Video: Newt Gingrich interview

At Friday's premiere of Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny, I caught up with the former House Speaker and asked him about the future of the GOP, Sarah Palin, and the current "stimulus" proposal in a brief interview captured by Kerry Picket:

ON THE REPUBLICAN FUTURE:

"It depends on whether the Republican Party learns to focus on America first, and learn to rejoin the majority of American people that Ronald Reagan personified -- gives up big government and elite values -- and if they do that, they've got a great future. . . . I don't think about the party's future. I think about the future of the United States. I think Republicans ought to quit worrying about the Republican Party, and spend their time worrying about America."

ON THE 'STIMULUS':

"This is a spending bill, as President Obama said -- it's not a stimulus bill. It is an absurdity to have spent [$1.2 trillion] last year on this kind of spending, and come back for $900 billion this year. For the price of this bill, every American could have a seven-month holiday with no income tax, no Social Security tax, no Medicare tax and, for the employer, no matching tax. That would do dramatically more for the economy than this kind of policy . . ."

Notice that Gingrich (a) walked a wide circle around the brushfire war between the GOP intellectuals and Palin, and (b) sought to speak as a non-partisan figure concerned more with America's future than the GOP's future. A very shrewd man.