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Here’s a bit more from the Iowa Press taping with guest Newt Gingrich (show airs tomorrow night statewide on Iowa Public Television; video posted online now). 

Henderson: During the debate last Saturday you took a good bit of lead from your opponents over your lobbying contract — they would characterize it as such — with Freddie Mac. Do you regret taking that job and do you regret criticizing Mitt Romney for his activities at Bain, in responding to one of his attacks?”

Gingrich: ”I don’t regret taking the job because it was a totally legal, non-lobbying, strategic-advisory thing and, you know, I’m not going to go through life, trying, that part just gets mischaracterized. I do regret taking a shot at Mitt. It was foolish on my part. He had taken one more shot at me that he knew wasn’t true and made an assertion that he knew was absurd, but it violated all the core principles I have in terms of trying to stay positive despite temptation. It also communicated something I don’t believe in. I think people who run those companies have an obligation to run the companies effectively and to do the best they can and I’ve said in the past, many times, that he’s a good manager, so it’s one of the few times, I think, in the campaign where I said something that, you know, I could have retracted.”

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is the guest on this week’s episode of Iowa Press on IPTV (watch it now online).  He was asked a couple of questions about the negative ads on the Iowa airwaves which target him.

Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson: “You have said you’re chafing a bit…”

Newt Gingrich: (chuckles) “Yes.”

Henderson: “…under your vow to run a relentlessly positive campaign. At the core, those ads raise questions about your consistency. How do you respond to the charges in those ads?”

Gingrich: ”I have a 90 percent American Conservative Union voting record; a 98.5 percent National Right-to-Life voting record. I’m the only person in your lifetime to balance the federal budget four years in a row, which I thought was  conservative achievement. I helped pass the largest capital gains tax cut in history; unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent, which I would have thought was a conservative achievement. I helped pass the first, only major entitlement reform in your lifetime — welfare — two out of three people went back to work or went to school, which I would have thought was a conservative achievement and that’s just in the speakership. In the late ’70s I worked actively with Ronald Reagan. We helped develop supply-side economics with Jack Kemp and Art Laffer and others. I helped pass the tax cuts under Reagan. I helped fight and helped implement the end of the Soviet Empire as a member of congress, helped found the Conservative Opportunity Society. You would think there’s a point where the sheer weight of evidence beats the 30-second attack ad and I’m relying on the good judgement of Iowans to weigh the real history versus the 30-second attack ad.”

Henderson: ”Speaking of the judgement of Iowans, a former Iowa congressman — Fred Grandy — this past week endorsed you and, in talking with him, he told me one of the reasons he did so was because of the current members of congress and the former members of congress who have said things about you. They’ve said you’re unfit. They question your leadership style. How do you respond directly to your former colleagues who raise those concerns.”

Gingrich: “I don’t respond to my former colleagues. I tell the public I was a very strong speaker. I helped drive us to a majority for the first time in 40 years. I helped develop the first reelection as a majority since 1928. In the process, as I said a minute ago, if you’re, remember, I’m getting this stuff done with Bill Clinton. Now, if you are able to maneuver so that you can get welfare reform signed by Clinton, a tax cut signed by Clinton, four balanced budgets signed by Clinton, you’re going to make some people unhappy on two fronts. One front are the selfish members who didn’t get their particular earmark and the other front are the ideologues who say, ‘I’d rather have been pure. I don’t want welfare reform if Bill Clinton signs it. It can’t be good enough,’ so I say, ‘Fine.’ I mean, if you want the people who are at the trough who are afraid I’m coming back to stop their earmarks, that’s fine. And if you want the guys who are so ideologically pure they wouldn’t get anything done, that’s fine, but I have a track record of actually getting conservative things done. Some columnist wrote this week I’ve had the most effective effort to shift the country to the right since Ronald Reagan and that’s a fact.”

Iowa Press moderator asked Gingrich a follow-up on the turn-the-other cheek strategy.  “What I have to prove in the next few months is that I can allow my opponents to say a variety of unpleasant things and cheerfully ignore them,” Gingrich said. “…This is a great gamble. I want to be clear. It’s an act of faith in the American people that I can have a conversation with them despite sort of childish, negative ads written by clever consultants who are paid a lot of money.”

Former Iowa Congressman Fred Grandy (yes, he used to be Gopher on The Love Boat) has endorsed Newt Gingrich.  Grandy called the Radio Iowa newsroom this evening and we had a conversation.

Grandy: “I had been leaning towards Newt for some time because in my present line of work, which is kind of working on counter-intelligence issues at a place called The Center for Security Policy and concentrating on jihadist movements in the Middle East and elsewhere, Newt is clearly the only guy who fully understands how dangerous this world is right now and has, I believe, a strategic plan to do something about it, which is to essentially reverse course from the, I think, kind of pathetic accommodations that have been made by the Obama Administration but even, I have to say, by the Bush Administration prior and will reassert American dominance in that area. I really feel as though this is a time when we need somebody who understands strategically how national security is supposed to work.

“…And then two, I got more than a little upset at the number of Republicans — sitting and former members (of congress) — who felt compelled to get up and talk about how Newt was not a leader. Most of these guys followed Newt loyally in the late ’90s…He was not necessarily the easiest guy to get along with, but that’s because he was very committed to things he believed in.   

“…You’ve been covering politicians for quite some time. Have you ever met one that wasn’t to some degree self-centered, that wasn’t looking over your shoulder to see who was coming into the room?  I mean, come on, that’s endemic to the genre.

“As far as I’m concerned, all you have to do to question Newt Gingrich’s leadership is look at the four years he was speaker of the house and look at how the country changed: welfare reform, balanced budgets, telecom policy that essentially ushered in the cellular revolution and a few trade agreements that, unless I’m very much mistaken helped a lot of Iowa farmers.

“I would rather have a difficult personality as a capable leader than an accommodating, ‘hail fellow well met’ guy who didn’t know what he was doing — and Newt’s one of those guys that really knows what he’s doing.”

As for those former and current members of congress who’ve been criticizing Gingrich publicly, Grandy suggested it was because Gingrich had the “temerity” to ask — back when Republicans were in the minority in the house — this basic question:  Why?  According to Grandy, Republicans had settled into a sort of “servitude” to the Democratic majority in the house.

“I was a committed ‘squishy moderate’ and working around guys like Gingrich really reawakened a strong conservative element in myself that pretty much dictates my politics now,” Grandy told me. “…What (Gingrich) accomplished is without parallel and to me what America needs now is results, not necessarily fire side chats…Right now you need someone who can reign far and wide over domestic and national security issues and the only guy who can swing for the fences is Newt.”