October 01, 2007
Newt Gingrich's Non-Campaign: Things That Make You Go Hmm
Newt Gingrich spent the better part of a year toying with a possible White House bid, but after months of tantalizing interviews, op-eds and public appearances (both in real life and in Second Life), he announced on Saturday that he would not seek the Republican Party's nomination in 2008.
The move left campaign watchers and Gingrich followers scratching their heads, not because it was unexpected, but because the timing seemed suspect. Just a few days prior to his decision, Gingrich had announced that he was dispatching campaign advisers to embark on a three-week tour to gauge interest in his potential bid. He took a leave of absence from FOX News and said if he could raise about $30 million or more in pledges, he'd be in by November.
Less than a week later, Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler was telling the press that a legal review of Gingrich's involvement in his nonprofit group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, suggested that he could not continue to work on that project and run for the nation's highest office.
"He had to make a choice between being a citizen-activist, raising the challenges America faces and finding solution to America’s problems, or exploring a potential candidacy," Tyler told the Politico. "It's legally impermissible to do both."
"The McCain-Feingold act criminalizes politics," Gingrich offered as an explanation when he appeared on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. Gingrich thought he "could continue the momentum of" the ideas generated through American Solutions while beginning to prepare a campaign, he said, "but what we learned yesterday morning was that it was literally a 'go to jail' criminal activity."
It was a curious argument, since both the 527 group and Gingrich's apparent White House ambitions have been around for about a year. Why did it take so long for Gingrich and his crack team of lawyers to realize that he couldn't have it both ways?
That's the question many commentators were asking over the weekend. Calling Gingrich a "master at manipulating the media," the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm noted that the Georgia Republican has "carefully constructed a network of lucrative businesses" that, in addition to American Solutions, "would have to be jettisoned for a presidential run" -- something Gingrich must have realized early on. And yet, despite plenty of other news going on, "the Sunday newspapers, the Sunday morning political talk shows and the weekend blogosphere will now be full of buzz and chatter about what Newt Gingrich isn't doing," Malcolm wrote. "See what we mean about clever manipulation?"
Malcolm's not the only one raising an eyebrow over Gingrich's sudden change of heart. In a Townhall column last week, former Gingrich campaign aide Matt Towery wondered why Gingrich would launch his $30 million pledge drive (which Towery dismissed as "pure theater") on the eve of American Solutions' official launch.
"Personally, I thought it silly for Gingrich, who eschewed any candidacy for weeks, to suddenly dangle out the possibility of running just as his 527 effort, which has caught criticism for being an indirect presidential campaign, was coming to fruition," Towery noted. "Yet, the dangling of a true potential race for president clearly boosted national interest in the American Solutions program."
Indeed, after griping to Stephanopoulos about how campaign finance reform had made him a victim of presidential politics, Gingrich launched into an eloquent explanation of his 527 group's efforts to solve the nation's problems through bipartisan dialogue.
In his own investigation into the matter, National Review's Byron York seemed unsatisfied with two sets of explanations he received from Tyler.
"Gingrich has worked with the campaign finance laws for a long time... and it seems hard to believe that he didn't know the ins and outs of such things," York wrote yesterday. "On the other hand, if there were some other reason, for example, if Gingrich decided not to go forward because the response he got simply wasn't strong enough, especially in a year in which the electoral landscape is pretty tough for Republicans, why not just say so?"
On "This Week," Gingrich dismissed any suggestion that the support wasn't there and instead touted the outpouring he had received without ever officially entering the race. "I think we would have had a chance to win," he asserted.
Meanwhile, with his prediction that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win the presidency in 2008 by a hair and his comparisons of the '08 race to 1976, the former House Speaker's decision to sit things out this time around has led some to wonder if Gingrich isn't hoping for the chance to play Ronald Reagan to Clinton's Jimmy Carter in 2012.
Posted at 2:16 PM
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Campaigns, Newt Gingrich, Republicans, WH 2008
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