Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and purveyor of the GOP "Contract With America'' that helped his party win control of the House after President Bill Clinton's election, says GOP chairman Michael Steele has started work on a new framework for 2010 that he is calling "First principles.''
"I've been talking with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, '' Gingrich said today, speaking with students at C-SPAN's Cable Center Class.
"He is developing a first principles model that I think is a very exciting, positive step in the right direction,'' said Gingrich, who has said that he will decide by February about waging his own campaign for president. "By September, it might be very, very good for the Republicans in the House and Senate to have a common ground on which to campaign, whether they call it a Contract for America or some other device.
"Having a positive set of things that say, 'if you elect us, these are the positive steps we will take,'' Gingrich said, on a program that C-SPAN3 is airing at 5 pm EST. This "may well be the key building block to really become the alternative party, not the opposition party.''
"If the Democrats stay stuck over on a very left wing program and if they continue to have a job-killing record in Congress, I think by September and October you could suddenly have a very exciting election.''
The fabled Contract which Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom Delay and others fashioned six weeks before the midterm congressional elections of 1994 led to a GOP takeover of the House that kept a newly elected Democratic president in check - a formula that the GOP would love to revive for the 2010 midterms.
A Gallup Poll this week found that Republicans are doing well in the "generic candidate'' race - with more people saying they are likely to support a Republican than those saying they are likely to support a Democrat. Gingrich suggests that his party needs to put more than names on those ballots, and add some principled promises as well.
"We didn't do the Contract until very late in the campaign,'' he noted. "You could begin to put together a set of firs principles around which 80 percent of the country would rally... and then come Labor Day, you could begin to look a what are the five or 10 biggest things that the Republicans could offer as their contract for America.''
He's got four ready to go:
"The No. 1 issue is jobs... The No. 2 issue is energy... The No. 3 challenge... replace the big government monstrosity that they passed on Saturday ( a reference to the Democratic-led House healthcare bill. "The No. 4 challenge is education.'' Don't forget the deficit, Newt. Don't forget the deficit. And illegal immigration. And turning up the heat on Afghanistan so we can actually finish and get out during our lifetime would be nice, too. Iran and North Korea need to go away, and they can take Venezuela with them. And getting Muslim countries to focus on good governance and citizenship would be a good long-term goal, too. Once they get off of everyone's back, especially Israel's, we can say they have succeeded.
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