed to the rest of the Republicans with their tired mantras about cutting taxes, smaller government and family values. And you can be sure Gingrich will never be a deer-in-the-headlights during a debate or press conference.

Schaller added in yesterday's column, "Gingrich is an ideas guy -- a recent National Journal poll of Washington insiders ranked him the GOP's most 'creative thinker' -- and he is more credible on foreign policy and defense than Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, combined."

On Gingrich's weaknesses, he writes that besides the personal baggage, his biggest one may be the way he speaks, which goes against the grain of today's thirty-second sound bites and pandering lines. "His erudition, policy command and historical references may be assets when he's on a panel at the Heritage Foundation or AEI, but it just doesn't work at events like his speech today to attendees at the Conservative Political Action Committee national meeting," Schaller writes. "In little more than a half hour, Gingrich managed to reference the Judiciary Act of 1802, Camus’ The Plague, Orwell’s 1984, Hayek’s notions of centralized planning, and John Paul II. I was waiting for him to announced that copies of the speech's footnotes would be available in the lobby."

However, while some may not respond to such a speech, many people -- including a lot of conservatives -- are hungry for a more in-depth discussion of issues than what passes as political debate today. Gingrich has been urging for years a complete reformation of the presidential debate process, to a system in which the discussion is more free-flowing and not bottled up by moderators. In that spirit, he and former New York Democratic governor Mario Cuomo sat at Cooper Union, site of one of Abraham Lincoln's greatest speeches, and showed how the new debate process would work.

Here is a four minute-plus sampling of the Cooper Union event:



(Full video here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/172207)

Though Schaller does not mention it, Minnesota governor and likely 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty gave one of the most silly statements that an aspiring national leader could. A National Review contributor summed it up: "[W]hen I read that the governor 'appealed to the tea-party movement, calling its critics a 'brie-eating' elite from 'Ivy League schools' who don't like 'Sam's Club Republicans' who 'actually like shopping at places like Wal-Mart,' I thought just one thing: The guy's a phony. And patronizing, too. Good grief."

Wrapping up the piece, Schaller opines: "[Gingrich] can, in short, position himself as the candidate who has proactive ideas and can convince the country that Republicans can ably run the government rather than just obstruct it. That will be a lecture worth hearing."

Newt at CPAC

Yesterday, Gingrich gave a speech at the 37th annual Conservative Political Action Confrence (CPAC). Walking to the stage through a standing room only crowd -- the man who introduced him, David Bossie, said it was the largest crowd he saw this weekend up to that point and The New York Times called it "a rock-star-like entrance" -- with "Eye of the Tiger" playing on the speakers, Newt began with his speech. (He was the only speaker to walk through the crowd; one commentator called it a "great tactic -- the energy built as he moved across the room and the applause continued."

He said he believed that this was the most important CPAC since Ronald Reagan called for a party of "bold colors" and no "pale pastels." He wanted to correct Evan Bayh, the Indiana senator who last week announced his retirement. Bayh said that if all he did was enter the private sector and get a job, that that "would be more than Congress has created in the last six months." Gingrich jokingly said, “I think that's an exaggeration. President Obama has created at least three jobs that I know of: Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, and Scott Brown. And I guarantee you, as an historian, without Barack Obama, Scott Brown could not have won in Massachusetts.” He took another swipe at Obama later: “I know from a Chicago, Springfield background that it's hard to fully grasp that honesty could be a part of government.”

In the same vein as the Scott Brown victory, what Gingrich calls the “coming, massive conservative majority that will recenter this country decisively for the first time in seventy years” would not have been possible without the "Pelosi-Reid-Obama machine." That machine, says the former Speaker, is "secular-socialist" and “anti-ethical to the survival of America as a prosperous, healthy country based on sound principles."

One of the themes of it was "Principled Bipartisanship." He has received heat from some conservatives for an alleged "selling out" for the idea he first raised in a Time article on February 18th. While he never called for an abandoment of principles, some purists consider any talking at all to be a terrible idea. But if they listened to Gingrich's plan -- which is to demand the right to bring anyone the Republican negotatiors want, not just the ones Obama wishes to invite; that each side would get an equal amount of time to present their case; and that each side could propose their own ideas, not simply responding to the current bill -- they would know it was not a squishy proposal. In fact, Gingrich quoted Reagan on any such talks: "Trust but verify."

