freecounterpoint: Our Bubba

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Our Bubba

7 comments:

Tecumseh said...: Hillyer: As for his role in gaining the majority for the GOP in 1994, it was of course significant. I was there; I will always credit him for that. Alas, he claims TOO much credit. The Contract with America, for instance, was more the brainchild of Kerry Knott (Armey's aide, who came up with the first version of it while on a weekend clear-his-mind getaway at Morton Blackwell's country house) than anybody else. The insistence on passing welfare reform (rather than giving up on it after two vetoes and using it as a campaign issue instead) came from the bottom up, with folks like Santorum, John Kasich, Bill Archer, and Clay Shaw deserving more of the credit than Gingrich.

As for Appropriations, Bob Livingston went beyond what Newt even asked in pursuit of a balanced budget, and so did Kasich. But Gingrich almost ruined the whole thing by agreeing with Bill Thomas to include an unnecessary Medicare provision into the "shutdown" battle, thus giving fodder to Clinton and muddying the waters. Gingrich's foot-in-mouth-itis clearly helped cost conservatives both in the PR department and in the 1996 presidential race; his conduct of the impeachment inquiry turned it, politically, into a major met minus instead of the net plus it should have been; and his utter capitulation on spending in the fall of 1998 (in order to buy off moderates for what turned out to be irrelevant demands for the actual shape of the impeachment inquiry) blew the lid off the spending progress made in the previous three years and set the scene for the Bush spendathon.
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Rick Santorum was absolutely right that the House Bank scandal and other scandals (House Post Office, etc.) did at least as much to help the GOP take over in 1994 as the Contract with America or other semi-Gingrichian plans did (most of the public didn't hear of the Contract until after the election) -- and it was the Gang of Seven, led by Boehner and Santorum, who exposed the Bank scandal. Yes, Gingrich did help with that, but since he himself had effectively kited 22 checks, including to the IRS, his role was diminished. Indeed, it was largely due to that scandal that Gingrich himself came within less than 1,000 votes of losing his own House seat.; 1/24/2012 10:41 PM
Tecumseh said...: In case you wonder, no, Hillyer is not a RINO Establishmentarian stooge, but a regular shmoe from Nawlins who graduated from G-town, and went on to become the "Oracle of Mobile".; 1/24/2012 10:48 PM
Tecumseh said...: Rubio a RINO turncoat?; 1/25/2012 10:05 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: There's been some talk of Romney sounding out Rubio for the VP slot. Maybe the guy's just protecting his turf?; 1/25/2012 10:35 PM
Tecumseh said...: Perhaps yes, perhaps not. But Mitt was there with money and support when Rubio had just started his challenge to Crist, so now Rubio is partly reciprocating. It's the honorable thing to do, especially when Newt is attacking Romney in a classical lefty fashion over his illegal immigration stance as being "amazingly insensitive to the realities of the immigrant community".; 1/26/2012 1:05 AM
Tecumseh said...: Elliott Abrams -- one of Reagan's chief foreign policy lieutenants -- has a different recollection of how things went at the time...; 1/26/2012 1:07 AM
Tecumseh said...: Tyrrell piles up on the Newt=Bubba trope.; 1/26/2012 1:58 AM

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