As part of the learning makes a Difference Foundation which test innovative learning programs to struggling students learn that they can learn she knows the importance of learning every day. By helping lead a new life a homeless shelter for newborn babies and their families, and the 5 million capital campaign. She has learned the value of giving to others. Jackie is passionate about improving the world, her two chill military and endeavor to inspire others to learn, love and live their lives successfully. As a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate jackie writes with her heart and mind. Noted by the Washington Times for considerable talent in writing, jackies outlook is highly energetic of inspirational and thoughtprovoking. Jackie has authored numerous books including five principles for successful life from our family to yours which she coauthored with her father Newt Gingrich, the essential american 25 25 documents and speeches that every american should read. Should probably start assigning my students. And today our broken america why both sides need to stop ranting and start listening. Jackies work has been on the today show, nuke times magazine come yesterday and the Washington Times. Shes appeared at abc good morning america, cnn campbell brown, the 700 club, ox news channel, fox and friends, sean hannity show, the Strategy Group and the list goes on and on and on. Not least of which this past week where shes been doing numerous interviews for her book where you might have caught her on Tucker Carlson. Any Tucker Carlson fans . [applause] jackies nonprofit activities include serving on the georgia Advisory Counsel for the trusted publicly. She serves on the Advisory Board of genesis a new life. Shes not a chairman of the board of learning makes a Difference Foundation. She works with American Solutions back a company dedicated to issues in american politics. She lived in atlanta with her husband and their children. Lets give a warm welcome to Jackie Gingrich cushman. [applause] okay. Well, thank you, and im thrilled to be here today. Im going to step back a little bit and kind of give you what i wrote this book. I started this book our broken america a little over a year ago and if you are like me, im really concerned about the polarization of this country and im not alone because 86 of americans believe we are to polarize and its a danger for our country. But im a Firm Believer that a country is exceptional, that we are structured differently, that we believe that god has given us rights as individuals. We loaned them to the government and the government doesnt pay properly we have to pull them back. Im a big believer in limited government which informs what im talking about. Keep that in mind. I believe we are today not only requires a political response which is what President Trump is to also quite frankly a cultural response. And thats what it what you talking about because i can only be done on the ground in communities with people like you. And i know you can lead this effort. So let me back up and say about myself and if you read talking about nancy posey being here and the Fifth District and congressmen the bath and how important is to her, and in that it read entire article you will notice that talk about the current district and how it is been in republican hands beginning at 78. I want you to know the j. C. Made a mistake and it is the six district but the six district in send it was not this district. From those you have been about as long as i have, right, you understand its that same district. In the 70s six district was from South Atlanta down to griffin and over to alabama. I grew up in carrollton georgia where my dad was a professor at west georgia college. To be truthfully with the because its only place he could get a job and he had two small kids, okay . But he had a job the college and moved there when i was very, very young. Even though i was a boy i was born in new orleans. All remember is a georgia. In carrollton at the time life was pretty much church and football, and thats all we did went to Church Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night, they do one of the time and with football friday night, right . With the carrollton trojans. That was our life. My very first memory for my dad running for congress. I will back up one more generation because my father was an army brat and his father was a career army officer. He moved around a lot and it was during that process when he really learned about the history of our country and the sacrifices that our soldiers have made on our behalf not only for our country but to free other countries. That he began to understand how important politics is here quite frankly will be engaging on a daily basis in the political world is the civil war but with words. When people get frustrated about how hard it is sometimes, this is so much better than an actual support weve gone through but we have to learn what Margaret Thatcher said. First you win the argument, and then you win the vote. I think too many times we tried to rush through getting the vote with that actually winning the argument. Lets go back to 1974. My first dad ran in 1934 and for those of you who wrote in 1974 he will know what happened during the time of watergate. Talking about impeachment right now. Dad was working very hard. They had come his opponent was a democrat at the time if you can imagine in georgia it was a democratic state. He worked very hard but watergate happened. He knew it would be rough and i remember that night sitting, they were not painted boards, not any digital tv. With people calling in a landline phones from the precincts telling us how many votes were cast. No, yes, yes, yes to my dad would sit there with a legal pad and he would put the numbers down and you would add them up to see where we were. At the end of the night we lost. He had 48. 