“Exactly! That’s why he’ll cave in! He has to! He’ll never stand the heat if Wall Street starts complaining,” was the riposte.
I noticed the others were just watching as I argued with Newt. “Why in the world would that matter to him? The Republican bankers and investors on Wall Street don’t like it? What a surprise! He’s already convinced half the country that we’re out to drive a stake through his and Hillary’s hearts. What are you going to do? Link the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling together? What will he do?”
“If he wants the resolution, he’ll have to take the ceiling.” Gingrich was too focused for his own good.
I shook my head. “And what if he doesn’t? What if he says that the obligation to pay our debts is greater than the obligation to balance the budget? What then?”
Around me there was a look of confusion on a few faces. The actual effects weren’t really very clear to them. I knew what would happen, since I had seen it on the first try. “He’ll have to!”
“Nuts! He will shut the damn thing down and point a finger at you. He won’t be the bad guy, you will! When Great Aunt Martha doesn’t get her Social Security check, he’ll point at you. When Uncle Cletus doesn’t get his pension check from the VA, he’ll point at you. When Little Suzie’s hospital cuts off her dialysis treatments because they didn’t get paid, he’ll point at you. How long do you want to put up with that? You think that’s going to play so well back home?”
Gingrich was practically sneering at this. “Carl, it will never come to that. He will break. He’s the President. Even if what you say will happen happens, it will be all his fault, and people will know it. He will look weak, and it will kill him next November.”
“People in this country love an underdog. Hell, it’s how some of us got here, by portraying ourselves as the underdog. He can play that sob story for quite a while. He’ll offer to meet and compromise and work with you and be bipartisan, but if you don’t meet him at least part way, the blame will be on the people in this room. The voters might not like Clinton for what’s happening, but they sure won’t like us for it either! Hell, you might even be playing into Slick Willie’s hands! He can do the political calculus as well as anybody in this room. You don’t think this is going to mess up Dole’s bid for office? How many of us will be weaker next year because of this. We don’t need this, Newt.”
The consensus in the room was to let Newt keep pushing, although I knew it was going to prove an unmitigated disaster for the party. The existing resolution ran until November 13, at which point we needed either a budget that would pass, or another continuing resolution. Gingrich was demanding that the next resolution include a debt limit ceiling, which Clinton wasn’t going to approve. Newt figured that would require Clinton to pass a budget.
I met with Newt once more on this, privately, the day before the vote on the second resolution. “Newt, you know I have been a support to you, ever since I got into Congress. You know that! But I have to say, this is not good. This is going to backfire on us, and on you more than anybody. Don’t do this! Sever the link and make nice. The voters sent us here to fix things, not break them.”
“Carl, you’ve told me this before, and it is getting old. I put up with a lot from you, and yes, you’ve been a loyal supporter. Now, I am telling you this is going to go through, and I am telling you that you are supporting it. Is that understood?”
“Just don’t expect me to smile when the wheels come off this thing.” I left his office shaking my head silently.
On the 13th Newt and the rest of the congressional leadership met with the President to try to figure out a compromise. Newt refused to compromise. On the 14th, big chunks of the government shut down. In most ways it was the pinnacle of Newt Gingrich’s political career.
I wondered what was to become of mine.
Chapter 120: Mister Perfect
I couldn’t remember for the life of me exactly what had happened on my first go-around, but I knew it had been bad, with Newt and Bill shutting down the government for a chunk of the winter. It was the same now. From November 14 through December 22, for 39 days, they wrangled and snarled at each other. It unfolded pretty much along the lines I had predicted, with both sides losing respect from the public, but the Republican House losing more than the President. Then it got ugly.
It came out by the end of November that Gingrich and Clinton had gotten into a pissing match when they both flew to Israel for Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral at the beginning of the month. Gingrich complained, to a reporter no less, about how he had been forced to exit Air Force One from the back of the plane.
When the President flies somewhere in Air Force One, the cameras focus on him coming out the front door, waving to everybody, and meeting the dignitaries. Everybody else — and I do mean everybody! — wife, kids, friends, reporters, staffers — they all go out the back door, and nobody sees them on television. Newt decided that he deserved to go out the front door with the President! He was shut down and sent packing to the rear. New York’s Daily News ran a cartoon on the front page showing a crying Newt in a diaper, which made national headlines. It only made Newt more difficult to work with.
I avoided the man as much as possible. He had been heard to mention my ‘disloyalty’ for disagreeing with him, even though I had voted with him. I heard about that from John Boehner and Jim Nussle. I shrugged, and they pretty much did, too. They were smart men and could see the damage being done even if Newt couldn’t. There was even some grumbling from a few people about whether making Gingrich the Speaker of the House had been such a wise thing after all.
Three days before Christmas, Gingrich caved and severed the link between the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling. Clinton promptly proposed a smattering of budget cuts and tax increases so we could pass a budget in January. It wouldn’t balance the budget, but it would cut the deficit.
In some ways, I didn’t care. I had bigger fish to fry than Newton Leroy Gingrich. The Democrats were feeling frisky, and with the populace starting to reconsider their decision two years ago to throw out the Democratic rascals, a new crop of Democrats were pushing to throw out the Republican rascals. My last two re-elections had been relatively easy. In ’92 I faced the stunned and half-beaten survivor of a nasty primary fight. In ’94 I had been gifted with an opponent who spent more time insulting the Democrats than coming after me. The Democratic Party was hoping that the third time was the charm, and I was very much afraid it might well be!
My opponent was to be Steve Rymark, an Assistant State’s Attorney for Baltimore County. He was 36, four years younger than me. He was tall, lean, and trim. He ran marathons. He had a full head of thick blond hair. His wife Donna was a runner-up Miss Maryland, tall, blonde, and leggy. Between the two of them they had about a million perfectly capped and blindingly white teeth, which they both showed in their incessant smiles. They had two adorable children, both blonde and with dimples. Donna was two months pregnant when Steve announced he was running against me. They lived in Cockeysville, just inside the district line. They were the most beautiful and adorable family on the planet!
It just kept getting better. He had made a name for himself in a case putting away a couple of Republican county commissioners last year for bribery, and then followed it up with the successful prosecution of a cop killer in the fall. (There went the law and order vote!) She had just written and illustrated a children’s book about a family of happy dragons, which had been reviewed by the New York Times. (And goodbye to the family values vote, too!)