All of the major newspapers picked up on Babcock’s story.69 This was not Gingrich’s first brush with scandal. He had survived the Mother Jones article in 1984 that exposed the sordid underside of his private life. In the case of that article, Gingrich’s response had been to ignore the story. This time the scandal felt very different, more threatening to him and his political agenda. The Washington Post’s piece undermined the legitimacy of his attacks on the Speaker, and the accusations tarnished his reputation as a champion of personal ethics. Gingrich understood that the story made him look guilty of the same kind of blatant hypocrisy that he constantly attacked Democrats for. Feeling the urgency of the moment, with the vote for minority whip fast approaching, Gingrich instructed his staff to quickly assemble a press conference to respond to the charges.
When the reporters convened on March 19 in the Radio-Television Gallery on the third floor of the Capitol, the room buzzed with anticipation about how Gingrich would react to the report. Seeming unfazed by the media scrum, Gingrich stepped up to the lectern armed with an explanation. His self-righteous attitude, even at a moment like this, is what made him so dangerous and formidable as a political opponent. With Babcock’s report exposing the apparent contradiction between what Gingrich said in public about Wright and what he did in private about his own financial affairs, Gingrich exhibited the demeanor of a person who believed deep down that he was virtuous. He didn’t care what the reporters said. They were wrong.
“This was totally legal, totally legitimate,” Gingrich began, and it was nothing like what he was accusing Speaker Wright of having done.70 “We wrote a real book for a real company that was sold in real bookstores,” he argued. Gingrich, however, was forced to concede that he tried to delay the story for more than a month, because he knew that it would be a clear “disadvantage” in the whip’s race if the press reported that he had arranged for a book deal that, in his words, was “equally as weird as Jim Wright’s.”71 His own royalties, Gingrich explained, were reasonable, unlike the 55 percent received by the Speaker for his slapdash work. During the press conference, Marianne Gingrich stood by her husband’s side as he swatted away the charges and predicted that this news would have no impact on the race. At one point, trying to maintain a steely demeanor, she held up a copy of Window of Opportunity as if to say that the material existence of the book proved its legitimacy. When asked by a reporter if she could furnish a list of the partners, Marianne insisted that nobody had done anything wrong. “One of the reasons they contributed is that they have been active in Republican politics and agreed with Newt’s message.”72
Democrats tried to run with the story as evidence that Gingrich wasn’t the choirboy he made himself out to be. Wright couldn’t resist saying something to reporters about the breaking scandal. “I find it somewhat remarkable that a fellow would write a book about how the Republicans were going to take over the House, and hire a science fiction writer to help.”73
The story had an impact in spite of Gingrich’s assurances. In the final days of the campaign for minority whip, there was great uncertainty about the outcome. Madigan claimed that he had pledges for ninety-three votes, enough for victory; Gingrich confidently announced that he was sure of at least eighty. Hyde’s supporters boasted that they had forty votes. Regardless, it was a number that was high enough to scare both Madigan and Gingrich. Hyde’s support would probably have been stronger had he not continually expressed ambivalence about wanting the job, insisting, “I’m not making phone calls or campaigning.” He didn’t want to run without Michel’s support.
The math didn’t add up. The estimates totaled 213 endorsements and there were only 175 House Republicans, 174 once Cheney was confirmed.74 Relationships among Republicans became so strained that Robert Walker blasted Democrats in a floor speech, saying that their party had purposely interfered with the whip vote to trigger internal chaos. In a conspiratorial tone, Walker accused Democrats of planting the false reports in the media about Gingrich’s book deal to stir doubts and speculation.75
The press favored Madigan. They loved to cover Gingrich in the same way that they liked to cover a good bench-clearing brawl, but most major newspaper editors tended to see Madigan as the “responsible” choice. They were still rooting for the old ways of Washington. A majority of them believed that Gingrich would be bad for the Republic, even if he would make for great stories. He seemed too dangerous to hold power.
The morning of March 22, in the early hours before the vote, Henry Hyde surveyed his diminishing chances and shook the race again by announcing that he did not want to be nominated. Realizing that he’d entered the race too late to amass enough votes to win, Hyde also knew that he had enough support to be the “spoiler” in the race, as he said. This was a role the devout Republican did not wish to play. Michel’s good opinion meant a great deal to him, and he was leery of going up against the party leader.
