Pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future raised more than $11 million in January — with almost all of it coming from one couple, new federal records show.
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s $5 million donation on Jan. 6 preceded another $5 million on Jan. 24 from his wife, Miriam Adelson.
The cash helped fuel more than $9.76 million in spending by the super PAC, which is run by former Gingrich staffers.
Winning Our Future reported $2.44 million cash on hand through January.
Winning Our Future official Rick Tyler declined to elaborate on the super PAC’s fundraising or plans going forward, telling POLITICO, “I’m optimistic — I’m not going to say more than that.”
By comparison, pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future today reported raising $6.6 million and spending $13.9 million in January.
Gingrich has struggled to maintain momentum in the Republican presidential primary after winning the South Carolina primary in late January — a victory thanks in part to Winning Our Future’s heavy spending in the Palmetto State.
The former House speaker looks to make what could be his last stand during the March 6 Super Tuesday primary and caucus contests, when his home state of Georgia is in play along with nine other states.
After the Adelsons, the next biggest donation to Winning Our Future – $500,000 – came from Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, matching a donation he gave for that amount to the super PAC late last year.
Simmons, long a top donor to conservative causes, is spreading his donations widely among GOP-allied super PACs this cycle, also giving $100,000 last month to the super PAC supporting Gingrich rival Mitt Romney.
And that’s on top of donations he gave last year of $7 million to the Karl Rove-linked American Crossroads, and $1 million to the super PAC that supported Rick Perry’s since-aborted presidential campaign.
The only other large donations came from Margaret C. Caveney, a South Florida retiree who gave $250,000; Michael E. Martino, a Connecticut investor who gave $100,000, and Stephen Muss, a Miami real estate developer who gave $50,000.
The remaining 103 donors gave a total of $56,251. Winning Our Future did not accept any corporate contributions in January, although super PACs are allowed to do so.
As the Adelsons have sent mixed signals about whether they intend to continue donating to the super PAC, its officials indicated they intended to broaden its donor base.
The Monday report shows that it spent $216,000 on fundraising. But $156,000 of that went to Becky Burkett, a former Gingrich aide who helped a now-defunct Gingrich political group raise $7 million from Adelson. Another $50,000 went to a Purcelville, Va., firm called Foundry Road, LLC, while $10,000 was paid to a San Francisco firm called Piryx Inc.
Gregg A. Phillips of Austin, Texas, also received $90,000 in January for “consulting” and “strategic planning” service.
And Winning Our Future spent $38,475 last month on survey research, its filings show.
Winning Our Future’s spending and fundraising in January dwarfed its efforts from the month before, although this is hardly surprising, since the super PAC only formed during the middle of December.
In December, it raised just a shade above $2 million and spent less than $911,000.
Super PACs may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to overtly support or oppose political candidates so long as they do not coordinate with the candidates they’re backing.
Gingrich: busy first day in Oval office if elected
(AFP) –2/10/2012
WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich said Friday that if elected president he will repeal health care and finance reform, end overseas abortion aid, approve a major oil pipeline and move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem -- and that's just on Day 1.
Before an approving crowd of thousands at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the former House speaker laid out a cluttered schedule that would repudiate "at least 40 percent of (President Barack Obama's) government on the opening day."
"When the Congress comes in (in early January) it will stay in session and by January 20th, it will have repealed 'Obamacare,'" Gingrich said to a loud roar, referring to the president's landmark legislation that has helped provide coverage for tens of millions of uninsured Americans.
Also going under the axe would be the Dodd-Frank bill on Wall Street reform and the Sarbanes-Oxley bill on corporate accountability reform.
"That afternoon on the very first day, we should sign the repeal of all three. That's a reasonable start."
He also would immediately approve a controversial Canada-US oil pipeline, "abolish all of the White House czars," and shift the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
A 1995 US law calls for the move but successive presidents have used the measure's waiver authority to postpone it.
