Newt's Decision
One day after saying that he was moving closer to running for President by putting into place a system to evaluate his chances, Newt Gingrich announced on Saturday morning that he would NOT be running for President in 2008.
The Blogatorium (and my cell phone) went into hyperventilating overdrive wondering what had happened.
I talked with Rick Tyler, long time pal and Newt’s principal spokesman who told me what had happened.
Newt’s current passion is to build an organization called American Solutions. Just this past week he held a nation-wide series of workshops to get citizens more involved in searching for non-partisan solutions to the problems we all acknowledge.
This is Newtonian thinking at its best. A huge idea which, through sheer force of will and personality, he will move forward.
American Solutions is not a political organization it is a non-profit – a 501(c)(4) as I understand it.
Newt’s lawyer in Atlanta, Randy Evans, evaluated the options and concluded that Newt had to either run for President or drive American Solutions – he could not do both because of the impossibility of keeping the tax-exempt activities separate and apart from any political (and therefore NOT tax exempt) operations.
The problem is, of course, that Newt Gingrich would have been the person at the top of both organizations and while it was technically possible to do it, it would have been a political nightmare.
Faced with that choice, Newt made the one which may have made less sense for him personally but, in his mind (and, for what it’s worth mine) made more sense for the country – helping find American Solutions.
I congratulate Newt for making the hard, but correct choice.
Rich
The Blogatorium (and my cell phone) went into hyperventilating overdrive wondering what had happened.
I talked with Rick Tyler, long time pal and Newt’s principal spokesman who told me what had happened.
Newt’s current passion is to build an organization called American Solutions. Just this past week he held a nation-wide series of workshops to get citizens more involved in searching for non-partisan solutions to the problems we all acknowledge.
This is Newtonian thinking at its best. A huge idea which, through sheer force of will and personality, he will move forward.
American Solutions is not a political organization it is a non-profit – a 501(c)(4) as I understand it.
Newt’s lawyer in Atlanta, Randy Evans, evaluated the options and concluded that Newt had to either run for President or drive American Solutions – he could not do both because of the impossibility of keeping the tax-exempt activities separate and apart from any political (and therefore NOT tax exempt) operations.
The problem is, of course, that Newt Gingrich would have been the person at the top of both organizations and while it was technically possible to do it, it would have been a political nightmare.
Faced with that choice, Newt made the one which may have made less sense for him personally but, in his mind (and, for what it’s worth mine) made more sense for the country – helping find American Solutions.
I congratulate Newt for making the hard, but correct choice.
Rich
20 Comments:
I too applaud Newt's decision. He was brilliant with his Contract for America. While I agree with most of his political philosophy, he has a lot of personal baggage that the Lame stream media would've used to exploit his chances of success in a presidential bid.
If you saw him live on Fox, Gingrich specifically and repeatedly blamed McCain-Feingold and its criminal sanctions for making it impossible for him to do both -- but none of the news stories, even the one on the Fox site, mention this. He made interesting remarks on how this unconstitutional law restricts our freedom, and empowers rich candidates, but nobody mentions that. What gives? Criticizing this law not politically correct?
I am glad too that he didn't run, because what he is doing is more important in the long run and he'll be available in '12 to bail us out of the depression caused by the Hildebeast socialism.
Great guy, but even he knows there is no way to substantially change Leviathan in DC. With both parties playing night of the long knives on eachother, sanity is often not within their reach. The MSM just adds fuels and matches with alarmingly careless frequency.
Newt is too good for them, in many, many ways.
Rich,
I also think that Newt's decision is the best choice. Of all the presidential candidates, Newt is by far the most visionary and has a greater grasp of important issues. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, his baggae would severely interfere with his ability to get that vision across.
I think Newt can contribute more by driving the discussion and injecting intelligent ideas than he can as a candidate.
Chuck
www.libertycall.us
Thanks again to John McCain! The unintended consequences of McCain-Feingold have been a disaster, Constitutional questions aside. When will someone call John McCain to account for what he has wrought?
I feel this same thought process should be used by all candidates. Even Senators/Congresspeople. As evident in the Petreus briefings, the Senators that were Pres candidates could not unbiasly listen to his testimony cause it would ruin their campaigns. All presidential candidates should remove themselves from their jobs/boards/foundations etc prior to announcing they are running.
Russ F.
Ummm, Rich... are you going to take back the things you said about George Allen's campaign now that he is joining the Thompson Brigade?
Concerning your item (Oct 23) on Washington, DC's leading with ugly people - this is only to be expected. Isn't it always said that politics is Hollywood for ugly people (your office exempted, of course)?
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