The Big Difference Between 1995 and Now

One more point about Speaker Boehner and the Republicans as we approach a possible shutdown: this is very different than 1995-1996. Newt Gingrich, unlike Boehner now, really did believe that Bill Clinton was going to fold; his entire strategy for the year was to play chicken with Clinton, who he mistakenly saw as a weakling.

Newt, too, really was coming off of a stunning electoral victory. Bill Clinton's approval ratings were fairly similar to where Barack Obama is now, but where we sit in the electoral cycle is totally different, since the most recent election was an Obama-reelection in which Democrats gained seats in both Houses of Congress. In other words, it wasn't nuts for Republicans to believe that the will of the voters was on their side. It was wrong -- but not totally nuts.

Moreover, in 1995 Republicans had an understandable sense that anything was possible -- they had done something everyone had told them was impossible. Not just that -- but Newt had led them to an electoral victory everyone told them was impossible. In real life, sure, not everyone thought it was impossible, and Newt had very little to do with it, but that they thought otherwise wasn't nuts....well, I suppose it's not exactly rational to believe that your leader has magic powers, not to mention that falling for Newt's snake oil has never been very smart, but it was in a lot of ways a normal (incorrect) reaction to events. In that sense, comparing it to 2010 doesn't get at it at all; sure, there were some overenthusiastic Democrats who claimed that 2008 was the dawn of a solid Democratic era, but 2010 was far less of a shock than 1994 had been.

Put it all together, and it makes this fall very different from 1995. It still doesn't mean that we won't get a shutdown...plenty of factors make it hard to make a deal, even if leaders on both sides want one. But in 1995 Republicans sprinted off the cliff, following and in many cases believing a leader who promised them they could float on air. That's not where they are this time.

Catch of the Day

Yes, you all know I'm an easy mark for a little Newt-bashing. And Ed Kilgore delivers very nicely, with a great history lesson about the snake-oil salesman. 

Very nice:

The example they offer is the conservative battle against the Panama Canal Treaty, which failed to stop the “giveaway” in the U.S. Senate, but led (say Shirley and Gingrich without a single shred of empirical evidence) to GOP gains in 1978 and then to Reagan’s victory in 1980.

I think there’s a bit of projection going on in this column, at least for the Newtster. While Reagan’s visibility in the Panama fight did keep him in the public eye following his narrow loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican presidential nominating process, he was already the universally acknowledged leader of the conservative movement and the putative front-runner for 1980. As for Republican gains in 1978 and 1980, there were a few other things going on (e.g., “stagflation”) that were vastly more important than the Panama Canal, which was pretty much forgotten as an issue once the treaty was ratified. But there was one politician whose rise to national power was intimately associated with the Canal fight: Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich did two things extremely well in his political career. One was duping House conservatives into accepting him as their leader, despite the plain facts that (1) he wasn't anything close to a true believer, and (2) he was temperamentally ill-suited for leadership. Both of which were plainly evidence to anyone paying attention. The other, and very relevant here, was to convince everyone in Washington that he was responsible for the 1994 Republican landslide.

So I like Kilgore's idea that Newt has convinced himself (or is pretending; it doesn't really matter, and it's probably all the same for a huckster like him) that it was Panama that got Republicans elected in 1980, and that therefore Republicans should find some battle to lose now in order to win in 2014 and 2016.

Of course, there's plenty more to this, including that the party Newt is giving advice to now is a Newtified party which does practically nothing except picking losing fights.

And that even if "pick a losing fight" was good advice, presumably there's more to it than that -- there must be particular types of losing fights to fight. Newt might even have something to say about shutting down the government in order to fight for a party's principles.

Oh, and the underlying column is pretty funny, by the way, even without any of that. Newt and Craig Shirley are arguing that the Canal fight was critical because Republicans were standing by their principles. Yet, if you think about it, it's an odd principle indeed that was absolutely critical in 1978 but utterly forgotten once Republicans regained the White House in 1980. It's almost as if Newt doesn't know the difference between principle and expediency. Which, of course, is one of the things that Kilgore gets to with his history of Newt in the 1970s.

