Word: gingriched
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...Gingrich has spent more than 70 hours trying to charm and calm the opposition, from Blue Cross and Blue Shield to the American Medical Association. The 32 million-member AARP was the greatest challenge. Gingrich's diplomatic offensive began last March in the first of three private sessions with the lobby's leadership. Gingrich did not exactly wave an olive branch, but did manage to sound as if he genuinely wanted to cooperate. John Rother, the AARP's chief lobbyist, summarizes the message this way: "The Speaker told our board, 'I can't revolutionize Medicare over your opposition...
...Democrats in Congress have been watching Gingrich's war games with mixed feelings. The optimists in the party are hoping that by taking on so sacred a cow as Medicare, while proposing tax cuts that seem to help wealthier Americans disprortionately, the G.O.P. is inviting accusations that it lacks fairness and compassion. Republicans point to polls showing that for the first time since before the 1994 elections, Democrats are running even with Republicans in terms of public confidence, and for one reason: among voters over 65, the Democrats lead by 28 points. "This is one of those defining issues that...
...make the most of their opportunity, the Democrats will need a leader as skilled and focused as Gingrich, and some of them despair when they look at the White House. "We very much want [Clinton] in this fight," says a congressional aide. "We would be a hell of a lot more effective if he was more active in it, but I think there's no such thing as a permanent, firm commitment from him. He's with us this week. If next week Newt offers him a deal, my guess is he'll be with Newt...
While the Senate will also be shaping a reform plan, the debate there is moving sluggishly through the Finance Committee, where few revolutions have ever been hatched. It may be Gingrich who has the nerve and muscle to remake Medicare; if the Democrats are going to get in the game, they will first need to admit that the rules they have played by for years may have already changed forever...
Hughes brings to this week's story the passion and wisdom of a seasoned cultural observer who fears the U.S. may become the only developed nation without a public source of money for the arts. He says he has never met House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the force behind the Republican effort to "zero out" federal cultural funding, but relishes an imagined encounter: "I would say, 'Chairman Newt, this is not the way to renew American civilization. You are making a big mistake.'" Which, for Hughes, would be a considerable understatement...