Word: gingriched
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Which explains the Speaker's conspicuous conversion from flamethrower to peacemaker, part of a five-month plan that his closest and most controversial adviser, Joe Gaylord, prepared for him in January. Since then Gingrich has courted moderates, Democrats and even the White House. At the State of the Union Address, he made nice to Jesse Jackson. Last month he met with actor Alec Baldwin and seemed to support continued funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, despite the fact that House Republicans resolved in 1995 that the NEA would be put to sleep after this year. And two weeks...
...understood that there was only so much mileage to be gained from roughshod reform; eventually life would return to its rhythms and routines, things would slow down, chairmen would take more power. But they hadn't counted on the reactions of the newest recruits, whose political lives began with Gingrich's call to arms. Mark Neumann stopped building houses in Wisconsin, Steve Largent quit his business in Oklahoma, Scarborough stopped trying cases in Florida, and they all ran for Congress. With no institutional memory, they showed up on the Capitol steps, promising purification. They don't know...
Residual loyalty and gratitude for his leadership were enough to help Gingrich survive his ethics troubles and win another term as Speaker, though by a bare three votes. Some members thought that reaffirmation would bring back the old big-think, follow-me-to-Armageddon Newt; instead they got a warm and fuzzy Tickle Me Newtie. He seemed to go out of his way to lower his profile and not give offense. For weeks the public explanation for Gingrich's disappearance was that he was strategizing about the budget; yet when asked about his plans at the January G.O.P. retreat...
...next few weeks brought legislative havoc. The vote for a balanced-budget amendment failed. The first revenue vote was a tax hike in airline tickets. Funding for international family planning, seen as a pro-abortion vote, passed. And all the while, Gingrich and his lieutenants Tom DeLay and John Boehner had quietly begun floating the idea of separating tax cuts from balancing the budget. The idea was to strip the Democrats of their demagoguery: to avoid the charge, so effective in the last election, that Republicans just wanted to gut Medicare in order to cut taxes for rich people...
...bill that increased spending 14%. Many of the younger members were appalled. They had made it a matter of honor that when asking citizens to tighten their belts, accept welfare reform or cut entitlements like Social Security, Congress had to make some sacrifices as well. The rebellion forced Gingrich to hold a series of meetings in mid-March to try to yank the rebels back in line. "We were all told we were immature and we needed to behave like a majority, not like children," says...