Focus on issues has Newt returning to form
in the role of Republican elder statesman...
As Rush Limbaugh observed a couple days ago, don't be too surprised if you now witness a third comeback for Newt- and that was before Santorum tanked in Phoenix. The underlying logic? There hadn't been a GOP debate in a month... and he suspected Gingrich would be hitting his stride once they resumed.
And ole Rush might have been on to something: the Former House Speaker really delivered on Tuesday night in Mesa AZ, bringing most of the night's best lines while drawing a lot of fresh attention to his well-thought-out, viable plans for healing our wounded nation.
"Gingrich didn't have a game-changing moment in Wednesday night's Arizona debate, BUT the former House speaker's newest approach to the Republican presidential race - staying above the fray, avoiding attacks and focusing on the issues - proved to be a winner for him anyway." -Ginger Gibson (Politico)
“Newt's message on energy development was spot-on. Drill now and stop bowing to foreign regimes begging them to do it for us." -Sarah Palin
“We have arrived back at where we began – Newt Gingrich as the adult in the room.” -Erick Erickson
“Newt Gingrich is the statesman of the party (and ) I wouldn’t be surprised if Newt found his way back to be the frontrunner.” -Donna Brazil
“Do not underestimate the very real possibility of Newt coming back from the dead one more time.” -Joe Trippi
“Newt came out and was affable, thoughtful, and deep.”
-Ari Fleischer
-Ari Fleischer
“Fantastic answer from Gingrich on UAW and bankruptcy.”
-Dana Loesch
-Dana Loesch
“Newt hit it out of park on infanticide and Barack Obama.”
-Laura Ingraham
-Laura Ingraham
“I thought Newt was outstanding last night... I thought Newt, with no pressure on him, hit Obama better than anybody did last night... These are the kinds of things that Newt did last night, and he's so good at it. And he had the courage to use the word ‘infanticide.’... Newt had some absolutely brilliant conservative thoughts on education and on our schools... So Newt, spot on.” -Rush Limbaugh
But it seems El Rushbo isn't the only one aware of what Newt can do on the debate stage: the final pre-SuperTuesday CNN debate has now been cancelled, this due to the fact that Romney, Paul, and and Santorum all bailed. You can be forgiven for thinking the voters deserve better, but apparently these three aren't going to let anything like that bother them.
I can see Mittens being a-scared of the Former House Speaker intellectual prowess and game-changing potential in any debate, while Ron Paul now looks like he's in cahoots with Romney... so there you go. As for Santorum -after seeing what we've seen this week- if I was him I'd give a wide berth to talk of any further debates, too.
Yet Gingrich made the most of the opportunity while it was still there... some select gems from Newt in Phoenix:
"I would be committed first of all to a program of jobs and economic growth.
Second, the energy issue is enormous: the leading developer of North Dakota oil estimated recently that if we would open-up federal land and open-up offshore, we would have $16-18 TRILLION -not billion- trillion dollars in royalties to the federal government over the next generation, an enormous flow which would drive prices down to $2.50 a gallon, would helps us balance the budget, and we create millions of jobs.
If we then applied the Tenth Amendment -as Governor Perry has agreed to head-up a project on- I think we can return to the states an enormous share of the power that's found in Washington DC."
"Everybody's talks about 'managing' the current government.... the current government is a disaster...
"It is utterly stupid to say that the United States government can't control the border! It's a failure of will, it's a failure of enforcement...
Let me just take that one example: let's assume you could tomorrow morning have a president that wanted to work with your governor -instead of suing Arizona, helped Arizona, actually worked with Arizona...
What's the fiscal reality three years from now -in your emergency rooms, in your schools, in your prisons- of controlling the border? It's a lot less expensive. You just took a major step towards a less-expensive future.
So, I think it is possible to modernize the federal government, to cut taxes, and to develop energy simultaneously... and the three of those lead back to a balanced budget."
(Re. auto bailouts): "First of all, there was a huge amount of the American auto industry that was doing just fine: BMW in North Carolina was doing fine, Mercedes in Alabama was doing just fine, Honda in Ohio just fine... Toyota was just fine.
What we have is a UAW and a management system that had grown very -I think- incapable of tough decisions -because they were used to selling out to the United Auto Workers- so they came-in and said we can't change: and this president (on the behalf of the UAW) said 'You're exactly right!'
Now, the fact is Chrysler is now FIAT... so when we talk about 'saving the American auto industry' let's be clear what they where doing: I think they would have been much better off going through managed bankruptcy... but what would have happened is the UAW would have lost all of their advantages.
And the result that you have is -I think- an unprecedented violation of 200 years of bankruptcy law by Barack Obama to pay-off the UAW at the expense of every bondholder."
(Re Iran): "This is a dictator -Ahmedinijad- who has said he doesn't believe the Holocaust existed, this is a dictator who says he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the Earth, this is a dictator who said he wants to drive the United States out of the Middle East... I'm inclined to believe dictators-- I think that it is dangerous not to.
If an Israeli PM -haunted by the history of the Holocaust- recognizing that three nuclear weapons is a Holocaust in Israel- if an Israeli PM calls me and says 'I believe in the defense of my country'...
I do believe there are moments when you pre-empt: If you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons -and you think that madman is going to use those nuclear weapons- the you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating that ability to build nuclear weapons."
"I would create a very dramatic American energy policy... We have enough energy in the United States that we would be the largest producer of oil in the world by the end of this decade.... and we would be capable to saying to the Middle East 'we don't care what you do'.
