Gingrich Hires Pollster, Fundraiser

In what could be seen as a sign that Newt is heavily considering a run at the Presidency, the former Speaker has hired a pollster and fundraiser -- two roles "crucial to a typical campaign team," Politico.com writes.

The two new additions are for American Solutions for Winning the Future, a group founded in December by Newt that will aim, in a bipartisan manner, to find ways to solve any number of issues, including health care and education. The two staffers could also serve another purpose: to give hints to other potential staffers to not join the Giuliani, McCain, or Romney campaigns just yet.

It would appear that the pollster, Matt Dabrowski, will play a similar role to that of Frank Luntz's during the formation of the Contract with America. Luntz recently published his latest book, Words That Work

One of the more interesting stories in Major Garrett's An Enduring Revolution: How the Contract with America Continues to Shape the Nation is that as Luntz was preparing the 10 planks of the Contract, he listed them in descending order of popularity among swing voters -- so, for example, the first item listed was the balanced-budget amendment and line-item veto.

But when it came to the second-most popular -- Congressional term limits -- Luntz listed it last so that people would see it in case they just read the first and last items.

With the hiring of two campaign staffers, even if they are just for American Solutions, it would appear that there is growing traction for the type of ideas Gingrich is pushing. And if that's the case, just as it was in 1994 with the Contract, then on January 20, 2009, the former Speaker just might be inaugurated as the next President.

We can hope, and this news certainly makes it more likely it's not a false hope.

Giuliani: Goldwater "incompetent, confused and sometimes idiotic"

In my last post, I dealt with how Rudy Giuliani and other Republican Presidential candidates felt about Ronald Reagan. In this one, I will discuss what Giuliani felt about another conservative icon: Barry Goldwater.

As was the case with the Reagan post, I am not arguing that Giuliani should not be elected just because of what he said a number of years ago; I'm arguing that this is further proof that he is no where near a conservative, and that, in many instances, is very hostile to the same people who he needs to win the Presidency.

Giuliani thought Goldwater was an "incompetent, confused and sometimes idiotic man." By extension, he would seem to feel the same way about any one who voted for the Arizona Senator.

In 1964, he felt the Goldwater supporters -- of which Reagan was one -- "succeeded in inflicting a tremendous defeat on the Republican Party."

Giuliani said that Goldwater's biggest challenger in the 1964 primaries, Nelson Rockefeller, characterized "a tradition in the Republican Party [he had] worked hard to re-kindle" -- which is to say the liberal Republican tradition.

In contradistinction to the supposed "tremendous defeat" the '64 election would inflict on the Republican Party, it actually was a tremendous boon. By abandoning the Eastern Establishment Republicans -- led by Rockefeller -- and their "me, too" philosophy, the Republican Party started attracting Southern conservative voters; in fact, of the 6 states Goldwater won, 5 were in the South. (His home state, Arizona, was the exception.)

While some liberal commentators saw the election as a sign that conservatism would never be embraced by the American public, many -- including Newt Gingrich -- saw the fact that five states of the "Solid South" voted Republican as a changing tide in American politics.

When it came to Congressional races, Georgia, like other Southern states, voted Democratic; however, all but one district went for Goldwater. "Newt did a serious analysis of the recent elections in Georgia and came away convinced that Republicans could be elected to Congress," writes Mel Steely. Gingrich did this analysis in 1974.

One of the things that most attracted the people who would later be called "Reagan Democrats," argues Craig Shirley, was that Goldwater picked an equally-conservative running mate. Most Presidential candidates try to balance the ticket, so Goldwater was expected to pick a moderate running mate. By not doing so, he alienated many of the Eastern Republicans, and they sat out the election, one of the reasons Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide.

"But in choosing [William Miller], Mr. Goldwater also began the process of attracting conservative Democrats into the GOP," writes Shirley. One of those people was Ronald Reagan, the former head of Democrats for Nixon, who first registered as a Republican toward the end of 1964.

As the campaign wound down to its final week, Reagan gave a nationally-televised address on behalf of Goldwater: "A Time for Choosing." Lee Edwards has pointed out "that Reagan would not have been given the opportunity to appear on local radio, let alone national TV, if Nelson Rockefeller or any other Republican liberal had been nominated.

What makes that especially important, writes Edwards, is that it was that address that led to California Republicans to ask Reagan to run for Governor.

