Now, Newt’s a pretty interesting guy to talk about the future, becauseas David Ellwood said in his introduction, he was envisioning aRepublican majority from the moment he was elected to the House as a35-year-old in 1978. His ideas have always been powerfully and clearly stated. So say what we like about his brand of politics,he accomplished a big *something*. Democrats could learn from that –and indeed the re-envisioning of the Democratic Party has begun inearnest, and I’m frankly excited and optimistic about it. We’re still enchained in theback of the cave, but we’ve got an inkling of daylight.
My two strongest impressions of Gingrich:
1. To Newt, bureaucracy is the enemy, which stifles innovation, wastes money, and entrenches mediocrity. Now, it goes without saying that Newt feels that "bureaucracy" and "government" are virtually synonymous. (He’s obviously never worked in the Montgomery Ward corporate offices and tried to get a pair of scissors from the office supply czar — but I digress.)
2. Newt believes the United States Government is incapable of creating ideas. According to Newt, all major transformative movements have come from outside Washington. (Now, since all of Congress and the President originally come from outside DC, this is kind of a tautology.) He spoke of the "Tyranny of the Present", the gossipy, day-to-day nature of politics in DC. "Only the past has lobbyists", not the future.
Now … for those of us trying to effect change in our national and state parties, do these things sound familiar? Is our party bureaucratic and inefficient, stifling creativity, and rewarding mediocrity?
Other than that, it was actually kind of nice to hear an old politician who doesn’t feel the need to adhere to any particular party talking points (although he was certainly on-message in response to a question regarding DeLay: "Nothing’s been proven yet", etc.). His ideas are technocratic, glib, snappy, and often wildly impractical, like a kid playing in the sand ("I’d give the widdle poor people money for math and science … And then I’d CWUSH Amtwak under my feet ha ha ha haaaa"), but that’s kind of refreshing — now that he’s not in power anymore. He is untroubled by any need to be specific or offer real trade-offs; maybe he hasn’t changed much.
But we’ve got terrific policy wonks on our side — dammit, we’re the Reality-Based Community, after all! I don’t think that liberals lack public-policy know-how. Like Newt, I think our side needs to let itself daydream a little bit. What kind of world do you want to live in? What ideas/ideals will we ride to DC? If we know the endpoint, the way to get there will be a lot clearer. We gotta dream BIG.
