Why Newt is scary...

It's been an interesting few days in US politics (and apologies for Washminster's absence - a mixture of a trip to Norfolk; parties in Northampton; family visits to my home - and filing returns to the taxman!). With the Florida primary a few days away - some who want a Republican victory in November's presidential election have been panicked by the thought that Newt Gingrich might be gathering enough momentum to seize the nomination. So what are they worried about?

Newt is a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. Significantly he was the FIRST Republican Speaker for 40 years (Trivia Question - who was the previous Republican Speaker? - I will publish the answer just after 5am GMT tomorrow morning). That amazing victory owed much to the work of Newt. He changed the mindset - and the tactics of House Republicans. So why are many Republicans so ungrateful?

David Frum wrote this week "It's striking that almost none of Gingrich's former colleagues in the House has endorsed him for president. Striking that nobody associated with a past Republican presidential association has done so. He is a candidate of talk-show hosts and local activists -- and of course of Rick Perry and Sarah Palin -- but not of those who know him best and have worked with him most closely. Gingrich may raise more money after his South Carolina win. But prediction: Romney will raise even more, among the great national network of Republicans who recognize that to nominate Gingrich is to commit party suicide."
I have to admit that I think Newt is brilliant - he has an understanding (partly academic - but also an amazing instinctive feel) for what works in MASS seduction. He has learned & deploys all the tricks and techniques to motivate and mobilise people for his agenda. A word of warning - admiring someone for their brillance is NOT the same as endorsing that person or finding his actions at all acceptable. I am also in awe of Hitler for a similarly high level of brillance in the same area. I wholly reject his philosophy and his actions. [by the way today is Holocaust Memorial Day]

Anyone interested in political communication should study Newt - and citizens need to protect themselves by studying the techniques he uses. He puts a lot of emphasis on the use of language - his memo to Republican candidates (the 1996 GOPAC) on Language as a key mechanism of control is very important.
It can be read here. His use of C-SPAN (unwitting collaborators) to frame viewers impressions of Congress and his opponents was masterful. As Newt himself is reported to have said "My ability to organize and orchestrate things would be vastly greater than a normal politician."-- (CBN News). Gingrich understands (and many politicians don't) that you can't persuade everyone to love you. Gingrich will never win the support of committed lerals and progressives. He has his "targets" and seeks to mobilise them.
Jon Meacham wrote this week in an article 'Why Newt is Like Nixon' "The analogous elements are obvious. Like Nixon, Gingrich is smart, with a wide-ranging and entrepreneurial mind. Like Nixon, Gingrich is a striver who seems insecure around traditional establishment figures even though he has achieved much more than nearly all of the politicians, editors and reporters he seems to at once loathe and fear. Like Nixon, Gingrich is fluent in the vernacular of cultural populism, brilliantly casting contemporary American life in terms of an overarching conflict between 'real' people and distant 'elites' bent on the destruction of all that is good and noble about the United States."

As Frum highlighted, the fear amongst some Republicans is that he could win the nomination - and while he has a strong following - he also will provoke an angry reaction. Like Goldwater (1964) and McGovern (1972) the party may suffer a humiliating loss in the Presidential election. Worse still for the Republicans, his candidacy could sink GOP congressional candidates - Bob Dole (Republican Presidential Candidate in 1996) issued a statement this week saying - "I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway." He added: "In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand -- that was a symbol of some sort for him -- and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I'm not certain he knew either."

So should supporters of Obama be backing Gingrich in Florida? A few months ago no one thought he could ever be the most popular candidate amongst Republican voters (A Gallup tracking poll this week shows Gingrich six points ahead on the rest of the Republican field!) - is Newt clever enough to win a national race? (remember his achievement in the 1994 congressional elections).

Contenders

I've mentioned in a number of recent posts how interesting and informative I have found the C-SPAN series "The Contenders" to be. Having finished listening to (I've received them as podcasts - but the full television programme can be viewed on the internet) the programme on Barry Goldwater - I have gone on to listen to the ones on Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. As a result I've added the 1968 and 1972 "Making of a President" to my short term reading list.





(Both are also available as Kindle ebooks)

93rd Congress

Election Day (November 7th) 1972 saw a massive landslide for the incumbent President, Richard Nixon. He carried 49 States - winning 520 votes in the Electoral College. His Democratic opponent, George McGovern gained just 17 Electoral College votes on 37.5% of the popular vote. He didn't even win his own state of South Dakota.

On the face of it, Nixon couldn't have done better - but problems were not far from the surface. The greatest, the Watergate Scandal, was growing - and just 20 months later Nixon had become the first US President to resign in disgrace. The Vice President elected that November day (Spiro Agnew) was himself out of office after being charged with bribery and pleading "no contest"  to a single charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income received in 1967.

The Watergate scandal involved the bugging of the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Building in Washington DC. The arrest of the burglars in the office occured on June 17th - and the conversation which was to bring down Nixon occured on June 23rd - accessible here. Watergate was to dominate the work of the 93rd Congress.

The elections of November 7th 1972 had not been as bad for the Democrats as the disastrous Presidential Election. They lost 13 seats in the House of Representatives, but still held a comfortable position with 242 seats to the Republicans' 192. (51.7% of the popular vote - down a mere 1.3%). In the Senate the democrats gained a net two seats - resulting in a 56-42 split. Joe Biden was one of the newly elected senators who defeated a Republican. The Senate results though saw the Democrats' popular vote fall by 6.9% while the Republicans increased their popular vote by 12.5%.

Before the Congress came into existence, the ruling Democratic caucus had elected Tip O'Neill as the new Majority Leader. It has also made changes to the seniority rules which were to be further reformed at the start of the 94th Congress. New members entered the House which set the scene for major changes in the House's  practices. In February the Democratic caucus voted to to require all House Committee hearings to be open (unless for National Security or Personal matters). A bipartisan committee was set up under Richard Bolling to consider reforms to the House Rules - which recommended major changes, but this was sidelined by the Democratic caucus. Instead the matter was referred to the Hansen Committee - which was more modest.

Congress had already attempted to investigate aspects of Watergate. An earlier Washminster post has considered the investigation in the summer of 1972 by the Committee on Banking and Currency. It ended its investigation - but the 93rd Congress saw the establishment of the Ervin Committee in February 1973. The hearings were televised. In 1974 the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee were authorised to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach President Nixon.

It was also in Congress that the fate of Agnew was sealed. He had come under investigation in August 1973 after a federal Grand Jury looking at claims that Maryland public officials had received kickbacks from architects and engineers who had gained contracts for public works projects, had found evidence of payments to the (former) Governor of the State. In order to forestall indictment, Agnew came up with the idea of submitting his case to the House of Representatives. While he could face impeachment, the process could have been dragged out for many months. In late September he called on the Speaker, Carl Albert, and requested that the House, rather than the Baltimore grand jury, judge his case. There was an 1826 precedent for this. Tip O'Neill, who was later to be Speaker, was sceptical of the request. An attempt by Albert to the Judiciary Committee was out-manouevered by O'Neill. Days later Agnew resigned the vice-presidency. A detailed description of the events can be found in John A Farrell's "Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century".



The 93rd Congress also passed much legislation - the most well known today being the War Powers Resolution. It was vetoed by Nixon - but the veto was overridden on 7th November 1973. A Congressional Research Service paper on the topic - prepared in 2004 - is available here.