Newt Bets on a Card Check

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) may be a political also-ran, but he is also a genius at repackaging himself for the liberal media. His latest gambit: hiring former Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis to run an Internet campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would enable unions to win workplace certification via signed cards as well as the current method, secret balloting. In a video, Anuzis proclaims that Gingrich has asked him to run a “nationwide New Media” campaign against the legislation.

Enlisting Anuzis, the former candidate for Republican National Committee chairman who happens to own an Internet company, is the kind of modern-sounding move that won Gingrich points in the massive profile that appeared Sunday in The New York Times Magazine . The former House Speaker, reporter Matt Bai wrote, is a “futurist” whose American Solutions Web site “churns out research” on a broad array of issues.” Never mind that Gingrich’s “research” consists almost mainly of leading poll questions (such as, “What should be the focus of government economic policy? “Economic growth and jobs” or “ Redistribution of wealth”),  the answers to which reveal — surprise — that the American people support Gingrich’s ideas over the alternatives by a nine to one margin. So far, the Anuzis card check campaign on AmericanSolutions.com is based on one such question (When given the statement, “Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union,” 77 percent agreed.), with a video that clocks in at 49 seconds, and an online petition that, as of Monday afternoon, had  been signed by 555 people.

Gingrich’ s move is probably more about money than anything. Big business is pumping cash into anti-card check organizations. The latest is Agriculture for a Democratic Workplace, a Website that launched Friday and is funded by no less than 43 corporate agricultural interest groups. Newt has seen the future — and it pays.