U.S. needs dramatic change, Gingrich says at Chrysler Hall

NORFOLK

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday night that his party's presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, must convince voters that he, not his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, is the real candidate of change this year.

Americans know the nation needs dramatic change if it is to compete successfully in the 21st century against emerging powerhouses China and India, Gingrich told an audience of 2,000 at Chrysler Hall. He was the first speaker in this season's Norfolk Forum lecture series.

"We're going to decide to fix what needs to be fixed or we're going to decide to decay elegantly," he said. "We're either going to go through fundamental, deep change or we're no longer going to be a leading country. It's just that simple."

Republicans learned the hard way in 2006 that the voters were ready for change when they lost their congressional majority, Gingrich said. "They earned being defeated."

But he said his party may have stemmed the Democratic tide this year by nominating McCain, whom he called "the least Republican nominee since Theodore Roosevelt. He's a genuine maverick, a genuine reformer."

McCain further burnished his reformist credentials by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Gingrich added, calling Palin "somebody who doesn't feel like a traditional Washington politician."

Obama, on the other hand, made the wrong choice in deciding to run with a consummate Washington insider, Sen. Joe Biden, instead of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gingrich said.

In any event, he added, "this is going to be one of the most fascinating 60 days in American history.... Almost anything could happen."

Gingrich, 65, was a Georgia congressman for 20 years, the last four as speaker. He is widely credited with helping engineer the historic Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, the first time the GOP had controlled the House in 40 years.

He was reprimanded and fined $300,000 for breaking House ethics rules in 1997 and gave up his seat in 1999.

Since then he has stayed active as an author, political strategist and Fox News commentator.

Last year he launched American Solutions for Winning the Future, a political advocacy organization that is promoting a "Drill here, drill now" campaign to open up oil drilling off America's coasts and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to extract shale oil from the Rocky Mountains. The theme has been picked up this year by Republican candidates across the country, including McCain and former Gov. Jim Gilmore, who is running for the Senate against Mark Warner, a former Democratic governor.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com