Nancy Reagan gave a speech to the 1995 Goldwater Institute Dinner honoring President Ronald Reagan, and gave kudos to then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Mrs. Reagan told the audience, “They believed that government should simply get out of the way. Ronnie and Barry fought for those principles, which, today, have been overwhelmingly embraced,” Reagan said. “So they must have done something right. Just take a look at the extraordinary men and women who make up the 104th Congress and of course its distinguished speaker, Newt Gingrich. The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and, in turn, Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.”
Newt Gingrich spoke before a crowd of about 4000 people yesterday in Sarasota, Florida. Gingrich explained the difference between him and President Obama. He often invoked President Reagan in this speech. Gingrich told the crowd, “the goal is, an executive order will be signed on the first day. That, by the time President Obama lands in Chicago, we will have dismantled about 40% of his administration.”
Restore Our Future is telling Floridians Newt Gingrich is to much of a risk for the GOP. According to the ad, “Can we risk 4 more years of Barack Obama? Newt Gingrich’s tough talk sounds good. But Newt has tons of baggage. How will he ever beat Obama? While Newt Gingrich was Speaker, earmarks exploded. He co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one child policy. And he teamed up with Pelosi on Global warming. Beating Obama is important. Too important to risk on Newt Gingrich.”
Mitt Romney stopped at a closed factory in Tampa, Florida and gave his prebuttal remarks to President Obama’s State of the Union Address. Romney told the crowd, “if tonight were the first message to Congress in a Romney administration, I’d have the courage to tell the American people how it is and tell Congress what we really need to do. I wouldn’t spend my time blaming others for how we got in this mess; I’d explain how we’re going to get out of it.” “I would pledge to do all that a president can to get America working again. When it comes to the economy, my highest priority would be worrying about your job, not saving my own.” Romney used this speech as an opportunity to make a positive looking campaign ad. According to the campaign, “As President Obama delivers his State of the Union address, he will probably fail to mention his actual record over the last three years. Unemployment is still high, our debt is still increasing, and our credit has been downgraded. Mitt Romney has a lifetime of leadership experience that will be needed in our next president to return our country to prosperity.”
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels delivered the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address, 1/24/2012. Since this speech I have heard his name mentioned as a possible new entrant into the GOP field. He starts the speech giving praise to President Obama “for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11, and for bravely backing long overdue changes in public education. I personally would add to that list admiration for the strong family commitment.” Daniels then says Obama claims that all things are going great, but “must know in his heart that this is not true.” “The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse.” According to Daniels, “No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category.” He then takes a swipe at big government by saying, “In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!” But there is hope because, “Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.”
Ron Paul defined what he thinks a conservative is to Brian Williams and the rest of us at the Monday night debate in Tampa, Florida. Paul said, “I think the problem is the way we are defining what conservative means. Conservative means we have smaller government and more liberty. And yet, if you ask what have we’ve done, I think we’ve lost our way completely. Our rhetoric is still pretty good, but when we get in charge we expand the government… So if it means limited government, you have to ask the basic question: ‘What should the role of government be?’” Paul argues that a real conservative should be willing to cut across the board and not just pick what to cut. He feels that to many on the right are unwilling to cut when it comes to the military. Paul ads, “So I say that if you’re conservative you want small government across the board – especially in personal liberty. What’s wrong with having the government out of our personal lives? We have to decide what ‘conservative’ means, what ‘limited government’ means – and I have a simple suggestion. We have a pretty good guide. And if we follow the Constitution, government would be very small and we’d all be devoted conservatives.”
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have spent over a million dollars on an ad campaign in Florida to try to link Mitt Romney with the unpopular Florida governor Rick Scott. The ad covers Romney’s record as a Director of the Damon Corporation, and claims he is guilty of corporate greed and medicare fraud.
Mitt Romney has released a new ad claiming Newt Gingrich has a long record as a Washington insider. “His record includes being the only Speaker of the House to be reprimanded for violating ethics rules and resigning in disgrace as Speaker of the House.”