The Obama administration regards Jerusalem as a final status issue to be resolved in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The first day of a Gingrich presidency would also see all US aid halted for groups that fund abortions overseas, "and we will have an executive order to repeal every act of religious bigotry by the Obama administration."
Hours earlier Obama announced a compromise to defuse a row over access to birth control, a controversy that critics claimed was proof of the president's war on religion.
Gingrich, who is known for a bombastic style seen as a mix of self-confidence and arrogance, must first come out on top in the fiercely fought Republican party nominations race, then prevail over Obama in November.
Gingrich trails former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and finished poorly in three primary and caucus contests this week won by rival conservative Rick Santorum.
But he insisted he was still the man to beat, and said the Washington elite in both major parties feared a Gingrich victory.
"This campaign is a mortal threat to their grip on the establishment, because we intent to change Washington, not accommodate it," he said.
Newt Gingrich super PAC sees $5-million boost from Vegas benefactors
Republican Newt Gingrich
meets supporters outside Bedford High School on Tuesday, where primary
voting was taking place in Bedford, N.H.
(Andrew Burton / Getty Images)
By Tom Hamburger
January 10, 2012, 4:22 p.m.
Sheldon and Miriam Adelson wrote a personal check to Newt Gingrich's
super PAC for $5 million late last Friday afternoon, and could send
more -- though there are no promises. That's the description offered by a
person close to the billionaire couple who is familiar with their
thinking and the couple's long-standing relationship with Gingrich.
The money is being spent in part to fuel a massive advertising campaign in South Carolina attacking
Mitt Romney, who had attacked Gingrich aggressively in Iowa. Sheldon Adelson,
who has houses in Malibu and Las Vegas, made his fortune in the
international gambling business. His personal money was sent without
condition to the super PAC because Gingrich "is an old friend in a time
of need," said the source, who requested anonymity because he was not
authorized to discuss the topic.
The money was sent to Winning
Our Future, one of the candidate-specific super PACs that have been
formed after a 2010 Supreme Court decision that permitted individuals,
corporations and unions to give unlimited amounts to political groups
providing they operated independently of an official campaign. Winning
Our Future is staffed by Gingrich's long-time aides.
They say that the money they plan to spend in South Carolina is more
than Barack Obama and John McCain spent combined on advertising in 2008.
Most of the advertising time will be dedicated to 30- and 60-second
advertising spots.
The staff is considering the possibility of buying time to air a 27-minute
documentary film critical of Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Romney founded. The Los Angeles Times has reviewed the entire film,
which has emotional interviews with employees who lost their jobs. The
film, produced by a filmmaker who once worked for Romney, has the tone
of a high production value documentary. It has close-up shots of
sympathetic former workers at firms acquired by Bain in the era when
Romney was CEO: retired couples, a man wearing a veterans cap, and
working-class families.
The Adelsons have no objection to private equity, the source said.
They gave the funds because they feel loyal Gingrich, who shares their concern for
Israel,
and whom they first met in Washington in 1995, at the time Congress was
considering legislation important to Israel, the Jerusalem Embassy Act.
The law would require the moving of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem. Israel has long claimed Jerusalem as the historic capital of
the Jewish state. Palestinians also claim the city as their spiritual
capital. Adelson's wife, whom he married in 1991, is an Israeli
physician.
Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama have refused to enact the statute
using a waiver provision that exempts implementation on national
security grounds.
Later, Adelson and Gingrich found common ground discussing tax policy
and labor issues, but Israel is the topic on which they have the
strongest bond. Gingrich and Adelson conferred at a time that Adelson
was having trouble with unionized employees at his Las Vegas casino, the
Sands.
The source close to the Adelsons said the couple, listed as among the
wealthiest people in the U.S., are likely to spend additional sums as
the 2012 campaign continues, though no amount has been determined.
Asked for a reaction, Ron Reese, spokesman for Adelson's company, the
Las Vegas Sands Corp., said "Mr. Adelson does not publicly discuss" his private giving.