6 of the vote and he lost. We worked very hard. This was a very big rural district. We spent a lot time in the car, a lot of time in little bitty gas stations on a four way not even a traffic light. We stopped at you were talk to anybody but he lost. The next morning we got up. We went to the factory across a original chickfila and shook hands at the change of shift. He said im Newt Gingrich. I need your support again. He ran again. In 1976 he has worked for two more years. Hes now working again very hard and were out, its a film it then. We dont have babysitters watching a spirit we are out with him sleeping in the car on the way home, exhausted. We take breaks from the can. He works very hard in 1936. He thinks he is a chance and then he notices in the spring there somebody named jimmy carter doing really well and the president ial primaries. He begins to think this may be more difficult than i thought. Its hard enough when youre republican run at the time in georgia but now you have a past governors running as president and what is that going to mean . He sticks with the turkey works really hard. He thinks he has a shot. He drives up the vote in carrollton that day and at the library, he sees buses pulling up and people getting out. He realizes they are not there to vote for someone named Newt Gingrich. He was right. Remember this, the ground game is important. We again get the calls in from the different precincts and counted them all up, very late in the night, he did not win again. By the cut 48. 3 of the vote. Still very close at that time. Jack flint retires in humans get someone seminoles, has different opponent. This time my mother stopped working for you. Shes all and as well. My grandmother comes and stays with us so we can go to school while theyre out campaigning. They camping world hard for an entire year. Again this this is a very rural districts we cant afford theres no social media. We go to radio. We go to smalltown newspapers. We have a site on top of our car that has Newt Gingrich for congress. If you can imagine how embarrassing that was for a teenager, you know how i felt. I had to say the third time was the charm and he won. What i can tell you is i learn persistence matters and give you have to keep working. What i also learned is that ground game matters. You have to get out the vote. You have to make sure people are registered to vote and you have to make sure they can get to vote. You have to make sure you win the argument. Thats what i want to talk about today about winning the argument because we have george is an exceptional state. Ive grown up in georgia conflict in georgia all my life. I raise both my children in georgia. We do live in atlanta. I tried when her kids were very young, can remove some of the smaller . A little smaller town. We didnt and were in atlanta but with such a great state because were we very involved o think i know we understand what government can do and what government cannot do which is quite frankly a lot in what we have to do. But i also know theres a middle in georgia that may be new to george or maybe hasnt been around georgia very long that quite frankly believes all the horrible things they hear about republicans from the news media here quite frankly that makes me sad. I know you are wonderful people. I grew up in the republican party. My fourth of july every year starting at sunrise, we go to fayetteville and some of the places we would walk in the parade but sometimes we would jog in the parade because it was kind of fast. Sometimes we would just write in it. I grew in the republican party. I know you have great hearts. I know we are loving people but im saddened by the fact we constantly get maligned nationally. I i want us to think about selectively how we combat that. So im going to transition from the 70s to hear for those that remember, my father when he was finally elected in 78 the speaker of the Georgian House at the time was tom murphy. When you did in my dads six district is a reason im telling you this. He was not a very happy to have Newt Gingrich as his congressman. He wasnt happy. After the 1990 census at the redistricting because remember this applies to the future as well. As they were redistricting the democrats decided they were going to cut the old sixth district which was again south atlantic down to griffin, west alabama into little bitty pieces in an attempt to get rid of Newt Gingrich. Speaker murphy wanted to get because he hated to have Newt Gingrich as his representative. So they did. At the time my father was on the republican congressman from georgia. They created this new tigers six district. And what happened . Dad walked rent and that everybody here and dad ran for congress in the new six district. That year after election there wasnt just one, there were three additional republican congressman. Thats what tom murphy gets her trying to cut it up. We actually one more which was good. [applause] exactly. But it does remind you of the power of redistricting which is going to happen again so lets keep that in mind. Bad loser and he has a primary right and at this time i joined a college, got my mba, working business valuation and us networking for, youll laugh again, a Wireless CompanyCell Phone Company which at the time the wireless, the phones like as big as they were huge, big bag phones unbelievable and installed in your car, ui cup is amazing. It was enormous. I remember one day i was going to work and i heard this add on the radio about my father against my father talk about how basic am going to paraphrase a terrible person. I thought unused of people say things that is set on a jew. I read was little my dad was in a limousine. We never had a limousine. I had people tell me theyre glad my father lost when i was in Elementary School and glad he wasnt serving. Finally it just really got to me. I i got to work and a cold and i said dad, you havent asked me but im glad to do a commercial for you if you think would help. This is outrageous, outrageous. Hes like i think it will help. I did. I