On Staten Island today, Newt Gingrich held a town hall for local tea partiers. He was well-received, garnering plenty of applause. And when he and his wife, Callista, signed books afterwards, the line was hundreds of people long.
One thing that struck me was his earnestness in pushing bipartisanship, not a typical theme at tea-party events.
For instance, speaking about the years the budget was balanced while he was speaker, Gingrich remarked, “That was with a liberal Democrat in the White House. . . . [Clinton] claims 90 percent of the credit, and I claim 90 percent of the credit, so we would like 180 percent achievement.”
“But the fact is,” Gingrich added, “if he hadn’t signed it, then it wouldn’t have worked, and if I hadn’t passed it, it wouldn’t have worked. So it did take a bipartisan approach to get the country moving again.” Later on, in response, to a questioner, he was even blunter in his praise of Clinton: “We couldn’t have gotten done what we did without Clinton,” he said.
How to do that, Gingrich suggested, involved welcoming “every Democrat who likes paychecks,” “every Democrat who likes American energy,” and “every American who believes in the Declaration of Independence.”
He spoke about having to attract Democratic votes to stay in Congress during his early years as House member in Georgia, and referred to working to get Democratic votes in the ’80s to pass Reagan’s initiatives. “I grew up in politics learning a lot about how you build bipartisan coalitions,” Gingrich observed.
Perhaps that’s why Gingrich values so highly what he called the “little things” that could help restore goodwill in Washington among Democrats and Republicans, such as “having the right picnic for families, having the families with children bring the kids over, having people fly on Air Force One … phone call on a birthday.”
“There are a thousand small things that create bipartisanship even if you disagree about big things,” Gingrich said. “And it’s really important to remember that, all the little human things that a good leader can do to get the city of Washington to work again. Tragically, none of them are being done by the current team.”
"Tragically," eh?
I do not believe the American people have it in them to listen to Newtblather for years on end. You Newties better be fine with Obama, because that is what we will get if you prevail.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSpot on, Hardcastle.
These are surely the same people who loved all the laughable Senate candidates that went down in flames and cost us the Senate majority in 2010 (which, BTW, is how you got Obamacare).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAre Steyn and others goimg to continue to diagram all of Newt's sentences, seeking evidence he's for big government in his overuse of adverbs? A lot of pols sound like they are reading from self help manuals.
I still don't understand people who think Romney is somehow more conservative than Gingrich. I don't think it's even close.
I'm not saying Gingrich has been perfect but I never thought I'd see pundits claiming he's to the left of Romney.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe's probably more conservative socially(at least as far as other people's lives are concerned) but his instincts and life experience are more technocratic/bureaucratic/statist/etc.
To the extent we are stuck with having a technocrat, I'd rather have Romney who is probably smarter and more capable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCallista is his current wife, right? Number three, is it? And since we're talking about traditional marriage, when is she due again?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDid he REALLY have the gall to talk about rides on Air Force 1?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCAPTCHA: gravy train. That fits Newt well.
Funny that he should mention Air Force One rides. I recall a certain Speaker of the House during the 1990's having a full-on temper tantrum because he wasn't allowed to ride in the front of the plane.
How mature.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWait, he's bringing up flying on Air Force One again?!!!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf Newt wins the Presidency he will definitely have a GOP House and it would seem most likely he will have a GOP Senate as well.
Yet, here he is pushing bipartisanship? Why is that even in his brain at this point? He should be relishing the idea of pushing a conservative agenda in the first two years, after the prior administration goes down in solid defeat as a one-termer.
Instead, he thinks he can make nice with Reid and Schumer, Pelosi and Hoyer?
This is classic DC mentality from being around the city your whole life.
Instead of seeing the other side as opponents with an agenda that is bad for the country and that must be defeated, Newt sees friends he has wined and dined with over the years who have some good points and are worthy of a strong contribution to his agenda.
Either that, or he stupidly thinks rides on Air Force One is all it takes to get liberals on board a conservative agenda.
Didn't Bush try this when he invited Ted Kennedy to the White House for a private screening of that Bay of Pigs movie? How did that go, conservatives?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePerhaps he believes that through effective relationship building across parties will allow him to work around the Reid, Schumer, Pelosi, and Hoyer's ideological and legislative blockade. If you need people to act contrary to what their party bosses want, then you need to provide them not just with good reason but engender good will.