Des Moines, Iowa — Responding to controversial comments he made
about child labor in late November at Harvard University, Newt Gingrich
today told a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa, that children in poor
neighborhoods have “no habits of working and nobody around them who
works.”
Gingrich was asked by an audience member to clarify the comments he
made last month in which he called the current child labor laws
”stupid” and would replace janitors with schoolchildren to work in the
community school.
“They have no habit of showing up on Monday and staying all day or
the concept of ’I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal,”
Gingrich said.
Gingrich said that successful people he knows started work early by doing small jobs like babysitting and shoveling snow.
“You have a very poor neighborhood. You have students that are
required to go to school. They have no money, no habit of work,”
Gingrich said. “What if you paid them in the afternoon to work in the
clerical office or as the assistant librarian? And let me get into the
janitor thing. What if they became assistant janitors, and their job was
to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?”
Gingrich talked about a program around while he was in Congress
called “Earning While Learning,” which paid students to read books. He
said it was the same concept of students gaining money for doing
acedemic work that he would like to see students to invest in.
“They wanted the money. The kids were showing up saying, ‘I demand
you let me read. You can’t keep me from this program,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich said there would be a lot of details to work out, but the
general principle was “exactly the right direction for America’s future.
“If we are all endowed by our creator with the right to pursue
happiness, that has to apply to the poorest neighborhoods in the poorest
counties, and I am prepared to find something that works, that breaks
us out of the cycles we have now to find a way for poor children to work
and earn honest money,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich speaks at the Polk County GOP dinner tonight and campaigns in New York on Saturday.
Gingrich calls Romney "a great manager
Nov 29 2011
WASHINGTON |
Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:29pm EST
(Reuters) - Republican presidential
candidate Newt Gingrich expressed surprise at his recent surge in the
polls on Wednesday and offered praise for his rivals, calling Mitt
Romney a "great manager."
Gingrich, a former speaker of
the House of Representatives, has gone from an also-ran candidate six
months ago to leading some polls of Republican voters in the race to
determine the party's nominee to face Democratic President Barack Obama
in 2012.
Gingrich and fellow
front-runner Romney have exchanged shots this week, Gingrich bringing up
allegations of Romney policy flip-flops while Romney denounced Gingrich
as a "lifelong politician" who lacks credibility about how the U.S.
economy works.
Speaking to Fox
News' Sean Hannity, Gingrich said his rise has turned conventional
wisdom upside down. No longer is the race about Romney and Romney's
chief conservative alternative, he said.
"Whereas
I would have thought originally it was going to be Mitt and not-Mitt, I
think ... it may turn out to be Newt and not-Newt. And that's a very
different formula than, frankly - I mean we're having to redesign our
campaign strategy because we're at least 60 days ahead of where I
thought we'd be," Gingrich said.
Gingrich
is riding a wave of support from conservatives searching for a Romney
alternative. He has been on the rise as other challengers have faded,
such as Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.
In his Hannity interview, Gingrich appeared ready to back away from a protracted fight with Romney for now.
"Governor
Romney is a great manager, has a terrific business career, would be, I
think, far better than President Obama, you know," Gingrich said, while
also singling out Bachmann, Cain and Rick Santorum for praise.
Gingrich Tries to Preempt Attacks as Poll Numbers Rise
Published November 20, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Nov. 17, 2011: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a rally in Jacksonville, Fla.
Surging for the moment into a front-runner position in the Republican presidential race, Newt Gingrich is trying to insulate himself against the attacks that are sure to accompany his rise in the polls.
The former House speaker pitches himself as
the most accomplished member in the 2012 field. By the campaign's count,
he has cast 7,000 votes, delivered 1,500 speeches and written
"thousands" of articles as well as two-dozen books.
That record is fodder for opposition researchers, as much as it is resume material for his presidential bid.
The campaign has now launched a website that
bluntly tackles a host of controversies that have followed Gingrich and
will likely pop up again in the run-up to the leadoff Iowa caucuses.
The first item on Gingrich's "Answering the Attacks"
site deals with a hiccup Gingrich had at the very beginning of the
campaign season, when he described the House GOP budget plan as
"right-wing social engineering."
