Kansas.com

November 5, 2009

Zach White

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich carried out his role as the Dole Institute for Politics’ first Distinguished Visiting Fellow yesterday, spending the day meeting with and talking to students, faculty and community members in numerous diverse settings.
 
Gingrich first visited the Natural History Museum in Dyche Hall, which made such an impression on him that he gushed over it at all following events.
 
“I had a tremendous time looking at fossils,” Gingrich said.
 
He followed up his museum visit with a Pizza and Politics lecture in the Adams Alumni center’s Bruckmiller room at noon. Gingrich’s presence brought more than 100 people to enjoy the food and conversation combo, more than twice the previous record attendance since the program’s inception five years ago. Here he explained President Obama’s political future depends on whether he will be a Jimmy Carter or a Bill Clinton. He said that Carter failed because he refused to take the opponent’s policies into consideration, whereas Clinton was willing to work with Gingrich and his Republican majority after the 1994 congressional changeover. Gingrich then took questions from KU students from a variety of political backgrounds on his past in Congress and the future of the Republican party.

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