Newt comes out swinging at CPAC

CPAC 2012: Newt Gingrich hits the reset button

By John Hayward, HUMAN EVENTS

No one can say they don’t know what Newt Gingrich will do after his inauguration. He’s got big plans, and he laid them all out in his CPAC address. He pledged to have a full list of his proposed executive orders and presidential findings published online by October, so that every voter will know exactly what they’re getting. He wants every Republican candidate to campaign with him on a pledge to hit the next Congress in a monster jam session that repeals the job-killing centralized corruption of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley by the time he’s sworn in… and that’s just an appetizer.

Within two hours of plopping his Dilbert calendar and family photographs on the Resolute Desk, he’ll have signed an executive order to cashier every one of the Obama czars. Then he’ll sign one to approve the oil pipeline from Canada to Houston. By lunch, he’ll have moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. (I believe that under the Lean Six Sigma doctrine, it would be a good cost-saving measure to send all the unused office supplies from the fired Obama czars to outfit the new Jerusalem embassy.)

Next up would be re-instituting Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City policy, to forbid spending money to subsidize abortion overseas, even as “every act of religious bigotry by the Obama government” is swept away. By the time ex-President Obama “lands in Chicago,” he aims to have repealed “40 percent of Obama’s government.”

Then the munchkins of the Establishment would get to clutch their “fairness” and “revenue-neutral” teddy bears, suck their thumbs, and watch as President Gingrich proceeded to “create the most dynamic economy on the planet, and rebuild our manufacturing base” by eliminating the capital gains tax for all investment in the United States, allow 100 percent expensing of all new capital equipment, requiring mandatory business-led training for all who receive unemployment benefits, eliminating the job-killing Environmental Protection Agency, creating an Environmental Solutions Agency full of common-sense professionals instead of zero-growth anti-business radicals, creating a 21st-century Food and Drug Administration to unleash job-creating medical research, slashing the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent, actually collecting some taxes from General Electric, abolishing the immoral death tax, cutting everyone’s taxes with the flat tax plan Steve Forbes brought back from Hong Kong, balancing the federal budget by bringing the level of spending down to meet the level of revenue, stop taxing the American people to pay off Barack Obama’s credit card, using American energy to reduce fuel prices, increasing government revenue through economic growth, save $500 billion a year by replacing the 130-year-old incompetent and inefficient civil service system with a modern system based on ideas like Lean Six Sigma, abolishing the totally failed Department of Energy, subcontracting fraud-riddled Medicaid and Medicare administration to professional data administrators from credit card companies, taking the 10th Amendment seriously, strengthening Social Security, auditing the Federal Reserve, re-balancing the federal judiciary, and bouncing Fed chief Ben Bernanke out of Washington. Oh, and he won’t be bowing to any Saudi kings.

But that’s not all! Be sure to drop by www.newt.org, where you can bathe your mind in “an immense amount of material.”

No one else at CPAC had a speech as packed full of specifics as Newt Gingrich. He’s got a broad and deep agenda, and he can run through it from memory. He loves talking about every aspect of it. Whether you like his ideas or not, you can’t say he’s trying to hide any of them.

He is, however, a very bad golfer, by his own admission. Nobody’s perfect.

Gingrich is no fan of the “GOP establishment,” which loves to use the word “unrealistic” as a death curse to strike down ideas that challenge it. That’s the defining feature of the various Establishments trying to grind Gingrich beneath their heels, including the Washington Establishment, the Wall Street Establishment, and the Media Establishment. You don’t become a member of the Establishment by serving in Congress or working in Washington for a number of years. The essential rite of passage involves deciding all the bold ideas are “unrealistic,” and settling into an overstuffed armchair of humdrum Big Government “reality.”

They called the capital gains tax cuts, welfare reform, balanced budget, and job growth Gingrich stewarded during the Clinton years “unrealistic,” too. The Republican Establishment remains as it has been for half a century, preferring to “manage the decay,” because that’s easier than “changing the trajectory,” which involves “real fights, and a real willingness to roll up sleeves and actually take on the Left.” The Establishment sure knows how to muck up a primary, but they’re just not tough enough to beat the Left in a presidential campaign. Only the “Paycheck President” can defeat the “Food Stamp President.”