On the site, the campaign reminded readers
that Gingrich later described his choice of words as too extreme. The
site clarified that the candidate supports the plan to create a new
system that would provide aid for private insurance to Medicare seniors,
but said he would prefer to give seniors the choice to stay in the
current system.
Gingrich also addressed a 2007 ad he cut with Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi in which the two of them called for action on climate change.
"Newt does not believe there is a settled
scientific conclusion about whether industrial development has
dramatically contributed to a warming of the atmosphere," the campaign
said on the site. The campaign quoted Gingrich from an interview
on Fox News calling the ad "probably the dumbest single thing I've ever
done," but said the candidate believes conservatives "cannot be absent"
from the debate about the environment.
The site tackled several topics dating back
to his time as speaker, and before -- including his extramarital affair
during the impeachment proceedings against former President Clinton.
The campaign noted that critics who point to that "are ignoring" the
fact that Clinton was on trial for perjury allegations. "Newt felt he
had a duty to uphold the rule of law by pursuing impeachment," the
campaign said.
The site said also that while Gingrich voted for the Department of Education,
its bureaucracy has since "ballooned" and should be dramatically
reduced. And the site said it was a "mistake" for Gingrich to support
the Republican nominee in a 2009 House special election in New York
State. In that race, GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava was trailing badly against a third-party candidate, Tea Party-backed Doug Hoffman -- she effectively dropped out of the race days before the election to endorse the Democratic candidate, who later won.
The site later tackled the more recent controversy over his consulting firm's payment by troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
Gingrich echoed the language on the website following a forum on religion Saturday afternoon in Iowa.
"I did no lobbying, I have never done any
lobbying," Gingrich told reporters, describing himself as merely a
"strategic adviser."
As Gingrich's campaign tries to preempt the attacks, his opponents are looking for new angles.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., on Saturday went after his abortion record, something that wasn't addressed on the website.
"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to uphold a consistently pro-life stance throughout his career
in public life," her campaign said in a statement, citing in part a
1990 column that described Gingrich as backing away from a stiff
anti-abortion stance.
But Gingrich so far has avoided lunging at his GOP opponents, often stating at debates that they should focus on challenging President Obama and not each other.
The ex-speaker seems to have found a
favorite target, though, in the Occupy Wall Street protesters. He lobbed
harsh words at the movement Saturday in Iowa, describing them as
representative of an entitlement culture.
"Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how
much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why
you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, go get a job
right after you take a bath," Gingrich said.
A recent Fox News poll showed Gingrich leading the GOP field by a hair. The poll showed him with 23 percent, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney right behind him with 22 percent.
The poll showed businessman Herman Cain, who for weeks was competitive with Romney, dropping back to third place with 15 percent.
A new poll out of New Hampshire also showed
Gingrich closing in on Romney, who is banking on a win in the Granite
State primary. The Magellan Strategies poll showed Romney leading with
29 percent and Gingrich with 27 percent, inside the 3.6 percentage-point
margin of error.
Gingrich Offers New ‘Contract’ With Tax, Health Proposals
September 29, 2011, 3:37 PM EDT
By Laura Litvan
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential
hopeful Newt Gingrich today outlined a series of proposals modeled after
the 1994 “Contract with America” that vaulted him into the House
speakership, including a revamp of the tax code and methods to replace
last year’s health-care overhaul.
Gingrich, who released his 10-part plan at a town
hall meeting today in Des Moines, Iowa, is banking on the announcement
to revive his bid for the White House, which polls show lags far behind
top rivals Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney.
His 1994 contract provided an agenda and unifying
campaign message for Republicans before they won the House majority in
that year’s November elections for the first time in four decades. It
also earned Gingrich, of Georgia, a reputation as an idea-generator for
his party.