That same morning, Madigan’s support further eroded. Pennsylvania’s Lawrence Coughlin came to meet with Michel in the minority leader’s office. Michel had been counting on Coughlin’s vote for Madigan. But Coughlin, averting his eyes, nervously revealed that he would vote for Gingrich. Coughlin justified his change of heart by saying that he wanted a candidate who could promote “a new generation of leadership.”76 In reality, Robert Walker had pressured Coughlin into changing his vote over breakfast.77 If he didn’t support Gingrich, COS would not be there to support him in the future, and if Gingrich won, he would not find a sympathetic ear in the whip’s office come April. The news was a blow to Michel, who had just learned that another Madigan supporter, New Jersey’s James Courter, wouldn’t be showing up for the vote, citing previously scheduled commitments in his home state, where he was running for governor.78 Though Michel had offered to let him use a personal airplane to fly to D.C., Courter, preferring to stay out of this messy conflict, declined.
Republicans gathered to make their decision in the elegant Capitol Hill Club. Legislators made their way under the green awning that led into the handsome town house, located a little over one block from the U.S. Capitol and next door to the Republican National Committee headquarters. This was one of Washington’s most exclusive clubs, prime real estate, where party members spent evenings together drinking scotch, eating steaks, and smoking cigars. When Republicans walked through the front door ready to vote, most of them felt that they were on the verge of a historic decision. With Newt Gingrich in the race, they understood that the outcome could be a game changer. As they gathered in one of the ornate rooms decorated with thick carpets, dark wooden furniture, and walls lined with portraits of the great party leaders, many of whom never imagined that someone like Gingrich could one day represent the GOP, the legislators prepared to cast their votes. Jerry Lewis presided over the secret proceedings. Gingrich had shrewdly persuaded Bill Frenzel, who had been embittered by Wright’s actions, to formally nominate him. By doing so, Gingrich hoped the respected senior moderate from Minnesota could help in his effort to win over the support of anyone still worried that Gingrich wouldn’t do much more than cause trouble. As expected, Frenzel’s words of support, and his urging of others to take some risks, resonated with many legislators in the room. Connecticut’s Nancy Johnson, Maine’s Olympia Snowe, and Rhode Island’s Claudine Schneider were all moderates who supported the nomination and sent a similar message. Johnson called Gingrich a “leader who has the vision to build a majority party and the strength and charisma to do it.”79
The people who spoke in favor of Madigan only confirmed the impression that he was the candidate of Washington. His key supporters—Kansas’s Pat Roberts, New York’s Jim Walsh, and New Jersey’s Dean Gallo—were all Republicans with reputations for being part of the establishment.
When the votes were counted, Lewis paused to gather his thoughts and then proceeded to inform his colleagues that Gingrich had won. It was an extraordinarily narrow victory: 87 to 85. Just two votes changed the course of the G
OP. Chance played a role in the outcome. One of the secret ballots was spoiled so it didn’t count; one member also checked a line that said that he or she was voting for “another.” But Gingrich’s overall tally was coalitional, as he intended, drawing from the approximately thirty members of the Conservative Opportunity Society and more liberal Republicans like Olympia Snowe of Maine and John Paul Hammerschmidt of Arkansas, a good friend of President Bush’s. When asked about the strategy of Republican leaders, Snowe admitted, “It’s not working for us. We need to do something.”
Just outside, waiting to hear about the final tally with a group of reporters, Gingrich thanked moderates in the caucus, as well as his wife, for helping him in the race. Whatever the outcome, he was pleased with how the campaign unfolded. Then the New Hampshire Republican Chuck Douglas, one of the young firebrands who had lobbied for Gingrich, threw open the door and exclaimed, “We did it!” Gingrich’s staff and Marianne, with journalists watching the drama, began screaming and crying in jubilation.