In short: If there was no Goldwater campaign, there would almost assuredly been no Reagan campaign.

As you can see, Giuliani could not have been more wrong about Goldwater's campaign. It almost directly led to Reagan's victory in 1980. And the complete transformation of the South to GOP territory was made in 1994, when The Contract with America led to Southern voters vote for Congressional Republicans for the first time since FDR.

------------

In a related topic, it should be pointed out that Gingrich supported Rockefeller in '64, but only for one reason: Rockefeller, felt Gingrich, was the strongest advocate of integration. While Rockefeller was exactly what was wrong with the Republicans and it's doubtful that Gingrich agreed with him on anything else, it's a noble enough reason. That he supported Reagan in '65 shows that Gingrich was not a "Rockefeller-Republican" even when he voted for the New York mayor.

On the same topic, Goldwater was hit over the head for not voting for the Civil Rights Act in '64. But it was not because he was a racist or anything remotely similar to it; in fact, he had voted for similar Civil Rights Acts in 1957 and 1960. He had also pushed for integration of the armed forces two years before Harry Truman.

One of the new editions to the '64, and the part that distressed Goldwater, was Title VII -- which deal with "equal employment opportunity." Though for the idea, the Arizona senator was against the government mandating it. He felt if the government "can forbid such discrimination, it is a real possibility that sometime in the future the same government can require people to discriminate in hiring on the basis of color or race or religion." While that talk was dismissed by those who wanted the bill to pass, it ended up being correct -- eight years after the vote, affirmative action was the law of the land.

Differing Views on Reagan

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, both attempting to secure the conservative vote, have invoked Ronald Reagan's name numerous times.

Giuliani referred to the 40th President at least 12 times at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference alone, one time calling Reagan "one of [his] heroes."

Romney also says President Reagan is one of his heroes. "I believe that our party's ascendancy began with Ronald Reagan's brand of visionary and courageous leadership."

But 15-20 years ago, far from singing Reagan's praises, they were on the record in opposition to him.

George J. Martin, former Executive Director and CEO of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, compiled an extensive list of quotes dealing with Giuliani, both about him and by him.

From that collection:

While running for Mayor, Giuliani "maintained that he never embraced Mr. Reagan's broad conservative agenda," and refused to label himself a "Reagan Republican." The American people, he said, would never get behind the "so-called conservative philosophy of government," because it has "erratic" and "dangerous" prescriptions.

Romney, in the same debate in which he said he was more liberal than opponent Ted Kennedy on abortion, remarked, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush."

So, Giuliani was dramatically opposed to Reagan in 1964, and there's no reason to think Romney was conservative in 1964 if he wasn't during the '80s -- a decade during which Reagan was an immensely popular President.

How did Newt Gingrich feel? Well, funny you should ask. In The Gentleman from the Georgia, author Mel Steely writes that Gingrich became a fan of Reagan in 1965, after seeing the California Governor candidate debate Bobby Kennedy. Newt especially liked it when Reagan asked Kennedy and an audience full of leftist students, "Do any of you honestly believe that if Stalin had a monopoly on the A-Bomb that we'd be free?"

Gingrich would also support Reagan for president three years later, even though Reagan did not enter the race until, in the words of Lee Edwards, "the eve of the election."

In 1976, when the conservative Reagan challenged sitting-President Ford, a moderate, Gingrich did not public ally state he was in favor of Reagan. The reason he did not was that he did not want to alienate any Republican voter in a district in which no Republican had ever won, and often the incumbent Democrat went without a challenger. While not explicitly stating that he wanted the former California Governor to win, Gingrich did allow his campaign chair to run the Reagan campaign in the 6th district.

Now, some may think electing a President based on who said the nicest thing about Reagan is silly -- but that's not the point. The candidate's opinion of Reagan -- from before they were running for President -- is another standard by which we can judge their conservatism, honesty, and principles.

For Giuliani, who doesn't even try to insult voter's intelligence by calling himself a conservative, only his honesty is in question: Either he lied when he said he did not like Reagan or is lying today when he calls the President one of his heroes.

For Romney, a self-described conservative today, all three look pretty weak: His conservatism for obvious reasons, his honesty because he either lied in 1994 or today, and his principles if he can go from being more liberal than Ted Kennedy to as conservative as Reagan.

In contrast, Newt looks very good -- being a fan of Reagan in 1965 shows a much deeper conservative conviction than being a fan of his in 2005.