The fact that Obama proposed a health care summit is a good sign because "[h]e's figured out they can't pass the health bill without somehow pretending it's not the health bill."

He pointed out that when he was Speaker, spending was cut to its lowest level since the 1920s, balancing the budget "while cutting taxes to raise jobs" -- mentioning the conservative possibility of such bipartisan talks and talking up his own record at the same time.

He advocated bipartisan talks in future issues besides health care, predicting that the GOP would retake the House and Senate this Novemeber -- and the White House in 2012. But until then, Republicans could not sit on their hands. "[H]istory doesn't stand by. History doesn't say, 'Okay, can you all do nothing for three years?' "

The point of recalling that half of the Democrats voted for welfare reform because they would have faced serious trouble in their districts for opposing it was that it is possible to create proposals that are supported by 70%-plus of the American people, isolating the left. “Let's work together until we finish defeating the left, and then we won't have to work with them as much," Gingrich said. And then with tongue-in-cheek, added, “But candidly, we should adopt rules that say even when they are in a small minority, down to the last 15 or 20 left wingers in the Senate, the last 100 or so in the House, we should still have rules that allow them to bring their ides to the table -- because we are not afraid.”

"Churchillian" Gingrich

"You must admit, there's something Churchillian about Newt Gingrich. He may not be the most beloved politician on the national scene, but Newt always has his eye on the ball. Nobody does the issues better." That is how William Tucker began his article on The American Spectator website.

Tucker, who assisted Gingrich in the writing of To Renew America, continues:

This casts Newt in the role that Churchill played when he was an obstreperous backbencher warning about the Nazis in the 1930s -- or perhaps what Ronald Reagan did in the 1970s when he was hounding the Republican Party by running against incumbent Gerald Ford. Neither man enjoyed his present historical reputation at that point. Churchill was an aging wonder boy who had turned into a national annoyance. Reagan was still considered an overly ambitious actor trying to play the part of a politician. Only when history turned in their direction did both men emerge as the peerless leaders they eventually became.

After laying out Newt's version of a 2010 Contract with America, Tucker lists the five steps Gingrich has to promote the new Contract:

1) Concentrate on real issues that already have voter approval.

2) Present the document as a forward-looking alternative, not a backward-looking recrimination.

3) Stay positive and optimistic.

4) Keep the document a House of Representatives affair. Invite the Senate to join but don't negotiate. "The House is inherently a team institution while individual Senators have enormous power."

5) Give the deliberations plenty of publicity over the summer holidays but don't unveil the final document until after Labor Day, when people really start to focus on the campaign.

Summarizing, Tucker writes, "The Tea Party Movement is giving the Republicans enormous electoral impetus. But somebody's got to channel this energy down a useful path. I think Newt's got the right idea."

10 Health Care Ideas

In a recent op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Newt Gingrich and John C. Goodman laid out ten health care ideas that so far have been ignored in the health care debate and which -- as opposed to most of the ideas pushed in Washington -- would go a long way to solving the problem of too few insured and high prices. Among the ideas proposed were making health insurance portable and electronic.

For years, Gingrich has been one of the few Republicans who could speak intelligently about health care. He has not been afraid to engage in discussions about the issue, also unlike many in his Party. He started the Center for Health Transformation in 2003 and has written many words about the issue.

Such a high-profile piece can only help to refute the claim from liberals that the Republicans only are screaming, "No!" to everything. They can keep sticking to that position, but in light of more writings like this and Paul Ryan's "A Roadmap for America's Future," it will only look ridiculous.

Introduction

I have started this blog to promote Newt Gingrich. My hope is that he runs for President in 2012, and that this blog can help get out the word, but if he does not, being able to promote his policies and strategies is enough for me.

Most of the updates will be focused on news and commentary from and about the former Speaker as well as opinion pieces from me.

Thanks for reading.