Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich is trying to organize trips by Republican House members to black districts around the country.
The idea is to get GOP congressmen more in tune with African-American concerns. The 2012 presidential candidate said at a Washington, D.C. breakfast Thursday that he has discussed the idea with Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, and the House Republican Conference,
Politico reports.
The effort is “slowly gaining ground,” Gingrich said at the breakfast, which was sponsored by the National Review. He said Univision has offered to host town hall meetings in the districts.
“It’s important because when you go out, and you’re standing in a room, and you’re looking people in the face, you begin to realize the limitations of what you can and can’t say, and you begin to realize how they hear it,” Gingrich said.
The idea stems from his post-mortem analysis of the 2012 election results, Gingrich said. The Republican losses made him “rethink what I thought I understood about politics.” He has gone around the country, talking with professors and scientists, as he seeks new wisdom for the GOP.
One idea Gingrich doesn’t like is to limit the number of Republican presidential debates and to shrink the primary season. “The goal is to win the general election,” he said.
“You’re saying to me, ‘Gee, we’re going to have a candidate so stupid we have to protect him from hurting himself, therefore let’s have the fewest possible debates so that when he arrives in the general election, we can learn in the first debate how really dumb he is.’”
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