Some say Gingrich is paranoid and self-serving to talk this way, seeking to whitewash the less appealing elements of his Speakership by casting himself as a rebel against the flabby but powerful Establishment. Maybe so, but you’ve got to admit it’s not hard to think of Republicans who embrace the mind-set he’s describing.

According to Gingrich, we face now an hour similar to 1980, 1984, and 1994, when a bold conservatism presented with vigor can rally independent and moderate voters, who might otherwise be cowed by the Left’s moralistic commands to continue America’s downward spiral. A timid and leashed America that needs 23 years to cut through the bureaucracy, incompetence, and red tape to add a runway to an airport, where its forefathers needed only 3 years to smash the Axis, is hungry for energetic leadership to lead it back into a mostly private-sector “world that works.” It is “not a theory” that UPS and FedEx can track 28 million moving packages a day, while the federal government “cannot find 11 million illegal immigrants, even if they’re sitting still.”

Wit is a sign of confidence, and Gingrich got big laughs by suggesting illegal aliens could be tracked down by sending them a UPS package… then scored again by reminding the media (ahem, make that The Media Establishment) that he was engaging in hyperbole, and did not need to be fact-checked.

Gingrich was unsparing in his criticism of both the incumbent President’s policies and character. He said Obama has clearly demonstrated that he “cannot be trusted” to protect the religious liberty of Americans, and would “wage war on the Catholic Church” if given a second term. He accused Obama of being “anti-American energy” in his quest to saddle us with five-dollar gasoline at the pump. The Obama Administration’s foreign policy so badly “misunderstands the nature of reality” so badly that they’re inflicting deep defense cuts even as Americans are once again held hostage in a Middle Eastern nation, and Barack Obama completes his transformation into Jimmy Carter the Second. Gingrich, in contrast, would “tell us the truth about radical Islamists who are trying to kill us.”

Some relish proposal-packed speeches like this, while others say it’s too wonkish for “independent voter” consumption, and Gingrich is biting off more than any President could chew. Where Rick Santorum offered a focused table of contents for his proposed Administration, and Mitt Romney spent half of his speech talking about his biography, Gingrich is already working on the footnotes and appendix. But is his exhaustive list of proposals really too much for one Administration? Barack Obama hasn’t been shy about swinging executive power like a wrecking ball. Why can’t it be used constructively?

For Newt Gingrich, the historic election ahead will be a choice between those who cleave to the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Federalist Papers, versus Barack Obama and the Saul Alinsky radicals. He calls for hitting the “reset button” and rebuilding America, instead of managing its decay. None of the Establishments talk like that.

John Hayward is a staff writer for HUMAN EVENTS, and author of the recently published Doctor Zero: Year One. Follow him on Twitter: Doc_0. Contact him by email at jhayward@eaglepub.com.

February 11, 2012 | 28 Comments »

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28 Comments / 28 Comments

  1. I dont want Obama to get relected, but I am going by my gut feeling and political reality, other than that I think I made myself clear I dont need to explain my opinion, I am entitled to my opinion

  2. Clinton Alexander states

    Obama wins no matter what. I don’t like that but that is the fact, republicans have no chance

    Clinton, please elaborate.

  3. Joseph G. Whitson writes

    Newt is the Only one knowledgeable enough, tough enough, and mean enough to deal with todays problems and turn this Country around. He knows where the skeletons are. He’s been there!! I can’t see any other candidate sitting across the table from the leaders of Russia, Iran, North Korea and the Arab Spring revolt

    And I agree. Yes there are concerns with Newt but we have what we have and what happened in South Carolina was terrific as the residents of that state decided to go with their gut feelings about Newt and didn’t really care much about his record. This kind of solid grass-roots feeling will occur again when Republicans realize that Romney will not truly create jobs and may not even boost the economy!!

