If you ever hear Newt speak, especially in debates, you can tell he's brilliant and, more importantly, is very good at taking the pulse of the crowd. He probably would have gone further in politics had his personal weaknesses/flaws/whatever got in the way.
Newt Gingrich is based as Hell too. He doesn't have the believability that Trump has, but you're talking about the guy who led the troops at the lower levels for a Republican Revolution and outlined in the 2012 debates the strategy to take the Presidency. One can't help but be reminded with the calls for bold action in a grandiose way.
Well, it's a very simple question. How big a scale of change do we want in Washington? I started working with Governor Reagan in 1974. I helped with Jack Kemp and others the development of supply-side economics in the late '70s.
I participated in the '80s in an enormous project of economic growth and, with President Reagan's leadership, the American people created 16 million jobs. With President Reagan's leadership, the Soviet Union disappeared. I came back -- I spent 16 years on a grandiose project called creating a Republican majority in the House -- 16 years. And most of the Republican leaders in the House thought it was a joke. Even the night before the election, they thought it was a joke.
And we created the first majority. We then worked for two solid years, reformed welfare. Two out of three people went back to work or went to school. We ultimately became the first re-elected Republican majority since 1928.
We then went on to cut taxes for the first time in 16 years, the largest capital gains tax cut in American history. In the four years I was speaker, the American people created 11 million new jobs. We balanced the budget for four consecutive years, (inaudible).
You're right. I think grandiose thoughts. This is a grandiose country of big people doing big things. And we need leadership prepared to take on big projects.
Another response to a question on how he would run his campaign.
I would skip the opening three months where I hired regular consultants and tried to figure how to be a normal candidate. And I would just go straight to being a big ideas, big solutions, Internet- based campaign from day one.
Just didn't work. I mean, it's not who I am. I'm not capable of being a sort of traditional candidate. I'm a very ideal-oriented candidate and I think the Internet makes it possible to create a momentum of ideas that's very, very exciting.
My favorite response of his talking about how he would follow Obama around the country giving rebuttal speeches until he agreed to debate him Lincoln-Douglas style.
"I promise you, if you will help me on January 3, if I end up as the nominee, in my acceptance speech, if the president has not yet agreed, I will announce from that day forward for the rest of the campaign, the White House will be my scheduler," Gingrich said. "And wherever the president appears, I will appear four hours later." Gingrich predicted Obama would accept the debate challenge, in part because of wanting to preserve media coverage, but also out of ego.
"How can a Harvard Law Review editor, the greatest orator in the modern Democratic party, admit to being afraid to be on the same platform as a West Georgia college professor?" he asked.