Newt Gingrich: What Is To Be Done?

Newt Gingrich met yesterday with some Republican Congressional staffers and gave them the memo below, which I obtained from a Congressional aide. It lays out Newt’s assessment of where the Democratic and Republican parties stand today. Much of it will seem familiar to readers of this site, but Newt sets forth the facts–many of them grim–with his customary panache. This is obviously a big topic, and I have just a few comments on Newt’s memo which I will save until the end. Here it is:





For now, just a few quick observations:

1) I think Newt’s assessment of the Democrats’ strategy and intentions is correct.

2) Newt’s sense of urgency is well-founded. At the moment, the Democrats are well ahead of the GOP both strategically and technically.

3) It may well be true that we need “a new model Republican doctrine and system,” and that Republicans need to “build a system for a permanent campaign with a 24/7 strategy,” etc. However, doing these things will be difficult, to say the least, in an environment where the Republicans lack any sort of centralized leadership, an inevitable consequence of not controlling the White House.

4) I think Newt hits the nail on the head when he says: “The 2012 turnout mechanisms will be modernized, improved and strengthened to try to make 2014 turnout resemble 2012 rather than 2010.” That is, I think, the central point of the Democrats’ manifold strategies.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses