The former Speaker of the House and longtime Georgia celebritician Newt Gingrich has announced that he will run for the Presidency in ’12. Well, he hasn’t actually announced it, he has announced that he will announce it in a few days. This is classic Gingrich, for those too fortunate to remember much about Bill Clinton’s famous antagonist. Even long out of office he routinely conducts himself as if he had the media footprint of Justin Bieber, or back in da day, Clinton himself. Newt is always certain that we have been waiting for word from him, on our politics and economics or on his plans for either a new novel or a national campaign. Once he has his tie snugged up, then we may all begin. And he certainly has some claim to a swelled opinion of his own importance. He is (as his suspiciously friendly wiki reflects) a college professor, author and historian which does at least set him apart from other Legislators who are almost 100% attorneys.

While styling himself a “conservative” Newt has always been a utopian futurist. A “Progressive” we might call him although he is clearly a man of the Right, since most of the progress he sought in his heyday was rationalization in entitlements and other government programs. And he did have successes there, he was one of very few predators ever to take a nibble out of Clinton’s fulsome behind and he did so on more than one occasion. Most famously his “welfare reform” which even now Clintonoids recall as their guy’s masterful achievement so you know there had to be something to it.

And there was and is. Welfare was a fairly piddling fraction of the federal budget but even so it was dangerously out of control. Rolls were growing, fraud was rampant and there was little prospect for anything but more of the same with Democrats running the whole show as they had for some forty years. Even Reagan had been able to make little headway. Newt’s rep as a “tough guy” in the modern idiom comes much from his success here. By forcing the issue that Clinton had used to differentiate himself as a “New Democrat”, Newt had his way. Few could make that claim but Newt had managed to hold Slick Willy’s feet to the fire; a difficult task. Although he clearly desired neither to End or significantly Mend this straight cash injection into a reliable Dem constituency Clinton could not refuse a third bill that hit his desk, not in an election year anyhow. The combination of block-granting the massive aid payments to the states, along with a five year lifetime limit on bennies has become a model for procedural trimmings of other federal programs. Newt was the bi-partisan’s bi-partisan though somehow things generally broke his way.

But Newt Gingrich had his own Newt Gingrich, meaning a dedicated foe determined to use all means at his disposal to get his way or at least hobble the opposition. This fellow was David Bonoir, the most prominent of Democrats who survived the “94 Republican House sweep orchestrated by Gingrich. Bonoir filed complaint after complaint to the House Ethics Committee but this sudden attention by Democrats to ethics was not convincing either to the House or to the public despite aggressive and sweeping media cover. In the end, although Newt had a history of bi-partisan participation in the House check kiting scandal and others, Bonoir’s assault fell flat. It turned on whether Newt’s college class “Renewing American Civilization” was a partisan endeavor or not. It is unsurprising that Democrats would find this cheerleading exercise for personal responsibility and limited government an electoral threat and therefore not tax exempt but in the end the IRS did not agree. Newt sailed away from this one, although it was years after the fact and the news smothered by disinterest, fading memory and partisan press coverage.

In some regards this would seem to be Newt’s day. He has the most credibility on spending of any politician hopping around now. Between his Contract With America and subsequent restrictions on spending along with substantial tax cuts that fueled growth, his mad plan for a balanced budget was realized three years ahead of schedule. Again, this is a front-row feather in Bill Clinton’s cap. Newt’s input is mostly forgotten. But not by Newt.

He shows his fingerprints on that trophy to any audience that will sit still for it. And justly so. A balanced budget sounds like a unicorn or free parking to modern ears, but it happened, yes it did. The balance was in discretionary spending, of course. The Big Three of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were substantially untouched, their giant demographic surpluses at that time suggested they had near a century of life left to them. That, of course, has been one damn quick century. On the current catastrophe, Newt is prosaic. The firey podium-pounder of the last millenium has lost much of his energy confronting this larger and more dire threat. His appeals to personal responsibility and American industry do not apply to these relics of the New Deal and Great Society or even the TARP, stimuli, bailouts and other products of the Bush/Obama concordance. Even Gingrich has a soft spot for  entitlements or perhaps for the high regard the electorate still holds them in. As far as one can tell, and Newt is newly economical with his thoughts, the Gingrich Approach is somewhere in between the Ryan reforms and Plan Obama. There is little doubt that such positioning is far from coincidental. The Old Triangulator is back on the job splitting the difference, weighing the polls and plotting a probing attack rather than, say, stating First Principles and applying them bloodlessly.

Perhaps that is too much to expect, even from an old curmudgeon like Newt, but he fails in other respects as well. Newt was a prominent and early enthusiast for Global Warming hysteria. On this matter he follows the Arafat model, altering his views for each audience regardless of his statements from last minute. Ethanol, “green” energy and jobs, farm subsidies, entitlements and foreign aid show Newt to have almost no serious disagreement with the status quo. His healthcare bromides drink deeply of the entitlement mindset that he considered poisonous in other areas, as in welfare. With his long history of political gamesmanship, it seems unavoidable that a President Newt would prove a wily defender of a house of cards that cannot be shored up. The tax-slasher of yesteryear will have a credibility few others could enjoy when he claims, as he must if he is to “save” these programs, that more and more must be paid in as more and more is being paid out.

It could well be that this retro genius from the Happy Days era has a plan yet. It could be that once on the spot he will rise to the occasion and do the electorally dreadful things that need doing but in the meantime it is certain that he will become the presumptive front runner unless his foes act swiftly and cooperatively to take him down. There would be much joy from many quarters at the wet sound of Newt’s face striking the pavement. He has made many true enemies and many false friends. Although his domestic life has been less tumultuous by far than his old sparring partner’s he has enjoyed greater scrutiny and less patience. Whatever benefits his late policies produced have likewise been credited to Clinton. The detriments, of course, redound to Newt’s account. He has fought and won against Democrats in Georgia and on the national stage yet he craves the compliments of the press which he will never get except when tripping up fellow Republicans. This, he is not above. He is infuriating, smug; at odd turns vicious and craven and above all completely certain that what he is saying is True and Important even when it runs up against what he said yesterday, which you are impolite to notice. With his announcement of an announcement, Newt strolls onto the primary stage. Yes, he deserves a shot. Yes, he deserves to be heard. But also he deserves close and pitiless scrutiny. If he can take it like a man he might prove a worthy candidate yet. And at least he is not Mitt Romney.

 

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