Perhaps just as important as Newt's opinion of Reagan was the President's feeling about Gingrich. In one of his radio commentaries, Newt relays the following story:

How would the Gipper handle today’s challenges?…Last week I visited the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. Walking through that beautiful library, I was reminded of a meeting that I and a few House conservatives had with him during his second term. We complained for nearly an hour about the goals that hadn’t been accomplished. We told the President what we thought he should do.

Then, as we were leaving, President Reagan placed his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. He said, "It took us 50 years to get into this mess. I’m doing the first eight. Maybe when I’m gone, you guys have to continue the heavy lifting."

That moment put the situation in perspective. President Reagan was reminding us that the biggest dreams of the conservative movement would take much longer than his presidency to realize. Today, much of that work still remains to be done, and together, our generation will be the one to accomplish it.

This week I’ll be focusing on how I think President Reagan would have handled today’s challenges. Whether it’s defeating Islamic-fascists, defending God in the public square or competing in a global economy, we will be the ones to take the Gipper’s vision into the 21st century.

Our generation’s rendezvous with destiny is now. Ronald Reagan’s legacy will live on through us. I’m Newt Gingrich, and together we can win the future.

The interesting thing is how Reagan viewed Gingrich: as a fellow conservative leader. Can you imagine Reagan saying that to John McCain? Rudy Giuliani?

Reagan also showed his support for the Georgia representative in 1984, endorsing Newt's first book, A Window of Opportunity:

The vision of Window of Opportunity is a vision of the American Dream in the 1980s and beyond; a challenge to mobilize the spirit, wisdom and strength of our nation; a source of new hope for building an Opportunity Society that sparks the best in each of us and permits us to chart a better future for our children and our children's children.

As can be seen, there was a mutual admiration between President Reagan and Speaker Gingrich -- as well as a shared conservative philosophy -- that no other front-runner in the 2008 race can come close to.

Again, it's not just that Gingrich was a fan of Reagan; it's that he has very similar views to Reagan, and has felt that way for 40 years.

Gingrich: "The Return of the Liberal Tax Increase"

Starting on April 24 of last year, Newt has written a weekly newsletter for Human Events. The Speaker covers a wide-range of topics in it, from the War on Terror to the economy.

In his latest one, titled "The Return of the Liberal Tax Increase," Newt detailed how much more the "average" American citizen would pay under the House Democrat's plan. Far from "taxing the rich," the bill would hurt married couples, couples with kids, and small business owners.

By Newt denouncing the proposed-tax increase, it is yet another opportunity to bring up the stark differences between Speaker Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain:

In 1988, Giuliani opposed President Bush's "no-tax pledge," which, of course, Bush broke.

In 1994, Romney criticized the supply-side economics of Reagan's.

In 2001 and 2003, McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts.

Gingrich, on the other hand, has long supported tax-cuts -- even opposing Reagan's 1982 tax increase on businesses and excise taxes, as well as the broken-pledge of Bush 41.

Reagan's '82 tax increase, a year after his historic income tax reduction, was part of a deal with Congressional Democrats: for every dollar that taxes were hiked, the Democrats promised three dollars of spending cuts; the cuts never happened, of course. To his credit, however, Reagan made sure that taxes were not hiked on individuals. Still, the deal was bad enough that Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese -- who Giuliani thinks is a sleaze -- calls it "the greatest domestic error of the Reagan administration."

To go up against one of his heroes when he had just 3-plus years in Congress on such an important issue as taxation shows Gingrich's principle.

So did dissenting on Bush's tax increase -- which taxed income, unlike Reagan's. Even though it would appear easier to oppose the Bush hike -- after all, the move was overwhelmingly unpopular and Gingrich had now served almost 12 years -- it was tough for one reason: Newt was the number two Republican in the house. As part of the leadership, he was expected to fall in line. But at the Rose Garden signing ceremony, he pledged to vote against it and felt it would not pass -- "astound[ing] everyone, especially White House aides," writes conservative historian Lee Edwards in The Conservative Revolution. "He was speaking not just for himself but for conservatives in and out of the administration."

"Rudy Would Kill the GOP Pro-Life Movement"

On Tuesday, Doug Patton wrote an article in which he points out that if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee, it would be the first time since 1976, when Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford in the primaries, that the Republican presidential candidate would be pro-abortion. That, says Patton, "could spell the end of the pro-life movement within the Republican Party" -- the consequences of which would cause social-issues voters to stay home or, perhaps, even vote Democrat in some cases.