At any rate: as I've said many times, the most important thing to realize about all of this is that the current Republican Party isn't so much the party of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, as it is the party of Nixon and Gingrich.

And: nice catch!

Catch of the Day

Kevin Drum listened to the disgraced former Speaker saying about anti-terrorism methods that "people will tolerate it as long as it's genuinely secret." Drum:

Yeah, I guess people will tolerate just about anything as long as they don't know it's happening. This is why Newt is the philosopher king of the Republican Party.

The thing is: Tom P. Baxter (as I like to call him) has always been exactly that same kind of fraud, and it was pretty clear from his presidential campaign that just about every party actor from the precinct level on up knew it, but yet they're still perfectly happy to parade him for the rubes he specializes in fleecing. I mean, we're right to laugh about it, but we also know that Republicans do seem perfectly willing to pretend that Newt is a Wise Man of Conservatives, when they actually know that he's not only not wise, but not particularly committed to being conservative, either.

At any rate: Nice catch!

Catch of the Day

Okay, it's just as much trivia as CotD, but Reid Wilson deserves something for noticing one thing -- really two things -- about the newly elected Mark Sanford:

Mark Sanford will join 10 other members of the class of 1994 in Congress when he's sworn in

Weirdly, Sanford will be the 3rd member of the class of '94 to return this Congress after taking time off (Stockman and Salmon, too) 

I've written about Newt babies vs. Watergate babies before (and also sparked by a Reid Wilson item; I guess we share an interest). I don't think this late-in-the-day revival for the '94ers will really do much to change the overall verdict, which is that it's not a class that has much to be proud of.

I'll finish by stealing my conclusion from the last time I wrote about the class of 1995, as I called it:

Of course, any similarity of the class of 1995 and Newt Gingrich in wild but unfocused ambition, lack of interest in the substance of governing, and/or scandal in private life is surely a coincidence.

I Hate When I Agree With Newt About Anything

Yeah, he's right about this:

At a National Review breakfast briefing on Thursday, Gingrich called the RNC’s push for regional primaries and a limited number of primary debates is a “total waste of time.” It’s one of the few parts of the RNC’s post-election report where he disagrees with the party’s recommendations. 

The regional primary thing, Newt says, is a waste of time because it's not going to happen. He's right! It's not going to happen; it's also very difficult to see why it's a particularly good thing, even if it was possible.

As far as debates, Newt obviously has a dog in that fight given that his entire campaign basically consisted of insulting debate moderators and knowing that a large chunk of the GOP consists of easy marks who fall for that sort of theatrics. Still he's right: you really don't want to nominate someone who can't handle national televised debates (and you probably do want to give your nominee some practice with it).

Fortunately, in the linked story, Newt then goes on to spout nonsense about Lincoln-Douglas debates and some other stuff. But he's basically correct about the other stuff.

Today in Comic Relief

Sure, there's war, and unemployment, and all sorts of other terrible things...but at least we get the unreported story of the 2012 nomination battle: that Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich almost formed a unity ticket to take on Mitt Romney.

Okay, granted, there's apparently less to this than meets the eye, or at least the headline ("nearly toppled Romney"). The story (nicely reported by Joshua Green) is apparently that in the run-up to the Michigan primary, the Santorum campaign pushed the disgraced former Speaker to drop out and endorse the struggling defeated Pennsylvania Senator. Newt, with typical Newtness, instead tried to get Santorum to go for a "Unity" ticket with Newt on top. The negotiations got as far as face-to-face meetings between the candidates, but eventually fell apart.