went and did a commercial and i said the truth. Its just not true. Those lies are just not true. Sure enough he won the primary and obviously in the great six district he won in a landslide at that time. That was two years before the republican revolution. I want to talk about the republican revolution because its been 25 years. I dont know if you saw the special on fox, thank you, theres also a miniseries on fox nation if youre interested it look at that as well. Its interesting because they did a couple things that are think a really valuable for us to think about. One is they were specific and heres the things are going to do. It laid out, it was a last, he punched off when they did it very specific. Second it was positive. It wasnt things were not going to let them do what things we were against. It was what are we for, what can we do together. It was positive. The third thing was it drove all the legislative action and, quite frankly, part of what happened i think, that was a huge amount of work. There with you that in 100 days. My dad did this great idea. He has a lot of ideas for those of you who know him, a lot of ideas bittman of them are great. Im not sure if this was great but let me tell you what it was. His idea was see want transparency in the speakership and water to be in front so they decide to do a daily press conference. Which theoretically was a great idea except it turned into a daily let me see if we can get Newt Gingrich with the clip he shouldnt have said. He would be talked about everything and then you get these little snippets of it turned into what can we get newt for. This was around the same time the government is getting shut down and he was the grinch stole christmas, hes never stole christmas, trust me i would know. A lot of things are going on but im not sure the press conference held. This was back to what i want us to think about as a community. If you let someone else control the narrative they get to choose what points they want to say. He would talk for an hour half and pull things out they wanted. He learned from that and he was incredibly persistent so he talks a lot and i talk a lot about cheerful persistence. You have to be persistent because if youre not persistent you will never get anywhere. We all fail. I could tell you about my failures but a note have to go eat lunch eventually so im not going to do that. But you also have to be cheerful because if youre not, no one wants to play with you. Watch future or somebody elses children. The children that are sour and our, hard to get some to play with them. Thats what i want us to think about as republicans, how we can be more cheerful. Heres some of the framework for a broken america, the questions are are we polarized . I think the answer is yes. Is it dangerous for our country . I think it is. Are we a nation exceptional in worth saving . So good, you agree with me. I agree with all those things. How do we save it . Is it true that Many Democrats on the left that out to get President Trump . Benches yes, i think we all know that. This is not a hidden secret. If youre like me after watching the 2016 elections, i was at trump headquarters in new york and i could tell the sound was off but i was watching the tv and i could tell by the body language and expressions of the angered faces that donald trump was going to win, right . Did you notice that . [applause] when they got very upset and looked as if they might cry. And also i could tell when they quit calling states early, i knew in georgia should be called and also new where the votes were and unlike georgia should be called them be called back to george and i like i dont know why george is a called because its done. They wouldnt call, wouldnt call them wouldnt call. Maybe an attempt if california someone some of do Something Different but they couldnt admit it. Then you had the whole, he couldnt have been elected and were so upset we cant go to work or results that we cant go to school or where subset we can do whatever. Quite frankly i have to admit i made a little fun of that. In retrospect i should have and ill tell you why. We didnt stay at home, we didnt cry when barack obama became president. We got up and went to work. Thats what you do. I think we miss an opportunity, i think we miss an opportunity to learn. I think we miss an opportunity to learn, to learn, why . Why . Y with a that upset . Why were they so surprised and what have we not communicated properly . I firmly believe in republican foes. I firmly believe that our foundational structures as as a country and a firmly believe that we can communicate better as a party. I also believe we have to if we want to win this next election and we have a lot at stake. I want to talk about the framework for this book our broken america. One is the new cisgender. When i was little there was news. Information that was given not for very long, and edwin had the same framework. With an over the last few decades, that was how old i am, that has changed. Its no longer news. Its now opinion. Social media, perspective. Not only that but theres so many channels that you had to figure out which ones may or may not be right in which ones are slicing and dicing facts. Quite frankly its really confusing the average person. Think how confusing it is for all of us and we care about politics. Imagine if youre a person that is a single mother goes to work and has to worry about her kids and has to pay the bills and she doesnt have time to think about it. How confusing would that be . We need to think about that. The second thing thats happened is that we become because of this, this news is no longer news, is that we allow, things travel so rapidly that once they take flight in the social media its really hard to get them back and give you a few examples. Im not sure how to fix this quite frankly. I dont have the solution but i know together we can figure this out. Let me give you a couple of examples. In june of 2018 the