In an interview with campus media prior to his speech in Gaston Hall this evening, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich discussed his campaign’s viability, in light of a recent staff shake-up and polling that suggests six out of ten Republicans want Gingrich to drop out of the race:

We streamlined the campaign precisely to be able to continue to Tampa, not to suspend it. There’s a difference between streamlining and suspending. And frankly because of the news media coverage, I don’t pay attention to polls like that. Remember my campaign was dead in June and July, every reporter in the country said it was dead, and by the middle of December Gallup said I was ahead by 15 points and Rasmussen said I was ahead by 21, so I worry much more about how to develop new approaches like my speech tonight how to communicate issues that matter, we just spent three weeks with Obama on defense over energy and I think if you go back and look that was almost entirely my campaign. I think we’re having a positive impact, and we’re going to continue campaigning all the way to Tampa. And I think Governor Romney has clearly has not gotten a majority, nobody thinks he has a majority at this stage, so why would you quit? I’m from Atlanta, we were ahead by 10 and a half games last year- there were only 28 games left. Imagine if we could’ve talked St. Louis into quitting- we’d be happier today. We’re living proof that playing out the entire season matters.

Asked who he would tell his supporters to list as their second choice if America employed the instant-runoff voting that GUSA elections use, Gingrich said to his staff’s laughter, “I wouldn’t. I would tell them to write my name in nine times.”

Yesterday, Gingrich visited the Salisbury Zoo in southern Maryland. He said about the trip, “I’m a big zoo fan. I’ve gone to 100 zoos around the world.”

Photo: Julian De La Paz

Former Speaker of the House, Republican presidential contender, and defender of American civilization Newt Gingrich will address the University community in Gaston Hall tomorrow at 5 p.m. on the topic of “Giving Young Americans the Right to Choose a Personal Social Security Account.” It’s unclear if he will also have an Etch-a-Sketch handy.

The event is sponsored by the Lecture Fund and GU College Republicans. Doors open at 4 p.m. and seats will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Gingrich is coming to the Hilltop in advance of the D.C. Republican primary, which will take place Tuesday. The winner of the primary, expected to be Mitt Romney, will win 16 convention delegates.

Although privatizing Social Security may be an unpopular notion on a liberal college campus, Kevin Preskenis (COL ’12), National Coalitions Coordinator for the Gingrich campaign and one of the organizers of the event, wasn’t concerned about the speech’s reception in an email to Vox:

Once he outlines his plan, I’m confident many students will be fully on board. Social security is close to a broken system. Our generation will be faced with a choice: watch the system wither away or pay massive taxes to keep it alive. Newt’s social security program, based on the Chilean model, gives Americans more freedom in their retirement and creates dramatically more wealth in the long run. As a barometer of support among youth, over 230 college campuses have setup chapters in support of the plan.

The afternoon does not promise to be a completely quiet afternoon of pontification on the merits of privatization however, as Georgetown Occupy has called for a protest on Copley Lawn at the same time as the speech. Occupy member Cole Stangler (SFS ’13) explained the point of the protest in an email to Vox:

It’s important for Newt Gingrich to know that his bigoted politics in service of the 1% are rejected by the vast majority of young people in this country, and that he can’t come to a college campus and tell us why he wants to privatize our social security without expecting some sort of negative outcry.

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Yesterday, while all the political junkies were waiting anxiously for the polls to close, Vox highlighted the tossup and leaning races that featured Georgetown alumni. Today, we’ve got the results of yesterday’s elections and how Hoyas fared.

Race yet to be decided

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski (COL ’80) still might win her write-in bid for reelection. Total write-in ballots lead the race, but names on the write-ins cannot be counted until officials determine that a write-in candidate has a legitimate chance to win.

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Do you consider yourself a political geek and a Georgetown super-fan? If so, we’re here to help.

To celebrate Election Day, we tracked down all of the close races that involve Georgetown alumni; four Hoyas are deadlocked in toss-up elections, while five others are caught in close, but leaning, races.

Check back with Vox tomorrow for a full listing of the winning and losing alumni, including those that are running in races considered either solidly Democratic or Republican. In the meantime, start preparing those internship resumes.

Key Races

Alaska Senate

Incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski (COL ’80) lost to Tea Party favorite, and Sarah Palin-endorsed, candidate Joe Miller in her primary bid for reelection. Murkowski opted to try to remain in the race as a write-in candidate. FiveThirtyEight projects Miller winning, with Murkowski coming in a close second, and the Democratic candidate falling short of both.

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In a recent study of university employees’ political donations, the Center for Responsive Politics concluded that American colleges generally support Democrats. When a college does favor Republicans, it tends to donate much less money.