Now, this was after Santorum's big day on February 7 in which he posted surprise victories in Colorado and Minnesota caucuses and a Missouri beauty contest...it was at the high point of the Santorum campaign. But it was also a month after Romney had pretty much locked up the nomination. More to the point, there was no large Gingrich constituency ready to follow him to Santorum; to the contrary, if they had really named a Santorum-Gingrich ticket it's extremely likely that Santorum would have drawn fire from the large portion of the GOP who didn't want Newt anywhere close to the White House.

The truth is that if party actors wanted Rick Santorum, they would have rallied to him, and they very much did not. They did not after his win in Iowa; they did not after his CO/MN/MO big day. Even in the extremely unlikely even that a Newt endorsement would have been enough to push him past Romney in Michigan (Santorum lost 41/38 there, with Newt pulling 7%), Romney still would have won the day by winning the Arizona primary. And party actors still wouldn't have rallied to Santorum. Especially not to Santorum/Gingrich.

As for Gingrich/Santorum...well, if there's one thing that was clear from the beginning of the nomination process to the end it's that practically everyone who ever knew or worked with Newt Gingrich thought he would be a simply awful presidential candidate, much less president. And while many of them were willing to play along up to a point, every time he had any momentum at all they came out of the woodwork to make sure that whatever debacle Republicans would suffer through in 2012, at least it wouldn't be that debacle.

I'll give the last word to Jonathan Chait:

This is not surprising: Gingrich is always making elaborate historical arguments, and they always seem to justify his political self-interest at any given moment. If Santorum were really clever, he would have accepted the vice-presidential spot and waited for the inevitable Gingrich impeachment — misappropriating funds for jewelry? starting a war with Mars without Senate approval? declaring himself president for life? all the above? — and taken over then as a comparatively reassuring figure. Sadly, the world will never know.

Catch of the Day/Tom P. Baxter Update

David Leonhardt:

Five and counting: consecutive @newtgingrich tweets on driverless cars.

Oh, gosh, it's worth giving you this:

Catherine: I realize no one can actually predict the future, but I understand you have a unique insight into where we might be headed as we approach the turn of the century.

Tom: Yeah, I do. As I see it, Catherine, the future of business, well, the future of this country in fact is... computers.

Catherine: Computers. Okay, would you care to elaborate on that?

Tom: Oh, you bet! I think computers are great! You can keep records on them, play games. They're, well, they're like magic.

Catherine: Uh-huh...

Tom: I mean, I don't have one yet. But I'm gonna get one, you better believe that.

Catherine: What exactly do you do for a living, Tom?

Tom: Well, I'm between things right now, but all that's gonna change just as soon as I get a computer!

And:

We're doing a #newtu course on driverless cars. Any specific areas you would like us to cover?

Would you use a driverless car? Why or why not? We're making a #newtu course on this. Share your ideas.

What are some creative ways for us to use driverless cars? Tweet me your ideas. #newtu

Have you read or seen anything interesting on driverless cars? Tweet it to me, and I might use in my next #newtu course.

RT if you'd ride in a driverless car. I would. #newtu

Clipped from the clip linked above? The part where Jimmy calls Tom P. Baxter a "total fraud."

And: nice catch!

Elswhere: Budget, Newt, Flaps

I'm not cranky any more, but I am disappointed I couldn't get a real argument going over Apes sequels earlier today in comments. So far.

But even though I was easily distracted by attempts to get that going, I did write some other stuff. Over at PP, I wrote about Plain Blog fave Tom P. Baxter (sorry; that's Newt for latecomers) and the conservative information loop. Oh - over the weekend my Salon column argued that dust-ups of the Chuck Hagel sort don't harm presidents, and so they -- and Obama in particular -- should be willing to take more risks. At least certain types of risks.

And at Greg's place today, I listed some of the questions I still have about the budget process over the next few months. That is, through the CR and the debt limit. I have to admit: I'm totally confused by the strategies of both sides, but especially the Democrats.

