Notes and Quotes from Newt

Newt Gingrich spoke and answered questions for nearly two hours at a Council of State Governments’ meeting in Lexington, Kentucky earlier this year.

Among my favorite "Gingrichisms" from that day:

  • "If we don’t have substantial change from our current system, we will not be capable of competing with China and India in 25 years."
  • An author of two World War II novels, Gingrich says it’s "startling to realize how competent we once were. In three years and eight months, we moved 15.3 million troops. It took 23 years to add a runway to the Atlanta airport."
  • Washington backed away from support for FutureGen, a clean coal energy project scheduled for Mattoon, Illinois. The government is now saying it will have a clean coal plant in 2016; China’s first clean coal plant will be in 2009
  • Relaying a comment from Fred Smith of FedEx that government can’t distinguish between a cost and an investment. Smith said he couldn’t have explained (to government officials) why he needed a wireless computer for his drivers. "It would have been listed as a cost, not an investment."
  • One of the offices for American Solutions, the organization Gingrich founded and chairs, is in the Silicon Valley to allow regular conversations with entrepreneurs .

More to come from Gingrich in Lexington, as well as a one-on-one interview with the influential leader in the September-October BizVoice magazine. Gingirch comes to the Indiana Convention Center as keynote speaker for the Indiana Chamber’s 19th Annual Awards Dinner on November 6 — just two days after we elect our next poltiical leaders.

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