Posted on 10/21/2011 7:53:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
This is too juicy not to share. It's a little gossipy and involved, but it stars three presidential candidates, so it's topical stuff.
It all goes back to 1990. Johnny Isakson, now a U.S. senator from Georgia, was then running for governor of the Peach State. I was running for lieutenant governor at age 29. Credit (or blame) Newt Gingrich for my candidacy. He'd been my friend and mentor since my college days. He encouraged me to run as a Republican in what was then an overwhelmingly Democratic state. He thought a young Republican candidate would help recruit young Georgians to the GOP.
It unfolded like this: Johnny paid a visit to Newt, who was then the U.S. House minority whip. Newt's office was like a grand parlor. Officials from the George H.W. Bush White House would gather there, as would an array of other officials.
Back then, Newt didn't care too much for Isakson's politics. He thought Johnny was too moderate on key Republican positions. But that didn't stop Isakson from flying to Washington and asking to meet with Newt to tell him face-to-face that he was running for governor.
Newt is mellower now than he was in those days. His political star was ascending back then, and he knew it. He could be a bit cocky. As for Johnny, he was then as he is now: even-keeled and good-natured. That temperament served him well as he waited for Newt from early morning to after sundown while sitting in a folding chair outside Newt's "parlor."
Newt would pass through, going back and forth from the House floor to his ornate office. Finally, Isakson was able to tell Gingrich he was running for governor. Newt said in essence that he was unenthusiastic.
Isakson's campaign manager that year was a very bright GOP operative named Jay Morgan. Morgan was at least as unenthusiastic about my running for lieutenant governor as Gingrich was about Isakson running for governor.
Johnny ended up losing the election to Zell Miller. I lost to Pierre Howard, who became my business partner after we both left the legislature! (Who says the South isn't incestuous?)
Let's fast-forward to 1992. A new Republican congressional seat was to be created by the Georgia Legislature. It was in my home area, and Newt had already endorsed me for the seat. By the,n I had hired as my chief campaign consultant none other than Isakson's campaign manager, Jay Morgan.
Meanwhile -- and wouldn't you know it? -- Lt. Gov. Howard and several other folks thought it would be clever to assign Newt's congressional seat number -- District 6 -- to the new district in which I was to run.
It put me in a pickle. The people in this new district were lukewarm at best about Newt moving his home into the new District 6 so that he could run there. I was crushing him in the polls. After all, I was on my home turf, and I had plenty of name ID from having run for statewide office.
But Newt had helped launch my career, so I agreed to forego running myself, and instead became his campaign chairman "for life." (I had no idea he'd become U.S. House speaker two years later.) I insisted that he make Morgan one of his chief consultants. Little did Jay and I realize how much the Republicans in the district disliked Newt, who barely defeated an unknown opponent.
Now we skip to 2004. Newt had long-since resigned as speaker. Then-Rep. Isakson was now running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Georgia against an upstart named Herman Cain. Again, Morgan was one of Isakson's consultants.
Curiously, it was around this time that Newt decided to make an effort to support conservative African-Americans for Congress in Georgia. Subsequently, he declined to give Isakson a strong endorsement in his race against Cain. And many of Newt's closest friends openly backed Cain. (Are you starting to catch my drift?)
Now it's 2012. Gingrich is running for president against, among others, the same Herman Cain whom he has always admired. According to three Insider Advantage polls released this week, the combined support for Gingrich and Cain leaves all other Republican candidates in the dust.
And where is Isakson's Jay Morgan? Supporting Rick Perry, of course. The moral of all this? That nothing is ever coincidental in politics. Watch this Cain-Gingrich relationship down the road.
And if Rick Perry wants to get back in the game nationally, he needs to hire Jay Morgan. He has the talent to turn around the Good (sinking) Ship Perry.
No.
I would vote for Cain-Gingrich. Not the other way around.
Who cares about a bunch of people trading favors while the country goes to hell?
Johnny ended up losing the election to Zell Miller.
So maybe Newt was right about this one?
Isakson's campaign manager that year was a very bright GOP operative named Jay Morgan.
So maybe, contra the author's advice, Rick Perry would be better off not hiring Morgan. Then again, for those of us who were not overwhelmed by Perry's entry into the race, perhaps he should hire Morgan.
So, if it were the other way around, you would prefer another 4 years of Obama?
I’d vote for either combo-preferably Gingrich Cain. Cain could use the experience.
I don’t think Newt can be elected president because of his high negatives for a lot of the population. He is like Dick Chaney - brilliant, but vulnerable to attack from the left media. He would be a great VP.
Herman Cain is irrepressibly positive. The left will attack him but it won’t stick. He will crush Obama.
Interesting read.
Disagree that the sinking Perry run could be refloated. For several reasons.
I completely agree with you. Newt may be unelectable at the top of the ticket. Right now, Cain/Gingrich would be our best bet. But if it is Gingrich/Cain (which sounds too much like Genghis Khan) I would still vote for that ticket.
But then I would vote for Romney (I think) to get Obama out of the White House.
Sure wish the other candidates would follow Newt’s lead and quit attacking one another and go after Obama’s failed policies instead.
I am not sure if I agree with that completely. I remember when the rats ran against President Bush in the 2004 election, everyone of them was attacking him in the debates you thought that they wanted to share the presidency instead competing with each other. Sure the candidates should remind each other that the purpose is to defeat that arrogant pos but they are also competing and have no intention to share the job
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