Posted on 02/12/2008 9:22:25 AM PST by seanmerc
In a rousing speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for a conservative “declaration of independence” from the Republican Party.
He also warned that Republicans face a “catastrophic” election this year unless the GOP changes course.
Gingrich pointed out that on Super Tuesday, 14.6 million voters took part in the Democratic races, compared to 8.3 million Republicans.
“There were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans on Super Tuesday,” Gingrich said.
“That is a warning of a catastrophic election. I was in Idaho this last week, and Barack Obama on last Saturday had 16,000 people in Boise. The idea [of] the most liberal Democratic Senator getting 16,000 people in Boise was inconceivable.
“And every person who cares about the conservative movement and every person who cares about the Republican Party had better stop and say to themselves, ‘There is something big happening in this country. We don’t understand it. We’re not responding to it. And we’re currently not competitive. And if we want to get to be competitive, we had better change and we had better change now.”
Gingrich stressed that he was not commenting on any of the current candidates for president.
Rather, he said, “this is a comment about the conservative movement, and it's a comment about the Republican Party, and all the candidates currently running fit within those two phrases. But it is about all of us. It is about our Congressman, our Senator, our governors, our county commissioners, our school board members.
“And let me make this very clear, I believe we have to change or expect defeat.
“And I believe that this is a time for the conservative movement to issue a declaration of independence…
“First of all, I think we need to get independent from a Washington fixation. There are 513,000 elected officials in the United States and the conservative movement should believe in a decentralized United States, where every elected official has real responsibility, and we should be developing a conservative action plan, at every level of this country, and not simply focused over and over again on arguments about the White House…
“I also think that we need to declare our independence from trying to protect and defend failed bureaucracies that magically become ours as soon as we are in charge of them. We appoint solid conservatives to a department and within three weeks they are defending and protecting the very department that they would have been attacking before they got appointed.”
Gingrich drew considerable applause when he continued with his “independence” theme:
“There is one other declaration of independence we need and this will startle some of you. And remember I say this from a background of having been active in the Georgia Republican Party since 1960. In a fundamental way, the conservative movement has to declare itself independent from the Republican Party.
“Let me make very clear what I'm saying here. I am not saying there should be a third party – I think a third party is a dumb idea, will not get anywhere, and in the end will achieve nothing.
“I actually believe that any reasonable conservative will, in the end, find that they have an absolute requirement to support the Republican nominee for president this fall…
“As a citizen, I would rather have a President McCain that we fight with 20 percent of the time, than a President Clinton or a President Obama that we fight with 90 percent of the time.”
But he warned: “If we run a traditional consultant-dominated tactical Republican campaign, like we’ve seen in the last eight years, we will be defeated this fall, and we will be having a CPAC meeting next year talking about how we rebuild for the future with either President Obama or President Clinton in charge.”
Newt is pretty much spot on here.
hmmm time to cut and run?
Maybe if McCain makes Newt the VP we got a shot at a win in NOV ..
6.3 million Fredheads stayed home.
Don’t forget right now Huckabee is the only reason the tone of the conversation hasn’t turned to McCain being the nominee, thank goodness for Huckabee and keeping the debate going, by his staying in he is saying it ain’t a done deal, and if they want my vote it better not be McCain, or like I’ve said before, I vote for the democrat.
My only disagreement with Newt is that we will be disagreeing with McCain more than 20% of the time.
McCain is another Arnold.
National Review noted that in 1988, the Democrats had twice as many primary voters as the Republicans.
And they note:
“The only times Republicans have outnumbered Democrats in primaries in the last 35 years were 2000 and 1996 — both years when Republicans were sick of being out of power. Even in those years, Republican turnout was only slightly higher than Democratic turnout.”
Democrats apparently are more interested in picking their nominees than republicans.
This is a good test. How many Freepers will read this article and immediately post that Newt is suggesting that conservatives not vote for Mccain? He is not.
Makes sense to me. I don’t see it happening, though. I don’t think concervatives have the stomach to fight anymore. Tired of swimming upstream, so to speak.
Perhaps they should embrace smaller, less intrusive government again. Big, bloated, borrowing government has been a real failure for them, and will continue to be.
Once again Mr. Newt proves he’s the smartest man in the room.
I think the prospect of HillBama for Pres will motivate enough GOP votes against them, regardless of politics.
McCain should hire Newt to be his campaign manager and senior advisor.
The catastrophe has already occurred. The shock wave and blast effect just hasn’t made its way to the party elite yet.
Newt got James Dobson all worked up against Fred Thompson before Fred even got in the race -— cutting off some critical evangelical support just when it was needed.
I think Newt’s ego didn’t want a conservative in the forefront -— that wasn’t Newt.
Newt would rather see the GOP move to the center than adhere to party principles. Case and point: his position on global warming.
Too bad he went into depression when Media Demonized him during Klinton years.
Guy like Thompson, who is loaded with knowledge, experience and facts could have hammerred Obama all day expose him for phony empty fraud that he is.
Guy never says anything applicable or practical or based on facts. Only vague dreamy BS speeches.
Mac better come prepare and challenge him on every answer on facts, assuming Hildabeast goes down.
However, I am not sure she would lose.
I don’t know about Newt as VP. I like Newt, but he’s as polarizing to the moderates and Democrats as Hillary is to Republicans/conservatives.
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