A soft-spoken and reflective Newt Gingrich, far removed
from the rancorours government shutdowns and presidential
sex scandal, visited Claremont McKenna College on Tuesday,
November 5. Gingrich, who retired as Speaker of the House
in 1999 after Republicans lost five Congressional seats, delivered
a speech at CMC’s Athenaeum about American politics and
his forthcoming book Six Challenges and An Inquiry.
If Gingrich was soft-spoken, he was no less partisan, and
no less conservative, than he was as the Republican’s
standard-bearer during the mid-nineties. During the press
conferences that preceded his lecture, the former Speaker
predicted that Republicans would gain seats in the House due
to President Bush’s campaigning. Going a step further,
he also predicted that Republicans would establish themselves
as the majority party by 2008.
“President Bush and President Clinton are campaigning
next to each other and voters are reminded of why they don’t
like Bill Clinton,” said Gingrich, “President Clinton
has helped the Republicans by campaigning.”
Gingrich himself, however, has not been campaigning for Republicans.
He stated he was “working on ideas” and that his
job was now to generate “longer-term political solutions.”
Gingrich, in talking about his Six Challenges and an Inquiry,
described many of his solutions. Calling Saddam Hussein “the
most dangerous person since Adolph Hitler,” the former
Speaker expressed his strong support for the President’s
foreign policy. He also suggested that if the United States
wished to preserve its domestic security, the FBI should be
split into two agencies, one of which would be granted broad
powers to fight terrorism, beyond that of a police force.
Describing the United States as the “most over lawyered
society in the world,” Gingrich called for major tort
reform. The former Speaker saw the litigation reform as key
to his desire to provide nationwide healthcare and promote
entrepreneurial environmental solutions in lieu of governmental
solutions and regulations.
When asked about his passage of welfare reform former Speaker
Gingrich said, “There were few things that were more
gratifying than passing welfare reform...Many liberals now
agree that welfare reform was a success.” Citing figures
that there are 65 percent fewer people on welfare now than
there were when the reform was signed, Gingrich said that
the remaining 35 percent represented a “cultural crisis
of enormous proportions.” That crisis, said Gingrich,
would be better addressed through faith-based initiatives
than through government bureaucracy.
Gingrich also moved beyond his role as former Speaker; returning
to his roots as a history professor, he expressed his presidential
preferences throughout history. He called Lincoln “America’s
greatest wartime president” and described Theodore Roosevelt
as having “sheer animal magnetism.” Gingrich was
less kind when speaking of Democratic presidents saying that
Woodrow Wilson was “less than great” and that Harry
Truman was “over valued.”
As partisan as Gingrich was in his remarks, he nonetheless
voiced his dissatisfaction about the expected rate of turnout
in Tuesday’s election. Gingrich said “The number
of people who don’t vote,” was his greatest disappointment.
“We tolerate a bad attitude about the political process.”
said Speaker Gingrich. The former speaker blamed the public
apathy about the electoral process on negative campaigns due
to “lack of big ideas.”