Glowing from the tally, the newly designated whip entered the room where his colleagues were gathered and walked to the front as everyone rose to their feet to give him a standing ovation. At Gingrich’s request, Michel, Madigan, and Guy Vander Jagt, who was still serving as the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, came up to stand next to the victor as a sign of unity. But conservatives who failed to endorse him, like Tom DeLay, applauded politely, knowing that there would be hell to pay. They now had a thin-skinned enemy in the inner circle of the party leadership.
At the press conference that followed, a somber minority leader appeared beside Jerry Lewis, Marianne, and Gingrich as he stoically announced the results. A few days earlier, Gingrich had appeared at the exact same lectern with his wife trying to stifle a scandal; now he was standing before the same reporters as an official party leader. It was hard for many in the room to believe that Gingrich had prevailed. Standing next to Marianne, an emotionally charged Gingrich could barely contain his distaste for Michel, visibly impatient as he waited to speak, sighing heavily in front of the cameras.
When he walked up to the microphone, Gingrich told Republicans exactly what they needed to hear. The new minority whip gave assurances that he understood the responsibilities of the job. Feigning modesty, he said that the vote had depended on personal relationships and hard vote counting, nothing more. Gingrich rejected the idea that this was a victory for COS or the Right; rather, he said, this was a win for the entire party. “Every element of this party is winning through this process. It’s not a COS victory. It is not a conservative activist victory. It is the entire Republican team.”80
But tensions were palpable. The normally composed Michel revealed his discomfort when he mistakenly called his new partner “Nit” during the question-and-answer period, a slip that drew some chuckles. Closing his eyes, with his arms tensely folded, and shaking his head in embarrassment, Michel looked ahead as Gingrich, who stood there with a poker face and the faintest of smiles, half-laughing and half-mad, uttered from behind him, “It will take a while.” The reporters laughed even harder, though they understood that he wasn’t joking.
Gingrich couldn’t resist an opportunity to declare that he had a mandate. The party was changing. The new minority whip noted, in pointed fashion that, according to Marianne, “had Michel wanted to break COS in the early days, he could have. Had Michel wanted to cripple you in the investigation of Jim Wright, he could have.”81
This was his turn in the spotlight and he seized on it. “The truth is I represent a general mood and a generation direction [among House Republicans], and a level of energy,” Gingrich offered while promising to build a more “aggressive” and “activist” party.82 And then he trained his sights on Wright. His attack on the Speaker had galvanized his rise to power, and he wasn’t going to stop now. When asked about his views on the Speaker, Gingrich assured the press that “if he’s totally exonerated,” then he would “say I am glad he’s exonerated and I’m sorry for any pain I’ve caused him.” If he was not exonerated, Gingrich added, the Speaker would have to leave. A reporter asked what it would mean for Wright to be “exonerated.” Gingrich borrowed a famous comment from a Supreme Court case about pornography: you “know it when you see it.” As he moved further away from voicing niceties about Michel and spoke more about Speaker Wright and the broken condition of the House, Gingrich came alive. He stepped closer to the microphone, almost as if to push Michel out of the television frame. When asked if he owed his victory to Wright’s troubles, Gingrich answered, “No, but he didn’t hurt.”
Inching his way back into the picture, Michel took up the cudgel. He, too, would be a fighter. When one reporter asked Michel how Gingrich’s election changed the institution, he answered, “I’d like to think for the better.” Michel added, “They want us to be more activated, and more visible, and more aggressive and we can’t be content with business as usual.”