As part of today’s “21st Century Contract With
America,” Gingrich proposes the repeal of financial-sector regulations
as part of changes designed to curb government rules on business. Laws
that he would sidetrack include the overhaul of financial rules approved
last year to respond to the financial crisis and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
of 2002, which aims protect investors from fraudulent accounting by
corporations. He also calls for abolishing the National Labor Relations
Board.
The flagging U.S. economy can only recover if a
host of tax, regulatory and other changes occur that turn back the scope
of the federal government, Gingrich said in an outline of the plan
posted on his campaign web site.
Principles of 1994
“We understood these principles when we won the
first Republican majority in the House in 40 years in 1994,” said
Gingrich, who served as speaker for four years beginning in January
1995. “Balanced budgets, streamlined government and the biggest capital
gains tax cut in history led to unemployment falling to under 4 percent
by 2000.”
In polls of Republican voters, the former Georgia
congressman has routinely ranked behind Perry, Romney, Minnesota
Representative Michele Bachmann and Texas Representative Ron Paul.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who hasn’t announced a bid, also
tops Gingrich.
A Sept. 9-12 Bloomberg National Poll found
Gingrich won the support of 4 percent of Republican and
Republican-leaning voters. Perry garnered the backing of 26 percent,
while Romney had the support of 22 percent.
Repeal and Replace
In his proposal, Gingrich called for repealing
the health- care law that is President Barack Obama’s signature
accomplishment. Gingrich said he would replace the law’s requirement
that most Americans buy health insurance or face a penalty with either a
“generous” tax credit or the ability to deduct a portion of the value
of their health coverage from what they owe the government.
He also advocates health policies adopted by
other Republican politicians, including allowing health-care consumers
to purchase insurance across state lines, expansion of tax- advantaged
health savings accounts and curbs to “frivolous” medical malpractice
lawsuits.
On taxes, he seeks to reduce the corporate tax
rate to 12.5 percent from 35 percent, end taxes on estates and on
capital gains, and allow companies to write off all of the costs of new
equipment in one year. Individual taxpayers would be given the option of
filing their tax returns under an optional “flat tax” that offers a
lower income tax rate but limits tax deductions.
Boosting Growth
Gingrich said he wants to balance the federal
budget without tax increases, asserting that higher economic growth
could generate revenue needed to accomplish that goal.
“I’m for more revenue through royalties from oil
exploration, not from tax hikes,” Gingrich said on Twitter after the
Iowa event began.
On entitlement programs, he calls for allowing
younger Americans the option of putting some of their Social Security
savings into personal savings accounts, embracing an idea that
Republicans in Congress refused to advance under former President George
W. Bush.
Gingrich’s bid for the Republican nomination
suffered a setback in June when more than a dozen of his campaign
staffers resigned after disagreeing with him over strategy and the role
of his wife, Callista. Those who left included his national co- chairman
and his campaign manager.
Gingrich Attacks Media Again for Sowing Dissension
Wednesday, 07 Sep 2011 08:47 PM
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich bristled when moderators at Wednesday’s debate sought to explore the differences among the GOP presidential candidates on President Obama’s healthcare plan, firing back to Politico’s John Harris: “Well, I’m frankly not interested in your effort to get Republicans fighting each other.”
Gingrich’s anti-media theme triggered loud applause in the Ronald Reagan library that was the venue for Wednesday’s debate. His broadside continued a theme that proved successful for Gingrich in the previous debate in Iowa.
“The fact is, you would like to puff this up into some giant thing,” Gingrich complained. “The fact is, every person up here understands Obamacare is a disaster.
“It’s a disaster procedurally -- it was rammed through after they lost Teddy Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, it was written badly, it was never reconciled, it can’t be implemented, it is killing this economy, and if this president had any concern for working Americans, he’d walk in Thursday night and ask us to repeal it, because it is a monstrosity. Every person up here agrees with that.”
That evoked even louder applause.
“And since I still have a little time left, let me just say, I for one and I hope all of my friends up here are going to repudiated every effort of the news media to get Republicans to fight each other to protect Barack Obama, who deserves to be defeated … whoever the nominee is, we are all for defeating Barack Obama,” Gingrich concluded.