The Chinese have a big problem (if Iran closed the Straights of Hormuz) -because ya ain't gonna have any oil- but we wouldn't need to be directly engaged."
btw... what's on Earth was up with the weird, hyper-enthusiastic handshake Santorum unleashed on Ron Paul at the conclusion... any theories? Pretty bizarre-
Please allow me to mention in closing that we all know that getting the economy going and creating jobs is clearly the #1 issue with voters, one that the fall campaign is to be won upon. Most of us also agree that Reagan -who created 20M jobs- indeed had it right.
Then consider that in today's troubled times, the Gipper's economic guru Art Laffer has enthusiastically -and I mean enthusiastically- endorsed Newt Gingrich for president, a decision he said was based purely upon what he thinks of the Gingrich economic plan, which he referred to as "fantastic" and "exactly a Reagan-Kemp agenda".
Regular readers of this blog will also tell you that the hot button issue here has long been national defense/homeland security... and imho it's only Newt Gingrich that's saying what needs to be said, how it needs to be said. What's not for a pro-entrepreneur, peace-through-strength Reaganite Republican to like?
And close friend and ally Adrienne (of Adrienne's Corner fame) actually caught Newt's campaign stop in beautiful Coeur d'Alene, ID yesterday (right up front, too), where she took these great shots... nice work!
I can see Mittens being a-scared of the Former House Speaker intellectual prowess and game-changing potential in any debate, while Ron Paul now looks like he's in cahoots with Romney... so there you go. As for Santorum -after seeing what we've seen this week- if I was him I'd give a wide berth to talk of any further debates, too.
Yet Gingrich made the most of the opportunity while it was still there... some select gems from Newt in Phoenix:
"I would be committed first of all to a program of jobs and economic growth.
Second, the energy issue is enormous: the leading developer of North Dakota oil estimated recently that if we would open-up federal land and open-up offshore, we would have $16-18 TRILLION -not billion- trillion dollars in royalties to the federal government over the next generation, an enormous flow which would drive prices down to $2.50 a gallon, would helps us balance the budget, and we create millions of jobs.
Finally, I agree generally with the need to reform government: I think that if we were prepared to repeal the 130-year-old civil service laws, go to a modern management system, we could save a minimum of $500 billion dollars a year...
"Everybody's talks about 'managing' the current government.... the current government is a disaster...
"It is utterly stupid to say that the United States government can't control the border! It's a failure of will, it's a failure of enforcement...
Let me just take that one example: let's assume you could tomorrow morning have a president that wanted to work with your governor -instead of suing Arizona, helped Arizona, actually worked with Arizona...
What's the fiscal reality three years from now -in your emergency rooms, in your schools, in your prisons- of controlling the border? It's a lot less expensive. You just took a major step towards a less-expensive future.
So, I think it is possible to modernize the federal government, to cut taxes, and to develop energy simultaneously... and the three of those lead back to a balanced budget."
(Re. auto bailouts): "First of all, there was a huge amount of the American auto industry that was doing just fine: BMW in North Carolina was doing fine, Mercedes in Alabama was doing just fine, Honda in Ohio just fine... Toyota was just fine.
What we have is a UAW and a management system that had grown very -I think- incapable of tough decisions -because they were used to selling out to the United Auto Workers- so they came-in and said we can't change: and this president (on the behalf of the UAW) said 'You're exactly right!'
Now, the fact is Chrysler is now FIAT... so when we talk about 'saving the American auto industry' let's be clear what they where doing: I think they would have been much better off going through managed bankruptcy... but what would have happened is the UAW would have lost all of their advantages.
And the result that you have is -I think- an unprecedented violation of 200 years of bankruptcy law by Barack Obama to pay-off the UAW at the expense of every bondholder."
(Re Iran): "This is a dictator -Ahmedinijad- who has said he doesn't believe the Holocaust existed, this is a dictator who says he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the Earth, this is a dictator who said he wants to drive the United States out of the Middle East... I'm inclined to believe dictators-- I think that it is dangerous not to.
If an Israeli PM -haunted by the history of the Holocaust- recognizing that three nuclear weapons is a Holocaust in Israel- if an Israeli PM calls me and says 'I believe in the defense of my country'...
I do believe there are moments when you pre-empt: If you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons -and you think that madman is going to use those nuclear weapons- the you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating that ability to build nuclear weapons."
"I would create a very dramatic American energy policy... We have enough energy in the United States that we would be the largest producer of oil in the world by the end of this decade.... and we would be capable to saying to the Middle East 'we don't care what you do'.
The Chinese have a big problem (if Iran closed the Straights of Hormuz) -because ya ain't gonna have any oil- but we wouldn't need to be directly engaged."
btw... what's on Earth was up with the weird, hyper-enthusiastic handshake Santorum unleashed on Ron Paul at the conclusion... any theories? Pretty bizarre-
Please allow me to mention in closing that we all know that getting the economy going and creating jobs is clearly the #1 issue with voters, one that the fall campaign is to be won upon. Most of us also agree that Reagan -who created 20M jobs- indeed had it right.
Then consider that in today's troubled times, the Gipper's economic guru Art Laffer has enthusiastically -and I mean enthusiastically- endorsed Newt Gingrich for president, a decision he said was based purely upon what he thinks of the Gingrich economic plan, which he referred to as "fantastic" and "exactly a Reagan-Kemp agenda".
Regular readers of this blog will also tell you that the hot button issue here has long been national defense/homeland security... and imho it's only Newt Gingrich that's saying what needs to be said, how it needs to be said. What's not for a pro-entrepreneur, peace-through-strength Reaganite Republican to like?
And close friend and ally Adrienne (of Adrienne's Corner fame) actually caught Newt's campaign stop in beautiful Coeur d'Alene, ID yesterday (right up front, too), where she took these great shots... nice work!