TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/061289/06128900.027

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 78 lines

NATION, Page 22

The Republicans' Pit Bull


    Moments before House Speaker Jim Wright launched into his
resignation speech last week, his nemesis Newt Gingrich was seen
merrily whistling through the halls of Congress. When Democrats and
then Republicans stood to applaud Wright's denunciation of
"mindless cannibalism," Gingrich rose to his feet only grudgingly,
hands jammed into his pockets. Afterward, Gingrich, the minority
whip and second-ranking Republican in Congress, shunned the crowds
of waiting reporters. When he finally did surface, he bristled with
his usual attack-dog rhetoric: "Jim Wright is forced out, and he
blames the rest of us for his resignation. He has insulted the
ethics committee and every decent person in this House."

    With Wright's downfall and Tony Coelho's resignation, Gingrich
is at his zenith. A year after he first sent the House Committee
on Standards of Official Conduct sniffing along a well-laid trail
of charges against Wright, the Georgia conservative can proudly say
he has had a hand in throwing the Democratic leadership of Congress
into turmoil. Characteristically, he is not satisfied. "Let's have
an honest House, and not one corrupted by the arrogance of power,"
he says. "I'm out to break the Democratic machine."

    Although Republicans are a daunting 184 votes short of a
majority in the 435-seat House, Gingrich has his sights trained on
a full-fledged G.O.P. takeover. Working with his political soul
mate, Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater, he also
wants to see his party recapture the Senate, as well as statehouses
and city halls all over the nation. But unlike Atwater, whose
blues-playing, guitar-strumming sideswipes can be entertaining,
Gingrich approaches his mission with a humorless holier-than-thou
style that makes him easy to dislike.

    His fellow conservatives, however, find him delightful. Says
John Buckley, spokesman for the Republican Congressional Committee:
"Gingrich is classic agitprop -- great with devising the arguments
to forward our revolution. I see him as one-third Thomas Paine,
one-third Winston Churchill and one-third Genghis Khan."

    The Democrats are responding with threats and name-calling.
Wright's son, Jim Wright III, calls Gingrich "another Joe
McCarthy." Says Arkansas Congressman Beryl Anthony, who wants
Coelho's whip post: "The Republicans should be getting ready to see
what this feels like. I think it will be very therapeutic for our
members if it dragged out for a while."

    Their means of evening the score is a House ethics committee
inquiry into Gingrich's finances, focusing on a book deal that is
at least as unorthodox as Wright's. When Gingrich co-wrote Window
of Opportunity in 1984, he formed a limited partnership and
gathered $105,000 from 21 conservative supporters to underwrite the
project. Window sold only 12,000 copies, but the lost investments
turned into tax write-offs for the backers. Gingrich's wife
Marianne was paid a salary of $11,500 for her work in helping
establish the partnership. Democrats filed a formal complaint about
the book deal with the House ethics committee in April; Common
Cause joined in last month, and Gingrich expects the issue to be
taken up this week.

    Even though he accuses the Democrats of hiring private
detectives to trail him, the Capitol Hill equivalent of America's
Most Wanted pronounces himself unperturbed: he is used to close
scrutiny. In 1984 the magazine Mother Jones published tawdry
details of his 1980 divorce from his first wife, Jackie. Hundreds
of copies of the story were distributed to House members and
reporters on the Hill.

    Besides, Gingrich has been spoiling for fights since he arrived
in Congress in 1979, outspokenly intent on changing the tone of
the Republicans' minority-party congeniality. He repeatedly clashed
with Wright's predecessor, Tip O'Neill, and has survived two
attempts by the Democratic congressional campaign committee to
target him for defeat in his suburban Atlanta district. While he
awaits what is sure to be a protracted ethics inquiry, Gingrich
will go on fighting. "If we get rid of Wright but keep 99% of the
other Democrats, we've accomplished nothing," he says. "I'm ready
for more action."