Gingrich will enter presidential race for $30m

Platform to be based on former speaker's notion that US is already in Word War III against the 'Forces of Islam,' which requires a reexamination of the First Amendment

UPDATE: The Washington Post reported on 9/29: "Gingrich Says No to White House Bid." From the Post: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday."

When Fred Thompson rode his "Law and Order" pickup truck into the crowded GOP presidential field a few weeks back, he was expected to be greeted as the man who would appeal to the Religious right and would bring all factions of the party together. However, less than a month into the action, Thompson has been roundly dissed by Focus on the Family's James Dobson, and reviews from the campaign trail have been decidedly lukewarm.

Thompson's lackluster performance -- and recent trashing by Dobson -- leaves an opening for another well-known candidate. Fasten your seat belts, here comes Newt Gingrich.

Although the disgraced former House Speaker's personal peccadilloes might not sit well with many on the religious right, Gingrich, who was forced to relinquish his House post over a series of ethical missteps, did try to mend fences with religious conservatives earlier this year by apologizing for his behavior on Dobson's radio program.

For months Gingrich has been coyly sitting on the sidelines as the battle for the presidential nomination unfolded. Now the man who engineered the Republican Revolution of 1994 appears ready to step into a role that he undoubtedly feels comfortable with: savior of the Republican Party.

According to the Washington Times, Gingrich will soon begin "to seek financial commitments from donors."

"If he can get pledges for $30 million over the next three weeks, he will join the Republican presidential-nomination race -- a prospect he had been downplaying until yesterday," the newspaper reported.

"As people have grown more worried about the Clinton machine and the prospect of a second Clinton presidency, more and more people have been approaching me about running," Gingrich said. "Next Monday, Randy Evans, my friend and adviser since 1976, will hold a press briefing and explain how he intends to review whether it is realistic for me to consider running. I am happy to compete in the world of ideas, but to compete in modern campaigns you have to have at least a threshold of donations," he said. "We believe that threshold is about $30 million."

"If Randy reports back in the next three weeks that there are that many people who want a strong advocate to debate Senator Clinton and present new solutions and new approaches, then Callista and I would have a real duty as citizens," he said, referring to his third wife.

In an interview Sunday, September 23 on "Fox News Sunday," Gingrich said coming up with the $30 million in commitments would be like having his "fellow citizens ... walk in and say, 'You know, we think you're the person who ought to debate Senator Clinton, and we think you're the person who can actually explain where we ought to go.'"

"How could you turn to them and say, 'Well, I'm too busy?' Couldn't do it."

Although former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been staking out the "I'm the toughest candidate on terrorism" terrain, Gingrich may out fear-monger Rudy. In July 2006, the Seattle Times reported that during a fundraising trip to the state of Washington, Gingrich trucked out his belief that the U.S. was already engaged in World War III.

"Gingrich's enthusiasm for the 'global war on terror' as the chief organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy for the next five or ten years knows no bounds," Jim Lobe (website), a veteran observer of neoconservatives for Inter Press Service, told Media Transparency in an e-mail exchange.

"As Thompson stumbles, I think it's highly likely that major donors who have funded hawkish candidates and neoconservative causes and institutions, such as the American Enterprise Institute (with which Gingrich, like Thompson, has an institutional association), Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and the new Freedom's Watch, will turn to Gingrich as their last, best hope, if only because Giuliani, is still seen as too difficult for the Christian Right to swallow," Lobe added.

Gingrich's World War III mantra

Acknowledging his concern about the Republican Party's dwindling prospects in the 2006 midterm elections, Gingrich suggested that GOP candidates start using the term "World War III" in order to reenergize the base of the party. He pointed out that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is "okay, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

A few day later, Gingrich repeated his World War III contention during one of his regular appearances on the Fox News Channel.

In September of last year, IPS' Jim Lobe reported that Gingrich, in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a senior fellow, said that "he'd be a lot tougher than George W Bush in prosecuting what he calls 'World War III.'"

