SALON

Wednesday, May 18, 2011 4:23 PM UTC

What the GOP is really trying to tell Newt

The last three days have shown that the ex-speaker's political "rehabilitation" was always a myth

By

Topics: 2012 Elections, War Room,

What the GOP is really trying to tell NewtHouse Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia is shown in this March 13, 1995 photo in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Credit: Associated Press)

For the past decade, much of the press and political commentariat — present company very much included — bought into and advanced a notion that, it has become clear these past few days, was probably never true: That Newt Gingrich, after flaming out as House speaker and leaving Congress in 1998, had somehow managed to reinvent himself as a freshly relevant Republican leader for the 21st century.

The reality of the last 10 years or so, it now seems, goes more like this. After emerging from a brief post-speakership exile (with a new, much younger wife by his side), Gingrich was welcomed back to the political world and afforded a prominent place in it … by news and talk-show hosts and producers, political journalists, and other media figures who understood that the former speaker’s title, broad name recognition, polarizing personality, and tendency to alternate between wild bombast and surprising reasonableness were good for business. But actual Republican Party leaders? They tolerated his lingering presence because he generally toed the party line and seemed far more interested in making money than in running for office again or seeking any kind of official role in GOP politics; how much harm could he really do? But that didn’t mean they were happy he was “back” — or wanted him anywhere near, say, a presidential race.

This has become obvious since Sunday, when Gingrich made his 35th appearance on “Meet the Press” –and his first since announcing his candidacy for president. By now, you probably know what happened: Gingrich called Rep. Paul’s Ryan’s Medicare proposal — the one that virtually every House Republican voted for last month and that Democrats are pledging to base their ’12 campaign on — “radical” and opined that “I don’t think that right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.”  In the 72 hours or so since then, Gingrich has been slammed by Rush Limbaugh and branded a has-been by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and his campaign has already been declared “over” by Charles Krauthammer. And that’s just a taste of it.

The backlash has been staggering. Has a mainstream politician ever announced his presidential candidacy and been greeted by such widespread intraparty condemnation? It’s possible to argue that this is primarily the result of Newt’s Ryan plan faux pas — that if hadn’t attacked a plan that Republican opinion-shapers and voters passionately support, he wouldn’t be on the receiving end of all of this grief. There’s surely plenty to this.

But it also feels like something bigger is going on here — that Republican leaders and activists are using Newt’s flub as an opportunity to say something that’s been on their minds for a lot longer: Get lost!

Here, the comment from Haley, the 39-year-old South Carolina governor who was just a few months out of Clemson University when Newt became speaker in January 1995, to her home state newspaper seems telling: “There was a place and time for him.” I’ll bet this attitude preceded the current controversy — and is fairly common among influential conservatives. Gingrich gained international fame when Republicans won the House in 1994 and was a towering figure in American politics through the end of 1998. But even in that time, his act got old with his fellow Republicans, some of whom nearly ousted him as speaker in the summer of 1997. When he stepped down after the 1998 midterms — an election, don’t forget, in which Republicans lost seats in the House even though a Democrat was president — there was a palpable sense of relief among his GOP colleagues in Washington, and Republican leaders across the country, who had felt the weight of Newt’s poisonous poll numbers for several years.

When he reemerged a few years later, most Republicans had little use for Newt. But they never had to tell him so — until he went ahead and jumped in the presidential race. Now he’s threatening the party’s brand in a way he hadn’t for the last decade. In this sense, the GOP’s hostile and aggressive response to his Medicare comments can be likened to Democrats’ reaction to John Kerry’s “botched joke” about Iraq in the days before the 2006 midterms. Was the Kerry controversy mainly manufactured? Sure. But Democrats were in no mood to rush to his defense. For one thing, the midterms were days away and they didn’t want to make the story any bigger. But there was something more: Kerry was making it clear that he wanted to run for president again in 2008 — an idea that most Democratic leaders hated. They wanted him gone from the national stage, and now they had an opening to deliver that message. Kerry, by most accounts, was humbled by the lack of public support his party gave him, and soon decided not to run again. Problem solved.

If anything, Republicans are even more eager to be rid of Newt now. It remains to be seen if, like John Kerry five years ago, he’ll get the message.

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 20 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
270 points271 points | 243 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
250 points251 points | 18 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
213 points214 points | 31 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
79 points80 points | 16 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
81 points82 points | 7 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations