Why US conservatives are gunning for Gingrich

In 2012, the biggest threat to the Republican desire to forcibly evict Barack Obama from the White House was always going to come from their own party, and the Republican and conservative establishment are now targeting what they view as the biggest enemy within: Newt Gingrich. The Republican Party is normally a picture of cohesion and organisation compared to the sprawling, fractious coalition of left and left-of-centre constituencies that make up the Democratic Party. However, with the rise of rage-filled Tea Party movement, the Republican coalition started to show the strains in the party. By 2011, the Tea Party movement was already in decline, but the rage it embodied never waned. Enter Newt Gingrich. The natural darlings of the Tea Party either didn’t run or fell away early in the race, but Newt more than any of the other candidates has tapped into that rich vein of Republican rank-and-file rage. [caption id=“attachment_196180” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Gingrich is a hate figure in the Republican Party because he is seen as putting his own political interests over those of the party. Reuters”]  [/caption] After Gingrich’s victory in the South Carolina primary, the Republican establishment was uneasy, but now, leaders in the party and in the conservative media are attacking Gingrich directly and openly. The conservative media in the US never miss an opportunity to criticise the liberal media for attacking their candidates and causes, which is what makes it so interesting to see them eating their own. Conservative magazine American Spectator compared Gingrich to Bill Clinton, still a hate figure amongst conservatives. Reprising conservative attacks against Clinton in the 1990s, the magazine wrote:

“Newt and Bill are 1960s generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl hopping. … His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out.”

The queen of American conservative columnists, Ann Coulter, says on her website: “Re-elect Obama, Vote Newt!” A former colleague in the Republican leadership, Tom DeLay, called Gingrich “erratic, undisciplined” in an interview with a Texas radio station. Bob Dole was the Republican Party candidate for president in 1996, and he released a scathing statement condemning Gingrich and endorsing Romney. The letter was posted in full by the National Review, a magazine the Washington Post called the bible of conservative thought. Dole said that if Republicans nominated Gingrich, it would not only weaken their chances at winning the White House but also jeopardise their chances at almost every level in 2012, from Congress all the way down to state and even local races. This is just a taster of Dole’s smackdown of Gingrich:

• “He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.” • “Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall.” • “He loved picking a fight with President Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press.”

If you want to understand why Dole hates Gingrich, you get a hint of it in the letter. During his run for president in 1996, the Democrats’ ran “a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad”. Why are the Republicans attacking one of their own this aggressively? Gingrich caused the party a lot of damage in the 1990s by forcing a confrontation with Bill Clinton which shut down the government. Dole is right in recalling that Clinton and the Democrats used the shutdown to hammer them in the 1996 election. The Republicans normally adhere to their own 11th commandment, dating back to the Reagan-era: Republicans shouldn’t attack each other. Gingrich is a hate figure in the Republican Party because he is seen as putting his own political interests over those of the party. Gingrich has attacked rival Mitt Romney for making millions in private equity. The attacks against Gingrich has risen in intensity in line with the intensity of Gingrich’s own attacks. The Republican Party is lucky. It’s January, and it’s a long time before the general election in November in political terms. Most Americans aren’t paying attention to the race and are blocking out most of what they see as noise. However, this intra-party mud-slinging match is happening ahead of the primary in the state of Florida, which will be a key state in the battle for the White House. The party will put intense pressure on him to quit if he loses in the races ahead. Whether Gingrich listens or rebelliously fights on will have a huge impact on the Republicans’ chance to win the White House, and the party know it.