The press wasted no time in announcing the changing of the guard. CONFRONTATIONAL CONSERVATIVE WINS PARTY’S NO. 2 POST, the Los Angeles Times reported. THE REPUBLICANS WANT TO STRESS OPPOSITION MORE THAN LOYALTY, according to The New York Times. NEW CONFRONTATIONAL STANCE BY PARTY IS PORTENDED BY FIREBRAND’S VICTORY, read The Wall Street Journal. One cartoonist depicted a jolted Wright, as if an earthquake had hit, with his coffee cup hovering in midair, with a caption that read, “Newt Gingrich has been elected WHAT?”83 A reliable barometer of elite conservative opinion, the Journal assailed the so-called experts who had missed the shifting direction of the political winds. “The Washington establishment had become comfortable with the House Republicans,” the editors noted, “much the way audiences are comfortable with the Washington Generals, the team that serves as the doormat for the Harlem Globetrotters. . . . Mr. Gingrich is likely to keep House Democrats awake and alert.”84 He appeared in as many television interviews as possible to spread his gospel. “I’m the first leader of the C-SPAN generation,” Gingrich explained during a C-SPAN call-in show.85
President Bush was on the fence about his partner on the Hill. On the day of Gingrich’s victory, Bush pondered in his diary, “The question is—will he be confrontational; will he raise hell with the establishment; and will he be difficult for me to work with? I don’t think so. I called him and congratulated him. He’s going to have to get along in some degree, and moderate his flamboyance. He will be a tough competitor for the Democrats, but I’m convinced I can work with him and I want to work with him. He’s a very bright guy, [an] idea a minute, but he hasn’t been elected President and I have.” The president decided to invite Gingrich, along with Vin Weber, to meet in the White House over beers. After some pleasantries and small talk, Weber, who sensed that the president was holding back, got right to the point. He asked, “Mr. President, you’ve been very nice to us. Tell us what your biggest fear is about us.” Bush responded bluntly, “I’m worried that sometimes your idealism will get in the way of what I think is sound governance.”86
Wright was a fighter too, and he knew that Gingrich’s ascent would cause him trouble. Following Gingrich’s election as whip, the Speaker initially didn’t give the victor a customary congratulatory call. Instead, the Speaker opted for a little humor as a way to deliver a stern Texas warning. The Speaker sent Gingrich a note that said, “If you think a two-vote victory is thin, try it sometime with one, as I had to settle for in ’76”—a reminder that Newt did not have his whole party behind him and that Wright himself had come a long way. To give the Georgian a little taste of his own ethical medicine, the Speaker sent him a Xerox copy of the cover of Reflections of a Public Man along with a note, published in the press, that pointedly said, “For Newt, who likes books too.”87
For his part, Gingrich made it clear that he had no intention of letting up. During the Easter recess, he gathered members of the press who were bored by the inactivity of the holiday. He told them bluntly as he grabbed another headline, “I have pl
aced $1 bets that Foley will be speaker by June.”88
Six
SCANDAL FRENZY
In late February, the special counsel Richard Phelan delivered an exhaustive 450-page report on Speaker Wright to the House Ethics Committee, documenting every alleged wrongdoing he had discovered. After nine months and almost $1.5 million, the blistering report made the Speaker look like a petty politician, at best, who routinely abused power for personal gain. Phelan was heavy-handed with the evidence, twisting information in a negative fashion and inserting every charge into the document regardless of its veracity. He claimed that Wright had violated the rules over a hundred times. His report left no doubt of the Speaker’s guilt, at least in his opinion.1 He followed up by testifying, point by point, before the committee during three weeks of hearings.
Phelan’s case was at least superficially strengthened by Wright’s dough-faced attorney William Oldaker, who tried to bring the controversy to a conclusion with old-fashioned backroom negotiations based on rational appeals to the facts and a measure of good old wheeling and dealing. Oldaker was an expert on election laws and fund-raising rules; he felt at home in the world of cigar-chomping lobbyists and litigators who knew how to make deals when partisan passions flared. As such, he was doing everything possible to refute the accusations in private meetings with members of Congress. But Oldaker was out of his league. He had few tools to counteract the pressure coming from congressional Republicans and investigative reporters, not to mention the histrionics of Phelan.2
* * *
—
When the ethics panel heard final arguments from both Phelan and Oldaker, the members found Speaker Wright’s defense awkwardly underwhelming. Just as when Wright had spoken to the committee directly, Oldaker parsed legal interpretations of the rules to prove that the Speaker had not technically violated ethics standards. He treated the committee members like a courtroom jury as opposed to a roomful of self-interested politicians. He instructed them, “The obligation here of the committee is only to find a violation where there has been clear and convincing evidence. . . . I ask each Member who has a particular concern on that issue to study the record in detail; and if that determination is going to turn on the interpretation of a rule, I ask you to look at that rule as it is written, as the legislative history would suggest.”3
Burning Down the House Page 23