Catch of the Day

The Catch goes to Steve Kornacki, who points out that Newt Gingrich and Republicans in general have never owned up to being dead wrong about the Clinton tax increases:

The refusal of Gingrich and most other Republicans to grapple with what actually happened in the 1990s is a major reason the GOP has maintained its absolutist anti-tax posture for the past two decades. They’ve alternately credited the 1994 elections, the ’97 capital gains tax cut, and the dot-com bubble with the surpluses of the late ‘90s – anything, it seems, to avoid acknowledging the reality that taxes went up on the rich in 1993, and nothing bad happened.

Which is true.

Except it does depend on how one looks at it.

If you're Newt Gingrich, then the main reality is that taxes went up on the rich in 1993, and it immediately produced disaster...for Speaker Foley and the Democrats. Indeed: from Gingrich's point of view, the Bush tax increases before that produced Bush's defeat in 1992.

Now, in reality, it's far from clear that either of these electoral outcomes were caused by higher taxes (as I read the evidence, the 1992 election outcome was not at all affected by higher taxes; the case for 1994 is a lot more murky). But the "learning" that's so important in politics doesn't depend on or use careful causal analysis. More often than not, everything associated with winning campaigns or electoral cycles gets credit, and anything associated with losing campaigns or electoral cycles gets blame. Especially anything which was those participating in the events believed at the time was a big deal, or have other incentive to believe in.

So, yeah, on substance it's of course absolutely true that Republican claims -- specific, testable claims -- about the effect of the 1993 budget package were completely and totally wrong. But it's very understandable that Republicans learned the opposite lesson from it, because politically it was extremely easy for them to believe that raising taxes was a total disaster for Bill Clinton and Congressional Democrats.

The really scary part? If Republicans were able to conclude that about the 1993 tax increases, in which their policy predictions were clearly way off, just how much more are they likely to believe that the Affordable Care Act was a policy disaster, given that the political (apparent) effects were similar but the policy predictions and effects will presumably be a lot more ambiguous.

At any rate: nice catch!

Q Day 7: Origins of the GOP War on Budgeting?

A commenter asks:

The GOP War budgeting: when did start, and which pols got the ball rolling?

Another good question.

To link back to some earlier stuff...I suppose it goes back to Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. Reagan, because when confronted with policies that added up to bigger budget deficits even though he was a longtime anti-deficit crusader, he was capable of believing that nothing had changed in his positions. And Newt, because he believed in using words that polled well or focused grouped well regardless of whether they had anything to do with underlying policies. And, substantively, because Reagan's flip to embracing supply-side tax cuts and then Newt's role in cementing anti-tax extremism within the party made it necessary to play word games (knowingly or not) in order to remain dedicated to "balanced budgets." I might look, too, at the Ross Perot campaigns, which were extremely heavy on budget deficit talk but entirely empty of deficit reduction planning, other than to automatically oppose any plans that were out there.

Some Republicans during the Bush years played with the notion of giving up the budget rhetoric (Dick Cheney gets cited a lot), but it didn't take, at least for now. I'm not sure, however, whether the real collapse into a war on budgeting comes from the 1980s, the Obama years, or some time between them. If I wanted to research it, I might look at the rhetoric surrounding the George H.W. Bush budget deal and then the Clinton budget package in 1993.

The Newt Legacy

I've thought that Jonathan Chait's just been excellent lately, but I have to nitpick his piece on Newt yesterday. Most of it is fine -- he's right to emphasize the importance of the revolt against George H.W. Bush's deficit reduction package -- but there's some myth-accepting in the last paragraph that I don't want to let pass (my emphasis):

Gingrich was a true pioneer in his recognition that the social norms that governed the behavior of the parties in Washington were an anachronism. The best way for the minority party to regain power, he understood, was a slash-and-burn campaign to discredit the majority. But the methods Gingrich pioneered were harnessed to an ideology, and that ideology retains just as strong a hold over its party today as it did when Gingrich rose to power two decades ago.

It's certainly true that Republicans have all accepted that slash-and-burn is the way to go. The only problem? There's really not any convincing evidence that it's actually a successful strategy.