There is something to say for that.... of course, you have to select the right people on the other side. IT won't work with everyone especially die-hard ideologues. People like Kennedy, in your example, expect to be treated in special ways. You can't just focus on the "leadership" but you need to undermine them by developing relationships with the "back benchers."
In any case, it never hurts to engender good will.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Steve... "Yet, here he is pushing bipartisanship? Why is that even in his brain at this point?"
Remember this is NEWT we're talking about. He spends his entire life being Newt, steeped in Newtness.
If he ascends to the presidency, he will never be content with simply running a competent administration. He will (and probably already does) picture himself as a colossus standing astride the world, transforming the entire course of human history with his unique combination of scintillating brilliance and sweeping fearless vision.
A Newt presidency would be a study in megalomania for the ages. Decades from now, succeeding administrations would still be working to repair the damage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"If he ascends to the presidency, he will never be content with simply running a competent administration. He will (and probably already does) picture himself as a colossus standing astride the world, transforming the entire course of human history with his unique combination of scintillating brilliance and sweeping fearless vision. An ..... presidency would be a study in megalomania for the ages. Decades from now, succeeding administrations would still be working to repair the damage."
Not that smart to say that about Newt when it's actually such a brilliant portrait of Øbama.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMust Republicans be forever stupid?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseReagan, Bush I and II, and many other Republicans have tried bipartisanship, only to end up discarding their principles.
Name one Democrat President that tried bipartisanship.
Republicans never stop trying to kick Lucy's football.
Suckers.
Steve Wright wrote, “ This is classic DC mentality from being around the city your whole life.”
Quite right. Newt’s statements sounds like he wants to turn Air Force One into a free pony ride at a picnic. And as is typical with Newt speak, it’s all grand and under the guise of “goodwill”. Except it isn’t free, the taxpayers pay for that plane.
Americans don’t want to hear ideas about government spending more money on picnics, gatherings and events just so Washington will function properly, especially fiscally conservative Americans. Fiscal conservatives want government to retrench whenever and wherever possible.
Washington needs less thinkers like Newt who instinctually go to the tactic of offering goodies to influence opinion. This is not the actions or principles of a good leader.
Couple that with Newt’s last leadership role in Washington ending very badly, these statements warn of Newt’s judgments and leadership.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think it's nice that Newt wants to give Chuck Schumer a birthday present. Maybe he can pick something up at Tiffany's.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf Newt is pushing bipartisanship right now, that is a red flag for the general election, much less a Gingrich presidency. If all it takes is a little bipartisanship, we'd have had a budget deal without a "supercommittee." And if Democrats are such fine people, what's the whole point of trying to elect more Republicans anyway? If all it takes is a little good-will and talking, couldn't a Republican minority make good-faith proposals that their Democratic brethren would be more that glad to accept? Are the people who passed Obamacare in the manner they did really nothing more than just a bunch of reasonable people that you just have to know how to talk to the right way?
Republican reach-out is poison for our republic. Bush destroyed his presidency and laid the groundwork for the Democrat supermajorities that passed Obamacare by slavishly following it. Boehner's strategy of reaching out to Obama rather than publicly arguing with him has only exacerbated our problems and strengthened Obama politically. Of all the things I don't want to hear from a Republican candidate, bipartisanship tops the list.
Newt's praise of Clinton is absurd. Clinton demagogued the budget shutdown shamelessly, and engaged in the most disgraceful opportunism to vilify his political adversaries after the Oklahoma City bombing. He signed the welfare reform act under duress. He tried to stand in Newt's way as much as he possibly could. If Newt is sugar-coating Clinton in his memory, that is idicative of delusion.
Newt got where he is, despite his well-recognized faults, by taking the fight to the media and Obama. If he's calling off the dogs already, that is incredibly unintelligent, though classically Republican.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGood points.
Make no mistake: Gingrich's calls for "bipartisanship" means that if he is (heaven forbid) elected president, he will be working with his pals Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer to pass global warming, mass amnesty for illegal aliens and other liberal schemes.
The fact that he is peddling this now right of front of Tea Partiers is astounding and the height of arrogance.
Wake up people. Gingrich is the trojan horse candidate who is not even hiding.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDoesn't Joe Cor show how bipartisanship works -- Gingrich and Clinton really fought, but they came together to balance the budget (not a bad accomplishment -- when else has that been done in living memory?) and for welfare reform (which was basically a Republican reform, doing away with welfare state entitlements).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe didn't learn a thing from running an old, fat white guy last time? We want to try it again?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMcCain isn't fat. He weighs 160, 170 at the most.
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