Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned Republicans against running solely against President Obama in this year’s midterm elections, saying the party needs a positive agenda.
{mosads}“I am deeply opposed to any consultant or any political staffer who talks to the news media about the campaign this fall being a referendum on Obama,” Gingrich said at a Wednesday speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The former presidential candidate and architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution said that the GIOP would not have won back the House in his time if they had focused solely on attacking then-President Clinton.
“I regard it as maniacally stupid and unprofessional to think you can get away with a purely negative campaign,” he said. “You turn off all moderates, you turn off all the independents, you drive down the turnout. If we had run an anti-Clinton campaign in 1994, we still wouldn’t have been in the majority.”
Republicans are fighting to recapture Senate control and pick up House seats this fall. Some GOP strategists warn that they’re focused too intensely on the failings of the Obama administration and aren’t doing enough to flesh out their own views, giving Democrats leeway to define Republican candidates.