What happened in 1994 was complicated. Part of it was about external stuff...there was a delayed reaction in the House to the 1990 redistricting (after Democrats held tough seats in a good Democratic year in 1992), which in turn was to some extent just the eventual working out of a regional re-alignment that had been in the works for years. Part of it was just a normal midterm effect. Part of it was probably a sluggish economy. Then there's another major part, which was Bill Clinton's unpopularity. But was that Newt's doing? In my view, no. One large chunk of it should be blamed on Clinton's own miserably bad transition and first several months in office. The credit for the other large chunk should go not to Newt and radical House Republicans, but to Bob Dole and Senate Republicans. It was the Senate, and not the House, that derailed much of Clinton's legislative agenda. And part of it, apparently, was about specific issues, but it's not clear to me that Newt's over-the-top, slash-and-burn rhetoric was responsible for that. Nor is it clear to me that Newt's campaign to vilify the House ever really came to much. I suppose the House bank junk probably did push a few Members into retirement or hurt them electorally, but remember that the bank thing was in 1992, not 1994.

What Newt did brilliantly was claiming credit for the 1994 landslide. No question about that. The opportunity was there: it's true that he was talking about a GOP takeover at a time when very few thought it was likely, either in 1994 or in the relatively near future. But they were wrong. By the 1990s, a Republican House was long overdue, and just because Newt was one of very few on the Hill to realize that (or at least to talk about it being a real possibility) doesn't mean that he was important in making it happen.

That's not to say that out parties shouldn't attack the in party; of course they will, and I'd go so far as to say they should. But there's a big difference between attacking and the Newt strategy of maximum inflated rhetoric on every possible issue and selective attacks on particular issues on which the parties actually disagree.

So, no, neither slash-and-burn nor, for that matter, the Contract with America had much to do, as far as I can see, with the 1994 landslide.

Elsewhere: Tribute to Newt, Blue Dogs Down

At Post Partisan, I take advantage of the end of the Newt Gingrich campaign to take several shots at the disgraced former Speaker. I did not, however, use the words "total fraud." Nor did I call him Tom P. Baxter. Restraint! But I did say several unkind things, as regular readers might imagine.

Over at Greg's place, meanwhile, I talked about the two Members who were defeated in PA Democratic primaries yesterday (one in a Member-Member race). My post there was about the upside for liberals in winning the spin on these races and therefore putting more pressure on Democratic Members of Congress to vote with them. I could also, however, talk about the downside -- nominating candidates who are bad fits for their districts. Calibrating these things correctly can be tricky! But whatever activists choose to do, my general point over there was that it's not just the wins, but also the spin, that matter.

Sorry for the slow blogging around here so far today, but I should be on a regular pace this afternoon, more or less.

Catch of the Day

Will Wilkinson The Economist's J.F. has a wonderful postmortem of Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign:

NEWT GINGRICH does not eat sandwiches; he fundamentally transforms them, radically changing them from solid foodstuff to masticated bolus to energy.

That's how it starts, and it hardly lets up. Frankly.

I'm not sure what's worse: the pundits who bought the Newt thing after South Carolina; the ones who bought Newt during his late fall polling surge; the ones who took him seriously way back when he got in last spring; or the ones who have been warning us that he was a threat to win a GOP presidential nomination every four years beginning in 1996. Either way, the operative quote goes to political analyst extraordinaire Johnny Rotten: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Via Waldman, who adds a nice two cents. Oh, and now that his campaign is over (yes, it is), can I go back to calling him Tom P. Baxter (and I'm not going to be modest: if you enjoyed Wilkinson's post, you'll probably enjoy that one of mine. Holds up nicely, I think).

Nice catch!

(Updated: I had the wrong DiA semi-anonymous blogger. My apologies).

Mississippi, Alabama, and More -- and, Newt Sees Conspiracies

My Plum Line wrap is up. I'm afraid I said what I seem to always say: we stay on the same path, Romney is going to be the nominee unless some external unpredictable major shock happens, but this part of the fight will continue for at least a while.

