Word: gingrichs
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...vision thing did not seem to mind that the man they chose over him was organizing his office around staplers and postage stamps. But a lot had happened since 1992: the Republicans in Congress showed a nasty streak about Medicare and Medicaid that most people wanted no part of; Gingrich had ceased to be amusing as Newt the Menace, and was now seen as the Bad Seed; and the voters, who had not encountered a vision since Ronald Reagan, did not think one was necessary or desirable...
After the tortured decision to make the race (everything he does involves an agony of self-induced second-guessing), Dole moved first to develop a decent working relationship with Newt Gingrich, the Republican revolution's commander, who had effectively supplanted Clinton as America's dominant political force. Dole's relations with the new House Speaker were cordial, but the two men were neither close personal friends nor ideological allies...
Every presidential campaign begins long before the first primary votes are cast. The early maneuvering constitutes an invisible primary all its own. Money is raised, operatives are employed, momentum is gained--or isn't. For Dole, Gingrich's endorsement mattered most. "Newt had called Dole the tax collector of the welfare state," said Scott Reed, who was Dole's campaign manager. "Not only was [Gingrich] noodling about running for President himself, but he had the power back in '94 to diss Dole and end his chances. To win the nomination, we had to get well with him first...
...primary electorate of one, Gingrich was courted assiduously. Dole listened to his advice and deferred to him in meetings. "The only term to describe how we acted toward Newt" in those crucial preprimary months in 1995, says Reed, "is butt kissing." That alone may have been enough, but there was a good deal of self-interest involved too. Gingrich knew that supporting Dole could preclude a younger pretender from emerging, thus preserving the Speaker's post-'96 options if Dole lost. And if Dole won, Gingrich could function as the new Administration's chief policymaker, or so he reasoned...
...risen to challenge the President in the primaries--filled the airwaves with a massive ad strategy that would define the coming general-election campaign: Let Dole have the White House, the Democrats argued, and Newt will be running the country; let us keep it, and Clinton will brake the Gingrich revolution's excesses. Thus were the stakes raised and the race set thematically--a perceptual field stacked hopelessly against Dole. It was the clever definitional stroke from which he would never recover...