Why I can support Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich does what I have wanted national level Republicans to do for the past thirty years – fight back! I am sick and tired of the GOP’s inability to communicate and fight back – failing to defend the Party and the rank and file.
Remember, I was a Rick Perry supporter from the day he announced his campaign in South Carolina last August, and I have not yet decided between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich although I like and dislike both. But, unlike Glenn Beck who drones on and on about the former Speaker being a dangerous Progressive, I have no problem supporting Newt Gingrich.
I, of course, know about Newt’s adultery and ethics violations. I know about the television commercial with Nancy Pelosi on the couch. I know about Freddie Mac and the $1.6 million.
But I also know that it was Newt Gingrich that pulled our nation back from the abyss during the Clinton Administration and at least bought America some time. You think Barack Obama is bad? Clinton was going to be every bit as bad as Obama.
Remember, Bill Clinton had a two-phase economic plan and he implemented phase one before the Republican Revolution in 1994. Phase one included raising taxes on the poor with gas taxes, the elderly by increasing the amount of taxes on Social Security recipients who made outside income, the middle class and the inheritance tax and he made his tax increases retroactive.
Newt Gingrich was instrumental in pulling Clinton kicking and screaming by the necktie into fiscal sanity and he was fearless in doing it. Did Newt have whacky ideas of his own that had to be kept in-check by other Republicans? No doubt, but that’s the beauty of our system. A key is that Gingrich had the ability to listen and compromise, unlike Obama.
I remember the ethics violations filed against Newt Gingrich and from what I remember, they had to do with his book deal and were political payback for Gingrich participating in bringing down former Democrat Speaker of the House Jim Wright (D-TX) for his book deal, but there was a major difference.
Jim Wright’s book didn’t sell so a union bought larger numbers of copies as political payoff and stored them in a warehouse. Gingrich’s book, on the other hand, sold and the accusation was that he was trading on his position as Speaker by landing the book deal. I have no problem with that at all.
According to the Huffington Post:
Eighty-four charges of ethics violations were filed against Gingrich in 1997, resulting in his being reprimanded by the House of Representatives and fined $300,000. The ethics investigation led to his eventual resignation from Congress.
Speaking Sunday on CNN, Gingrich said he was completely exonerated of the charges, and that the $300,000 penalty he paid for ethics violation was actually a ‘reimbursement’ for the cost of the investigation.
I also remember that $300,000 “fine” and it was reimbursement for the ethics investigation. I remember and participated in the debate way back then.
But, having said all of that, while gaining the White House is important due to the draconian rule making authority available in the various executive branch departments, I don’t think it’s the most important thing at all.
The most important thing is increasing not just Republicans in the House and gaining control of the Senate, but increasing tea party-backed conservatives in those legislative chambers. We’ve seen the somewhat small tea party caucus in the House and Senate rebuff even Republican leaders this past session and I believe they could certainly keep any of Gingrich’s “progressive tendencies” in check and that’s why I can support him.
I also believe that most of the change in this country, as I’ve written for a very long time now, is going to come by Republican governors and state legislatures pushing back against the federal government and forcing that change and not from Washington itself.
I can be completely comfortable with Gingrich as the GOP nominee.