So I want to talk about Newt Gingrich's message just a bit. Newt's basically peddling a conspiracy theory: the "elite media" (whatever that is) and the GOP establishment have conspired to select a "Massachusetts moderate," but ordinary grass roots Republicans like him with his ordinary grass roots money and his outsider history are going to stop them. Now, put aside how silly it is that a guy propped up with Super PAC money is going around bragging about his small donors, or how the former Speaker who has lived in the Washington DC area for over thirty years is claiming to be an outsider, but consider the message.

Isn't it, as someone might say, profoundly and fundamentally dangerous to the GOP? He's basically saying that the nominee is completely illegitimate, isn't he? Now, here's the thing. I don't believe that it matters very much if a few Newt dead-enders, if there are such folks wind up buying his latest snake oil; it might be a minor negative for eventual nominee Romney, but it's balanced out by having Newt (and Santorum) constantly and visibly calling him out as a moderate -- a minus for now, but presumably a plus in November.

But I do think it's a dangerous idea to begin spreading within the party. So: has it spread beyond Newt? Are talk radio hosts, Tea Party leaders, and other high-visibility Republican leaders are echoing Newt's conspiracy theories? Anyone know?

Newt, To Date

Ignoring the beauty contest in Missouri and taking the ballot vote in the caucus states (which he'll probably underperform in delegate selection, given that he's the least organized of the candidates), here's how Newt Gingrich has done so far by order of finish:

4th, 4th, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 3rd

That's just better than a fringe candidate. I mean, Ron Paul has a couple of second place and a couple of third place finishes, plus at least a plausible case that his delegate totals might be better than his caucus straw poll numbers; Newt can't even get on the ballots or file full delegate slates everywhere.

He could surge again. It doesn't matter. He's not going to be the nominee, he's highly unlikely to be a major factor, and I'm not really convinced he deserves more TV time right now than Ron Paul.

Sunday Question for Conservatives

Is Newt Gingrich helping or hurting his future ability to profit in the conservative marketplace? I'm not really talking about the whole campaign -- just post-Iowa, when he started bashing almost certain nominee Mitt Romney.

What Will Newt Do?

Will Newt fight on to the convention? Will he continue attacking Romney, or will he back off? What are the incentives at play here?

As Ed Kilgore notes, party leaders will presumably now lean on the disgraced former Speaker to "get out of the race—or at a minimum, to play nice." Will he listen? Especially if, as Steve Kornacki argues, at least part of the whole point of his candidacy is to sell more books (and movies, and lectures, and whatever else he can come up with).

One set of questions here is whether GOP leaders would really be willing to threaten to cut Newt off from the institutions that combine to produce conservative respectability, and whether they have the clout to do so. I don't really know the answers to that, but I suspect they mostly can't or won't. It's almost certainly a solid marketing move by Newt, Inc. to attempt to grab the title of The Conservative Leader...and even if those portions of the GOP that care a lot about winning elections may wind up upset with him, those portions which care most about purity and full expressions of conservative "ideas" are going to be very happy with him. It's almost certainly win-win, too: if Romney loses conservative purists will claim that it was because he wasn't conservative enough (and Newt can cash in) while if Romney wins then conservatives will complain that he's betraying them with his moderate policies. And Newt can cash in. (Not saying that Romney will attempt to be a moderate in office, but conservative purists will naturally be disappointed in the results because purists on both sides are always disappointed in the results and almost always blame the president).

Another issue, however, is about market sizes. Remember, you need an enormous number of votes to be elected President of the United States, and quite a few votes to be nominated for that office. But you can make a very good living off of a fairly small number of dupes, as long as they're rich enough and willing to keep shelling out for every new product you come up with.

So all in all I'm not really sure where Newt's incentives lie, other than to say that I'm quite certain that he really, really knows his marks and what works with them.