According to Lobe, Gingrich, in a speech titled "Lessons from the First Five Years of War: Where Do We Go from Here?" called for among other things:

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to 'clear out any Taliban forces' in Waziristan if Pakistan fails to do so; Washington to 'take whatever steps are necessary' to force Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to stop the flow of weapons, money and people into Iraq; To help 'organize every dissident group in Iran' with the goal of replacing the regime, failing which, 'we certainly have to be prepared to use military force'; 'End' the North Korean regime if it ships nuclear weapons or material anywhere; Insist that Congress immediately pass legislation 'that recognizes that we are entering World War III and serves notice that the US will use all its resources to defeat our enemies -- not accommodate, understand or negotiate with them, but defeat them.'"

Gingrich stated that Bush's "strategies are not wrong, but they are failing," in part because "they do not define the scale of the emerging World War III, between the West and the forces of Islam, and so they do not outline how difficult the challenge is and how big the effort will have to be."

"We have vastly more to do than we have even begun to imagine," Gingrich said, while warning against "appeasement" and "utopian elites [at home who] suffer from ... denial of near-psychotic proportions."

Matthew Continetti, writing in the neoconservative publication edited by William Kristol, the Weekly Standard, said the speech was "vintage Gingrich: brassy, confrontational, direct, polarizing, articulate, harsh, disarming, and charismatic," adding that "The first speech of the 2008 presidential campaign was delivered on the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001."

At an annual dinner in New Hampshire in late November of last year held in memory of the late publisher of the conservative Manchester Union Leader and honoring individuals who stand up for free speech, Gingrich proposed that First Amendment rights be reexamined. Gingrich said: "This is a serious, long-term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear or biological weapons."

Solutions for winning the future

Earlier this year, Gingrich formed a new "527" organization called American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF - website). "527" groups are called "soft-money" PACs because they are not subject to the Federal Election Commission's (FEC) Political Action Committee regulations. Thus far the organization is not registered as a campaign committee with the FEC, which allows it to accept checks well in excess of the $4,600 maximum that individuals are allowed to give to federal candidates.

Gingrich's 527 received a $1 million contribution from Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon G. Adelson shortly after the November elections. In January of this year the Washington Post reported "Adelson was listed by Forbes magazine in 2006 as America's third-richest man, with assets of more than $20 billion. His long list of political donations, primarily to Republicans, includes $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 1997 and 1998, when Gingrich was speaker."

ASWF "has pulled in $3.5 million, according to the group's reports to the IRS," Politico.com reported in late September. "Of the $568,000 the group raised last month, at least $130,000 came from contributions that would be barred by federal campaign rules. It got $50,000 from New York Jets owner Robert W. Johnson IV, $25,000 each from business owner Terry J. Kohler of Wisconsin and real estate investor Fred R. Sacher of California, and $10,000 apiece from J. Smith Lanier of Georgia, Clark Wamberg, LLC, of Illinois and Las Vegas lender Worldwide Assets Inc. -- a corporation barred from giving to federal campaigns."

In late September, Gingrich launched "Solutions Day," an effort to come up with a "broad set of nonpartisan solutions" to encourage government to move "from the world that fails to the world that works." In a series of national workshops, such topics as tax refoirm, conservation, space policy and other issues were scheduled to be discussed.

In order to win the backing of neoconservatives, "Gingrich will be only too happy to adopt the sensational rhetoric"; after all, he's always seen himself as a latter-day Winston Churchill, and anything that promotes that image -- including the World War metaphor -- suits his purposes and his vainglory," Jim Lobe pointed out.

Not all conservatives are eagerly anticipating a Gingrich run. "Late entry by such a controversial conservative candidate to the presidential field wouldn't benefit the Republican Party or the Republic," the National Review editorialized on September 27. Gingrich, the NR maintained, could dilute attempts by McCain, Thompson and Romney to wrestle the nomination out of Giuliani's hands. Gingrich is not very popular with the general public, the magazine pointed out. In the unlikely event that he did win the GOP nomination, there is no indication that he could beat Hillary Clinton, especially since his negatives even outpace hers.

For more please see the Bill Berkowitz archive.
Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His WorkingForChange column Conservative Watch documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.

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