Former Aide: Most of Newt's Twitter Followers Fake
Monday, 01 Aug 2011 05:59 PM
By Martin Gould
GOP Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich likes to boast that he has more than 1.3 million followers on his Twitter account – but now it turns out some 90 percent of those may be fake.
A former staffer from Gingrich’s troubled campaign has told the website Gawker that the candidate hires companies which “procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them.”
The ex-staffer added, “About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various ‘follow agencies.’ Another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves.
“The remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich.”
Gingrich’s campaign made much of the fact that he has twice as many followers as Sarah Palin and 20 times more than rivals Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul. A recent story on Politico put the numbers down to “his personal touch,” adding, “He tweets and manages his Twitter feed himself. All told he has tweeted 2,611 times in the 29 months since he joined the site.”
The former House Speaker even mentioned the size of his following during a meeting with the editorial board of the Marietta Daily Journal in his home state of Georgia on Sunday while complaining about media coverage of his campaign.
“I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined, but it didn't count because if it counted I'd still be a candidate; since I can't be a candidate that can't count,” he said.
But Gingrich’s one-time ally said it is clear just by looking at the list of followers that many are fake as the “have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated.”
Gingrich Says Media Loyal to Obama
Friday, 24 Jun 2011 12:40 PM
Newt Gingrich, speaking Wednesday at a Maryland Republican Party dinner in Baltimore, accused the media of being in bed with President Barack Obama as they focus solely on the 2012 presidential contender’s campaign challenges rather than his “substance,” reports The Daily Caller.
His audience cheered when Gingrich said the media are “trying to protect Barack Obama.”
The candidate confirmed he would still be in the race during the Iowa caucuses, and tackled the issue of recent defections from his campaign staff.
“This was always a misnomer,” he said. “Of all the people who were with me before the campaign started, only one left. The people who decided they didn’t like what we were doing were professional consultants who were outsiders who didn’t understand my style.”
Gingrich has work cut out in Georgia
Despite top support from Deal, Perdue, challenge may be generating enthusiasm at the grass roots
By SHANNON McCAFFREY 3/25/11
Associated Press
Newt Gingrich could find it's not so easy to go home again.
Johnny Crawford, jcrawford@ajc.com Category:
Gov. Nathan Deal (left) has said he would support House Speaker Newt
Gingrich if he decides to seek the Republican nomination for a run at
the White House.
The former House speaker is using Georgia to anchor his presidential campaign
strategy. He's counting on his old home state to provide a crucial base of
support and a backdrop to help him escape the stigma of Washington insider
at a time when the public detests anything linked to the capital or its
levers of power.
But Georgia is no sure bet for Gingrich.
"Newt's been gone from Georgia for quite a while now. ... And the shelf life
in politics is pretty short," says state Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville).
Gingrich represented the state for 10 terms in Congress, but he's lived in a
tony Washington suburb for more than a decade. The strong evangelical base
that helped former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee win Georgia in the 2008 GOP
primary may not rush to back the thrice-married Gingrich. And some in the
state, who remember Gingrich's stormy time at the helm of the U.S. House,
say they're simply looking for a fresh nominee with less baggage.
Big-name Georgia Republicans, including current Gov. Nathan Deal and former
Gov. Sonny Perdue, support a Gingrich presidential run. But there is less
enthusiasm in the grass roots.
"He's yesterday," said state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, a veteran Republican state
lawmaker, vocalizing a key vulnerability for Gingrich.
Linda Douglas, a Republican from Gingrich's former congressional district in
Cobb County, shrugged at the mention of Gingrich's name and said: "Newt was
great in the '90s but really, his time seems like it's long gone."
Gingrich turns 68 in June.
Still, Gingrich has said he's counting on Georgia to play a big part in his
probable presidential bid. Two prominent congressmen — Jack Kingston and
Phil Gingrey — have both said they'll back him if he runs. Gingrey labeled
him the state's favorite son, and Kingston says there's hardly an elected
official in Georgia who hasn't attended and maybe even benefited from a
fundraiser or event where he's appeared.