Patton quotes Mark 8:36:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

It's a good point: By nominating Giuliani, it would require selling-out principle, and if there's one thing the conservative movement has, it is principle. In a general election, there is no doubt that "settling" -- as long as the candidate is somewhat of a conservative, pro-life at the least -- is the way to go so that a liberal is not elected.

But in a primary election, one should look for the candidate they like, regardless of the "electability" of that person. In short: The primary season is not the time to compromise principles. Only when the general election arrives, and the choice is between a, say, 85% conservative, who was their third-favorite, and a 95% liberal, should one vote for someone who is not their top choice.

Some supporters of Giuliani have claimed that the only time a president can change anything on abortion is by appointing judges -- thus, they say, when Giuliani pledges to elect conservative judges, that is enough. But as Patton points out, a Giuliani-nomination likely means the right-to-life plank in the GOP platform would be removed.

Ever since that 1976 primary challenge of Reagan, the Republican Party, at their annual convention, has included the pro-life plank. At the '76 convention, Reagan supporters attempted to push many conservative planks: the anti-abortion one, one opposing the ERA, etc. "The mere fact that the ERA was open to question, and the pro-life plank added, was a victory for Phyllis Schlafly, a leader of the social conservatives," writes Craig Shirley in his terrific book about the Ford-Reagan campaign, Reagan's Revolution.

Patton concludes:

Yes, the war against Islamist fanaticism demands an alternative to Hillary Clinton. Yes, a Giuliani administration would be preferable in many important ways to a Clinton or an Obama administration. And yes, he is probably electable if we give him our nomination.

But at what cost?

P.S.: In the coming weeks, I'll discuss why Giuliani's pledge to appoint judges such as Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts is troubling for a number of reasons.

Moneyball

In May of 2003, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game was released. I quickly bought the book, having had heard of it on several websites that I visited regularly, and couldn't put it down.

In short, it's about how the Oakland Athletics' general manager, Billy Beane, goes beyond the typical offensive stats in baseball -- batting average, home runs, and RBIs -- to find players who are undervalued. Beane was one of the first GMs to look at on-base percentage, and because so few did, he was able to build one of the league's best offenses with one of the lowest payrolls.

Now, Beane has had to adjust, since more and more teams are understanding the value of OBP, but the A's still compete with teams that spend 2-times, 3-times, and even 4-times as much money as they do.

Why is this on a political blog, you may ask? Because the book is a favorite of Newt Gingrich. It makes sense that he would like it, for it details three things that he likes: new thinking, metrics-based solutions, and an anti-establishment approach.

The baseball "establishment" hated the book, even though many have not read the book -- and one person, Joe Morgan, is so ignorant of it he thinks that Beane himself wrote it. Not knowing what they were talking about did not stop the old guard from dismissing the book, and four years later, they still go on bizarre rants on TV, in newspaper articles, and on radio.

Since the book has come out, many company managers have had their employees read it; many of those companies are on Wall Street, which the author of Moneyball, Michael Lewis, had written a book about before.

The fact that Newt likes the book exemplifies why I think he should be president: He looks outside the box and is always looking for new information -- two qualities not commonly found in politicians.



P.S.: For more on the book and how people outside of baseball have utilized it, here are a couple of articles:

• Q&A with Lewis
• Moneyball: What Savvy Marketing Execs Can Learn from a Maverick Baseball GM
• Faith in Figures Proves to be a Big Hit

Introduction

Hello, my name is Josh Gosser, and I'm a conservative. As such, this blog will deal with conservatism; in fact, the name of the blog comes from the subtitle of Newt Gingrich's 1984 book, Window of Opportunity.

A main focus of this blog will be Speaker Gingrich, the best defender of conservatism today. My hope is that in late September -- after doing work with his group American Solutions -- he decides that he has to run for president to truly enact the level of change that he desires, and that the country needs.

In attempting to persuade people to support Newt, I will analyze the other "front-runners" for the Republican nomination -- Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney -- and show why none of them deserve to be the nominee.

I don't support the Speaker for president because I think he's the best person for the job in 2008; I support him because I think he's, by far, the best candidate since Ronald Reagan, and before that, Barry Goldwater.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you will enjoy this blog.