| Newt and Callista on Maui TV News |
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Newt Gingrich is the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. And he's been to Maui several times - to play golf and autograph new books. But each visit - of late - has been getting more and more serious. Love him or hate him, Newt Gingrich has been a formidable figure in the history of American politics - as well as an astute student of U.S. and World History. Last Saturday Newt and his wife, Callista, posed for photographs and signed books and DVDS on maui, before addressing a partisan Maui gathering - many of whom wish he'd just go ahead and announce his candidacy for president in 2012. Newt: "Well, I think there are more and more people who come up to Callista and me who urge us to run - and that does have some impact when you havwe that many of your fellow citizens tell you they think the country's in trouble and they think it needs a new direction and a new approach." Jeff King: Among those in attendance was Hawaii's state republican party chairman Jonah Ka'auwai, who gave his take on the role of senator Daniel Inouye in the race to temporarily fill the seat vacaded when former congressman neil Abercrombie resigned to run for Hawaii's governor. The senior Senator recently said only a fool would predict that whoever wins the short term election would be a shoe-in for the full-time job vacated by Abercrombie. Jonah Ka'auwai (Chairman Hawai'i GOP): "It really showed that he expected Hanabusa to lose - absolutely. It's interesting how Senator Inouye has injected himself into this race and has caused - probably caused his party a loss in this election for Congressional District One." Jeff King: Undoubtedly a popular man among this crowd, Gingrich speculated on a much broader level - on whether or not President Barack Obama is what might be termed a first-term President or a one-term Chief of State. Newt: "I think that's up to the American people in the next couple of years. But certainly if they keep up their current policies of big tax increases and continuing to weaken the economy and keep unemployment at nine or 10 percent, I think the country will pretty rapidly tire of the speeches and ask where the performance is. I think if that happens, there is a real possibility he'll be a one-term President." Jeff King: Information technology has shrunk the planet to the point where nearly everyone can see everything - almost instantly. And, that - Gingrich says- is our roadmap to the next Presidential election. Newt: "We had a bubble in information technology in 1999. We had a bubble with housing in 2007. We had a bubble with Wall Street in 2008 and I think the fourth bubble is government. Government is too big. It's too expensive. We've adopted union rules and bureaucratic rules that are way too cumbersome and expensive and we can't afford them. If you look at Greece - where they're collapsing. And you look at Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, you see the forerunner of the problems that we have. And, frankly, in many parts of the country, state and local government is in worse shape than the federal government. Mayor Rierdon, the former mayor of Los Angeles, who is a very sophisticated businessman said a couple of weeks ago that he believes the city of Los Angeles may have to file bankruptcy in order to rewrite their pension rules and their health plans for their union contracts. I just think that's not sustainable. I think that's the scale of change we're faced with, so I think the next election will be about the question of who we are and what we have to do to compete with China and India and how we keep ourselves safe. I think those three questions are going to dominate American politics for the next decade." Jeff King: In an era when it's tough enough to get elected - Gingrich defined his view of the difference between a statesman and a politician Newt:"First of all any statesman has to be a good politician before he can acquire the ability to make decisions. So, whether you look at Lincoln or Jefferson or Jackson or Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt - they all had to be pretty good politicians in order to get to the point where they could become statesmen. I think the key difference, though, is that a statesman tries to figure out what the Country needs over time and then how to explain it to get permission to do it where a politician tries to figure out what they need to do to get through the next election. I think it's a fundamentally big difference in attitude in those two approaches." Jeff King: The visit by the Gingriches was for a two-fold purpose. In addition to giving advice to a bath of aspiring candidates - and erasing more and more doubt about his intentions in 2014, the couple was also here to prnmote A powerful documentary they've just released, "Nine Days that Changed the World." Callista: "The nine days that changed the world were nine days in June of 1979 when Pope John Paul II went to his native homeland of Poland. At that time millions of people came out to see the Holy Father. He was the first Polish Pope in history and the native people were drawn to him because of his charisma. And these nine days were significant because many see them as the beginning of the end to Communism in Poland and Eastern Europe." Jeff King: The combination of archived film, old family photos and news footage of some of the largest gatherings of humans in history are poignant. Callista Gingrich's personal ancestry was part of the inspiration as a polish catholic and this - the fifth Documentary produced by their company, Gingrich Productions, was inspired during another documentary they were filming two years ago in Europe on the life and influence of President Ronald Reagan. Callista: "...and at that time we learned about the significance of this visit through interviews with President Lech Walesa and President Vaclav Havel. We asked them about the Holy Father's role in bringing the end to communism and they both said that this trip was significant toward liberating Eastern Europe - and we wanted to share that story." |
