Word: gingriched
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Clinton owed any lasting debts on Tuesday night, it was certainly not to his party; it was to Newt Gingrich, whose triumph in 1994 reflected more distaste for Clinton's excesses than fervor for Gingrich's cause. In 1992 Clinton tried to turn 43% of the vote into an imperial mandate to rearrange the planets. By the time he was accused of shutting down a runway at Los Angeles airport to get a haircut aboard Air Force One, the story was devastating not because it was true but because it was believable. He had become the Boy Prince...
Clinton in defeat learned humility; Gingrich in victory grew swollen with pride, until he reached the point where he said he was shutting down the government in part because the President had treated him rudely on Air Force One. The voters who elected Clinton in 1992 on a promise of change punished him two years later for delivering too much of it. But while Gingrich made the same mistake, overread his mandate and overplayed his hand, Clinton made a point of saying over and over again: I heard you, I listened; walk, don't run; cooperate, don't confront. There...
...hopes to fix anything will have to swallow hard and reach out across the aisle to find the needed votes. So if Clinton learned a lesson about hubris, the Republicans face one about bitterness. Late last week a senior White House official quietly telephoned a plea to a top Gingrich adviser. The White House knew it would win, and on the assumption that the Congress would stay in Republican hands, the aide was angling for a favor in advance. When the polls close on Tuesday, he asked, might the Speaker and Senate majority leader Trent Lott be willing to make...
Long before he knew the exact makeup of the House, Gingrich knew that his majority would be smaller, his freshmen chastened and, as Clinton completed his tack to the center, that the leverage of moderate Republicans would increase. There are nearly two dozen members of Gingrich's caucus who are moderate enough for Clinton and Dick Gephardt's Democrats to peel off. Last week Gingrich began exploring with his advisers, including his wife Marianne, how to reach out to the moderates whom just a year ago his freshmen openly attacked. The man who once criticized Clinton as a "work...
Still, as with Clinton, not everyone believes Gingrich can stick to the script. "It can't just be a one-night theme," said Gingrich friend Ken Duberstein. "It must be a governing philosophy." Early Wednesday morning Gingrich said he had an "obligation, frankly, to reach out" to Clinton. "If he actually meant all those nice things," said the Speaker, "it's going to be a very productive year." But if Gingrich strays too far onto Clinton's common ground, he may find that his troops aren't behind him. His top lieutenant, majority leader Dick Armey, thinks Gingrich failed...