    That will put a scare even amongst many Democrats who are either jobless, homeless or having a very difficult time and they WILL NOT want to see another four years of further disaster.

    There is still time and this election will be a solid test of the under-current of anger amongst Americans. Would like to more from others as to why South Carolina gave Newt such a solid vote.

  4. To avoid Vietnam he became a Mormon Missionary to FRANCE?. One of the Most Catholic Countries in Europe.

    Yeah Right 🙂 My Hero (Barf)

  5. Newt used to be a part of the problem. we need an outsider in DC not Newt

    You already got an outsider in DC, as the current President. So re-elect him or someone like him.

    There is a steep learning curse for outsiders. The presidency should not be on the job training for neophytes.

    Voting records are like the weather, some like it hot, cold, snowy or dry, some like it raining some like the hot sun.

  6. What it has come down to, is who is the least bad…

    It always comes down to who is the least bad. Americans are pretty evenly divided politically and a relatively small number of voters always determines who wins the elections. That’s why no party since FDR has managed to hold executive and congressional power for long. Voters always vote against seldom for candidates or political parties. Populism mandates promising the electorate more than they can deliver and when not delivered lose elections.

    Essentially the electorate is asked to choose politicians to solve problems they themselves created. That’s real smart and the electorate still never learns but their expectations only increase based on previous failures. He eventually you get populism and self interest trumping common sense and any concern for the general common welfare.

    American democracy was an experiment doomed to failure because individuals when they can avoid responsibility, will do so.

    A recent poll found that most Americans could not name the VP of the USA. You expect them to have any cogent opinions about any serious concerns America faces or even a functional understanding of them?

    poll Americans can’t name VP
    Almost 30 percent (29.3 percent) could not accurately identify who the current vice president—Joe Biden—is. Almost one-quarter (23 percent) couldn’t remember who the vice president is; 3.3 percent supplied the incorrect name; and 3 percent named Dick Cheney

    Hall Of Inaccurate Presidents

  7. Most of the List very general in description and no context included. Many of what is considered to be negative voting record from the list I agree with 100%. Basicly what you are presenting is a lot of political spin some true and factual some not. I haven’t checked but a similar list can be conjured for all of the candidates and you would have to be a political simpleton to expect any intelligent citizen to accept such for voting pro or con either for newt or Ron Paul..

    Romney is the only current Republican candidate who has a limited voting record of a lot of lost election bids and a 4 year failure as govenor. Hewould have run for a second term if he believed he could get re-elected.

    Of all of the Years Paul has served in congress how many laws were passed from bill he sponsored? If you look at Pauls voting record you will see a 90% Plus voting record of negative voting. He is against almost everything and what he says he is for does not show up in legislation passed. Even if you agree with his voting record and his positions, You must agree that as a legislator he has been not only ineffective he by dint of his own character foibles (seen as a Kook)is more harmful to the causes and positions he advocates than the other way around.

    Newt whether you love him or hate him has been effective he more than any other legislator raised Congress’s profile and power to play the role of what the founders and the constitution envisaged a check on the power of the executive. Paul is and has been mostly ignored and rightly so.

    If I wanted a Nazi Clone & sympathizer to lead America there are some better suited than Paul.

  8. That is a problem Newt knows Washington DC to much, he used to be part of it, as I said Newt will not be the next President

  9. All the entrenched politicians have aided the rise and support of
    Obama’s corrupt administration. They’ve all watched as Obama has shredded
    our Constitution and destroyed our economy. A fresh start with a thorough
    house cleaning in Washington is needed. Of all the candidates running, Newt
    is the Only one knowledgeable enough, tough enough, and mean enough to deal
    with todays problems and turn this Country around. He knows where the skeletons
    are. He’s been there!! I can’t see any other candidate sitting across the
    table from the leaders of Russia, Iran, North Korea and the Arab Spring revolt
    countries moving toward The Muslim Brotherhood with all the violence they bring,
    taking a strong leadership role to reassert America as a World Leader. They
    aren’t knowledgeable and tough to lead America through this critical period.
    It will take boldness and STRONG LEADERSHIP.

