February 18, 2006
The Spirit of '94
From Mr. Speaker himself. The WSJ has an interview (free site!) with Speaker Gingrich.
"Do I think it's possible to offer a Social Security plan for people under 40 years of age in a positive savings account model that you could pass? Yes. Do I think it's possible to make it so complicated, so impossible to understand that you can't build any momentum for it? Yes." Then the wrap up (after a digression into football): "Let me be quite clear. I don't think 2005 was a good year for Republicans. I'd like to not repeat it. So I'm for doing things differently."Was 1995 a good year for Republicans? I ask, a little timidly, leaning farther back in my tippy chair. It was the year Mr. Gingrich was sworn in as speaker to much euphoria on the right. But it ended with a rout by President Clinton in a budget standoff that shut down the government and, in the standard telling at least, left the Republicans in Congress looking a little bit like antigovernment extremists.
The response is sharp. "Yeah, it was a great year. It set the stage for us to balance the federal budget, reform welfare, cut taxes, strengthen defense and get re-elected for the first time since 1928." And the budget showdown? "I've never said publicly we lost that. The news media said it." True, but . . . does that mean he doesn't think it was a defeat? "Let me go back and try again. We were the first re-elected majority since 1928." That again! "Why is that a defeat?"
I was a big fan of the Speaker, watching his Pepperdine lectures and enjoying his problem solving and enthusiasm.
Oddly enough, I cannot get excited about a 2008 run. There's nothing in the piece with which I disagree but I do not see him as the man for the times.