Read Stuff, You Should

Sorry for the slow blogging today around here. Part of that is that I have a new column over at TNR talking about the State of the Union speech, in which I say more or less what Ezra Klein said in Wonkbook this morning. And today's Plum Line post was about economic confidence and the 2012 election.  But after you get to those, more good stuff:

1. Speaking of the SOTU, Matt Glassman has a nice essay up about the importance of the ceremonial aspects of the address. Well worth reading. I've been lucky enough to have attended one Joint Session presidential address, and I agree with Glassman: rituals of democracy are important.

2. And Politico has an incredibly cool word-graph of SOTU history. Fun.

2. Noah Smith reviews the GOP's version of economic history.

3. Gaffes, from Brendan Nyhan. No, he didn't commit a gaffe. He's explaining about them.

4. Oh, how about some Newt-bashing for a change. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Newt and race; Sarah Posner on Newt and religion;  Ginger Gibson on Newt and the press; and an interview with Newt's old department chair on Newt as an academic. Common theme: Newt's a fraud! Ah, but you knew that, didn't you?

5. David Dayen has a smart piece in which he points out that a big part of why people are using SNAP (food stamps) is because of...what Newt and the Republicans did when he was Speaker.

6. Smart, too: Andrew Sprung on Obama's foreign policy.

7. Mark Schmidt is absolutely right that liberals would be foolish to focus on a Constitutional amendment to "fix" Citizens United. Of course, regular readers will know that I'm for lots of money in elections -- I'm for partial public financing plus disclosure, or floors, not ceilings. But either way, the Constitutional amendment path isn't going to do anyone any good.

8. Sarah Kliff has a highly useful update on ACA implementation.

9. What Americans get wrong about taxes, from David Leonhardt.

10. What political big shots make on the lecture circuit. Hey, bookers: I'm way cheaper!

11. And an awesome "It Gets Better," but also a sad day: the demise of Lookout Records. This ain't no Mecca, indeed.

Sunday Question for Conservatives

Newt? Really? Y'all know that he's not, you know, a reliable conservative, right?

(I don't mean that he's not a Burkean conservative, which he obviously isn't, but that's not relevant here; I mean he's not a reliable conservative by current movement conservative standards).

Republicans Have Themselves To Blame For Newt

Ross Douthat has a very nice item about how Newt Gingrich has helped to spike the chances of a more conservative opponent defeating Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination. I have to wonder about the final paragraph, however (his italics):

Instead, Gingrich reclaimed the spotlight, as only he knows how to do. (Romney’s a looter! Poor kids should work as janitors!) For this, if he wins the election, Romney owes him an ambassadorship, at the very least. And conservatives wondering how a man they so mistrust could be breezing to the nomination should know exactly whom to blame.

Whom to blame? I think he means Newt, but the real answer is: themselves.

After all, by the end of 1998,  Newt Gingrich was fully exposed: the ethics problems, of course, but more to the point it was clear he just wasn't a very good politician, at least when it came to governing. Nor was he someone who could be trusted. And his instincts, it had turned out, just weren't very conservative at all. And that's putting aside the marital issues, for whatever they're worth.

And yet Republicans never blinked in rehabilitating him; he was immediately welcomed as a senior statesman and important person within conservative policy and particularly media circles. Just as Oliver North had been, and Gordon Liddy before that. I've talked about this before...the Democrats, for the most part, just don't do this: Jim Wright and Dan Rostenkowski were hardly ever seen again after leaving office in disgrace.

The caveat is that Democrats are willing to forgive one category of disgraced former official: those who were Republicans but are now willing to turn on their old party (John Dean, David Stockman).

Anyway, Republicans in Washington knew exactly what Newt was, but for over a decade they've chosen to pretend otherwise, either because he was useful to have on TV attacking the Democrats, or just because that's how Republicans do things. So after treating him as a distinguished statesman and brilliant conservative politician for over a decade, despite clearly not believing it (as was shown the second he spiked in the polls in December), they're just getting exactly what they deserve.