Cheney or Powell? Newt Says 'Both'

The Republican Party seems to have faced a number of existential choices recently -- Powell or Limbaugh? Limbaugh or Cheney? Gingrich or Palin?
The Gingrich/Palin question provided the highly dramatic backdrop for Monday's annual fundraising gala for the Republicans' House and Senate campaign committees (the people who help get Republicans elected to Congress).

Held at the Washington Convention Center, the party drew nearly 2,000 GOP faithful to put their cash in the kitty for the 2010 campaign cycle.

But back to the drama... In March, when the invitations went out, the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced that Sarah Palin would be the evening's featured speaker. The booking was a huge, crowd-drawing get for the Republicans, and a major statement by Palin that she would be a player on the Washington scene well after 2008.

Shortly after Republicans released news of Palin's plans to headline the event, word came from her office that she wasn't coming (scheduling conflict). In Palin's absence, Gingrich was booked, only to find that Palin planned to attend the dinner after all....and wanted to speak. In an act of diplomacy that Pyongyang could appreciate, Palin was eventually invited to attend the dinner, to sit in a seat of honor, but not to speak.

That honor was left to Newt Gingrich, who used his nearly hour-long speech (but who's counting??) to lay out his expansive views of his party, his country, and who should be allowed inside the GOP's tent these days.

"History teaches us that there is a road back to the majority, if we are prepared to be inclusive and not exclusive. I am happy that Dick Cheney is a Republican. I am also happy Colin Powell is a Republican."

Gingrich said that a majority party will always have debates about its direction, but that is, by definition, the nature of a large, majority-holding party. He also reminded the crowd that Ronald Reagan could not have won in 1980 with conservative votes alone, and needed the support of moderates, independents and, yes, Democrats, to beat Jimmy Carter out of his second term.

"Inclusion does not mean lack of principles, and like Reagan, I am for first principles," Gingrich said.

On that note of big-tent expansion, and with Sarah Palin seen, but not heard, in the audience, the former House speaker detailed his first principles and his plans to make Barack Obama a one-term president "in the liberal tradition of Jimmy Carter."

Among his goals for the country: Making English the official language of government, teaching American history to all first- and second-generation immigrants, and drastically increasing military and homeland security funding to reverse the "decay of our readiness" happening under President Obama. Gingrich quoted liberally from Lincoln, said that the Administration is full of "ideologues," called Democrats in Congress Obama's "robots," and pointed to history for examples of the Republican party mounting a comeback from oblivion time and again.

He did acknowledge Todd and Sarah Palin in the audience, but for Palin not to speak at the event, even though she attended, seems a waste of resources. Use it if you've got it, GOP! But even without the Alaska governor at the podium, the event did raise $14.5 million for the cause, less than last year, but still a tidy haul for a party of any size.