  10. I agree with Newt on some things, but sorry to say he wont get the nomination, and if it did come down to Newt and Obama, Obama wins that is my gut feeling, plus the party leaders wont let Newt get nominated.

  11. Newt looks good to me too. As for the stumbling block – the nomination – well, we can all (i.e. those of us who are American citizens) join the Republican party and vote in the primary. Gingrich may not have Romney’s money, but he is rich in the support of voters who care about what happens to this country. I just wish that all the candidates would concentrate on the real obstacle, Obama and his minions. Intra-party brawling just gives the Obama-supporting media more ammunition against the GOP.

  12. Just read quickly some of Newts voting record on freedomtorch, so I definately will not be voting for Newt now cause what I read about Newts voting record.

  13. The only problems is Newt will not get the nomination, and if by a miracle he did Obama pounces on him, Obama beats Newt, one thing I dont like about Newt is he comes across as very hot tempered angry Man, so I wont be voting for Newt.

  14. Newt has excellent ideas to bring this country back. So of course he has no chance to get the nomination let alone implement his ideas. Both party establishments won’t allow it.

  15. I didn’t hear Newt speak but according to FN, He was “flat” and sounded like “an angry bitter old man”

    FNC is in the Tank for Wall st and Corporate America so they want Romney.

    Strange, the Last two years that Paul won the CPAC straw poll he was accused by FN of stacking the ballot boxes with his supporters and was not considered a serious evaluation of real conservative support.

    Nobody so far especially FN has accused Romney of doing something similar. Absent Paul at CPAC, he only polled in single digits.

    This should prove to anyone that the Straw Polls at CPAC are manipulative and essentially meaningless except to Romney supporters and his Media support mainly FN. CPAC had 3400 eligible voters but nobody gave a vote total along with the percentages.

    Newt should have run in 2008 but he couldn’t get a minimum financial commitment for a run. I don’t think he has a chance in hell for the nomination mainly because of Newt. He seems too old and refuses to go for the jugular against his opponents. Nobody wants to hear a crybaby complaining how rough and deceitful his opponents are. He knows politics is a dirty game and if you aren’t ready to get down in the dirt and play the game, you ain’t going to cut it. Americans don’t want details they want nice sounding euphemisms and a good looking candidate with hair. At least the majority of the female vote does. You can’t win and lose the female vote. Newt polls in the 30’s among women nationally and is at bottom with independents.

    With Romney as President, look for extreme austerity and the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. I don’t expect his positions on Israel will be much different than any of the last 3 presidents.

    This argument might prove to be redundant as I believe Obama will win going away against Romney just like McCain. The Democrats will rip him apart on Romney Care and hit him with the real story of Bane Capital. Newt started to expose Bane, but stopped short with the outcry of the stupid Republican leadership and talking heads.

    Example: ‘Staples’ put hundreds if not thousands of small businesses out of business and thousands of workers out of work. Staples created jobs, if stocking shelves and check out clerks are ones dreams of good paying employment.

    Here is a taste of what Obama will do to Romney

    Romney-Gekko 2012 Campaign Unveils Parody Ad for New Music Album: “Mitt’s Hits”
    Posted by Romney-Gekko Staff on February 10, 2012

    Obama will destroy Romney’s only selling point: Successful businessman who know how to run businesses. But he is really a vulture Capitalist.

  16. I do too but he has to get the nomination first- then his ideas will take hold in contrast to the present administration’s. I would love to see debates between Gingrinch and Obama- and forget the prognostication that Romney should be supported because supposedly he has the best chance to win.

  17. I like his ideas – I hope the voters take notice of these plans and gives him an opportunity to carry them through.

  18. I would vote for him if I were American.

    What he seems to be doing is presenting/offering something solid – perhaps even somewhat scare – to the American people. The same American people can either reject that offering or accept it. My own feeling is that if they reject the offering as defined above – which is the antithesis of the Obama fiasco – they will have made an unmistakeable statement, and as a writer friend of mine has said, the result for America will eventually be the metaphorical (or not) baseball bat to the back of the head.