“Democrats are the primary beneficiaries of educators’ federal political donations,” Lauren Hepler, a Center intern, wrote.

The top donors during this election cycle, according to the study, include the University of California system ($483,981), Harvard ($424,478), Stanford ($375,553). All three schools heavily favored Democrat donations.

Although Georgetown didn’t crack the top ten, the study inspired us to do one of our own.

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Because the event with General Petraeus went so well, this April, Georgetown will play host to two big-name conservatives: Karl Rove, brought to you by Lecture Fund, and Newt Gingrich, who is coming to campus as part of his premier tour for his new movie, Nine Days that Changed the World.

These Republican heavy-hitters will visit Georgetown within just two days of each other. Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, will be here on Monday, April 19, and Rove, who was former President George W. Bush’s adviser, is coming on April 21.

According to Student Activities Commission minutes, Rove’s typical speaking fee is $35,000, but Lecture Fund bargained him down to $8,000. SAC allocated them $8,500 for fees, security, and additional costs in a 5-3-3 vote in early February.

Alicia Melvin, an event coordinator for the April 19 movie screening, confirmed that Gingrich would be present at the screening, which is being sponsored by the Catholic Students Association and co-sponsored by the Georgetown College Republicans.

The screening will take place at at 7 p.m. in the ICC Auditorium. Rove will speak at an unknown time in the Lohrfink Auditorium in the Hariri Building.

That headline is a little misleading—due to a quarrel between Clear Channel, the administrators of the SmartBike bike-sharing program, and the City, it’s unlikely that Georgetown will get a SmartBike station any time soon.

Nonetheless, two House Republicans,  Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), are saying that the very idea of providing Georgetown residents with free bicycles was one of the “11 worst pork-barrel projects of the 111th Congress,” according to Fox News.

Kirk and Price don’t have all their facts straight—they allege that the stimulus provided Georgetown with $3 million in funding for bicycle racks, when in fact Georgetown was merely named as one of 40 new SmartBike locations in a $3 million dollar expansion of the program (and the bike racks came with actual bikes)—but something tells me we would have made their worst-of list either way.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) railed against bikes for wealthy Georgetown residents back in March, too, at which time the League of American Bicyclists made an argument for considering bike funding as a “stimulus project.”

What else made this list? “$550,000 for a skateboard park in Pawtucket, R.I.,” “$3.8 million for an urban art trail in Rochester, N.Y.,” and “$500,000 for fish food in Missouri, to help defray the costs for state fish farmers.”

Photo from Flickr user M “Annie” Gaddis.

Mitt Romney withdrew from the G.O.P. 2008 primary and Senator John McCain outlined his platform to a crowd of roughly 10,000 people at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) today. Speakers at the thirty-fifth annual CPAC, held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel also included Vice President Dick Cheney and Congressman Ron Paul.

Former Virginia Senator George Allen used his introduction to endorse McCain, saying he was convinced by McCain’s integrity.  When McCain finally entered the room, he was greeting by some booing amid the applause.

“I came to political office as a foot soldier of Ronald Reagan,” McCain said, “and I’m as proud of my political heritage now as I was then.”

McCain discussed many issues from fiscal spending, the Iraq War, abortion and Supreme Court appointees. His remarks on immigration elicited jeering and shouts of “No amnesty!” from the audience.  But when he mentioned tax cuts, the audience gave McCain a standing ovation.

“The first thing I will do is make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and increase tax cuts for corporations from 25 to 35 percent,” he said.

McCain ended the speech with a reference to his past as a war hero.  “I have only found true happiness while serving a cause greater than my self interest…which is our country,” he said, “I love her deeply and never tire of serving her.”

Following Romney’s announcement, some of his supporters traded in their Romney paraphernalia for the McCain posters being handed out.

Photo by Vivian Chen, Contributing Editor

First it was the war in Iraq, then Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay. Now, it’s Tom Foley, who’s been struggling to find an acceptable excuse for his behavior—alcoholism, the priest that supposedly molested him as a child. For the moment, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Even George Will is predicting big things for the Democrats in the upcoming elections. He even compared Foley, and the Republican Party, to Elmer Gantry, the sanctimonius firebrand Preacher and title character of an Upton Sinclair novel.

What’s left for Republicans to do? Well, the New York Times is warning of a possible anti-gay witch hunt on Capitol Hill. Our beloved Pat Buchanan (COL ’61) took the first step down that road on MSNBC earlier this week.

The key quote: “Is it a coincidence that 90 percent of the victims of the priests and the other folks who abuse those altar boys and others, 90 percent of the victims were boys, 90 percent of the perpetrators were men?”

Here’s hoping that, if the Republicans don’t take the high road, it blows up in their face.

Posted by Austin Richardson, Senior Writer