When Gingrich announced that he had set up a website to explore a bid and
raise money, he did it at the Georgia Capitol, flanked by the state's
top-ranking Republicans. Former Gov. Zell Miller is already lined up as a
national co-chairman of Gingrich's campaign and he has said he will open an
Atlanta headquarters once he officially enters the race.
Using Georgia as a staging ground allows Gingrich to try to put some distance
between himself and Washington, where those seen as closely tied to the
capital fared poorly in last year's midterm elections. A base in Georgia
will also allow him to reach out to neighboring states like South Carolina,
seen as a crucial early primary state for Gingrich if he's to be a serious
White House contender.
But if he doesn't win here, it could evoke memories of Al Gore, a former
Tennessee senator, setting up shop to run for president in Tennessee and
then losing the state in the general election.
Gingrich already has inflated his support in Georgia. He has said he has the
support of House Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, but both
men told The Associated Press they hadn't selected a candidate yet. And the
political action committee for Mitt Romney — another top GOP prospect for
2012 — has funneled money to both.
Gingrich voted in Georgia most recently in 2000, the same year he and his
wife, Callista, bought a home in McLean, Va., records show.
Asked about Gingrich, the state's senior U.S. senator, Saxby Chambliss, chose
his words carefully. He called his old U.S. House colleague "one of the most
astute political minds in the country."
But he added, "There obviously is a lot of baggage. No question about it."
Still, Gingrich was a Republican in Georgia long before the label became
fashionable. He curried many favors in the state over the years, raising
money for scores of current officeholders and laying the foundation for the
GOP party takeover in the state that had been ruled for generations by
Democrats.
"He is the godfather of the Republican Party in Georgia," Kingston said.
Deal lined up behind Gingrich early in part because of their long history
together. Gingrich backed Deal at a critical juncture in the state's GOP
primary last summer, providing a counterweight to former Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin, who was supporting his runoff opponent.
It wasn't the first time Gingrich stepped in to help Deal. When Deal, then a
Democratic U.S. representative, became a Republican in 1995, Gingrich helped
him keep his seniority on committees and avoid a primary challenge.
But Deal's hold over the state Republican Party apparatus isn't assured. His
choice for state party chairwoman is locked in a tough battle for the job.
Other Georgia Republicans who once were avowed Gingrich backers have become
disillusioned watching him over the years.
Lee Howell, who worked as a Gingrich campaign press secretary, won't be
casting a ballot for his old boss if he runs.
"If I was giving a cocktail party and wanted to have good conversation ... I'd
want Newt to be there," Howell said. "I'm not sure that he would be the kind
of person, would have the skills necessary to be president."
Gingrich to Decide This Month on Presidential Bid
By Katarzyna Klimasinska -
Feb 13, 2011 12:28 PM ET
Newt Gingrich, former Republican House Speaker, said he may decide this month whether he will set up a committee to explore running against President Barack Obama in 2012.
Gingrich, a Georgian who led the “Republican Revolution” in 1994, when the party gained 52 House seats, spoke on ABC’s “This Week” program today.
“I’ll probably make a decision by the end of this month about whether or not to set up an exploratory committee,” Gingrich said.
Almost a dozen Republicans weighing a bid against Obama blamed the President for stifling job creation and weakening the economy during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that ended yesterday in Washington with an unscientific presidential straw poll.
Texas Republican Representative Ron Paul, who has run for president as a Libertarian Party candidate, received 30 percent of the tally, followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The poll results showed that 3,742 of the more than 11,000 conference attendees voted.
“I’ve never seen a more wide-open race for a Republican nomination,” House Speaker John Boehner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program today. “We’re going to need someone who can paint a vision of the future that takes into consideration that we need a smaller, less costly and more accountable government in Washington.”
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on the “Fox News Sunday” program today that he’s “very serious” about considering a presidential candidacy and may make his decision by April.
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