Republican old guard takes aim at Gingrich
Says he damaged the party in 1990s
By Michael Kranish
Globe Staff / December 9, 2011
WASHINGTON - Former senator Alan Simpson recalls with great clarity the day, as he describes it, that Newt Gingrich "lied to the president of the United States'' in budget negotiations with George H.W. Bush. And as new polls show Gingrich soaring to the lead of the GOP presidential primary field, Simpson is ready to share.
"I am ready to tell that story around the United States,'' the Wyoming Republican said.
Simpson is part of the wing of the Republican Party establishment that remembers Gingrich as a disruptive and destructive force, one who caused self-inflicted damage to the party and helped set up President Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection and other Democratic victories.
Now many members of the Republican Party establishment are watching Gingrich's rise with trepidation, fearing a repeat may be at hand. In response, some Republicans have aligned with Mitt Romney, and even those who have not made an endorsement, including Simpson, are hoping to remind voters of Gingrich's record. If it were a movie, it might be called "The Establishment Strikes Back.''
Romney's campaign also has seized upon party fears about Gingrich, arranging a conference call for reporters yesterday with two key establishment backers, John H. Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor, and Jim Talent, the former senator from Missouri, who blasted Gingrich's bombastic ways and said he would be a lightning rod for controversy.
"If the nominee is Newt Gingrich, then the election is going to be about the Republican nominee, which is exactly what the Democrats want,'' Talent said. "If they can make it about the Republican nominee, then the president is going to win.''
The Gingrich forces, however, welcome such attacks because the more he is pilloried by the GOP establishment, the more it bolsters his "outsider'' standing with the Tea Party and undercuts Romney's argument that Gingrich is a creature of Washington.
"The establishment never liked Newt,'' said former US representative Robert Walker of Pennsylvania, one of Gingrich's most loyal lieutenants in the House. Walker said, for example, the party establishment balked at Gingrich's proposal for congressional term limits and was angered by the way he passed over some senior members for committee chairmanships. "A lot of those people ended up very angry at him,'' Walker said.
While Gingrich is surging in the polls, he lags far behind in the most obvious measures of establishment support - endorsements and money. He has been endorsed by only seven members of Congress, compared with Romney's 55, according to a tally by The Hill, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill.
For many members of the party establishment, the turning point in their relationship with Gingrich began in 1990, when Bush negotiated with Congress over a landmark deficit reduction package. Bush decided to break his "Read my lips: No new taxes'' pledge in exchange for spending caps and cuts that would lead to a balanced budget. Sununu, who was Bush's chief of staff, and Simpson, then the Senate minority whip, said in separate interviews that Gingrich, the House minority whip, assured Bush that he supported the package.
But when the deal was unveiled shortly afterward, Gingrich stunned the White House by announcing he opposed it. Bush confronted Gingrich at a party fund-raiser, saying, "You are killing us,'' according to memoirs by former Bush aides.
Alumni of that administration said Gingrich's criticism of the budget deal was a major factor in Bush's failure to win reelection in 1992.
rest at:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/12/09/republican_old_guard_takes_aim_at_gingrich/
