Citizen Newt: The Making of a Reagan Conservative by Craig Shirley

Author:Craig Shirley [Shirley, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

The vote was coming up quickly, just hours away, and no one seemed to know whether it would pass. John Cochran of NBC News reported that Gingrich observed that the speech by Bush “failed to win over the nation . . .”43 Both sides thought the vote would be close. Worrisome for Bush, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski came out against the plan at the last moment, steamed that he as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee had been ignored in the process.

As the clock struck 1:00 a.m. on October 5, 1990, Newt Gingrich became the official leader of the opposition within his own party. He led 105 fellow Republicans in voting against the Bush tax increase. He did not rise to speak out against the bill, preferring to let others do that. There was some nervousness among his troops, but as soon as they counted the Democrats, they knew the increase was about to go down in flames. Gingrich’s friend and lieutenant Bob Walker was so confident, he watched a Pittsburg Pirates game in the cloakroom.

Democrats voted in higher numbers against the budget than for it, but that did not matter. All the attention was on the House Republicans and Gingrich. The White House summoned up every resource to pressure them, but it was for naught. House Speaker Tom Foley made an impassioned plea for the budget deal, but it was no soap. In the time before the vote, one of his own, Democrat James Traficant of Ohio, alluding to the suspected criminality of Congress, rose on the floor and said, “Tonight, we’ll find out if the death penalty really is a deterrent.”44

Another Democrat, eighty-one-year-old George Crockett, had wearied of the deliberations, so he went to his office to take a snooze. When his alarm sounded, despite his two hearing aids, he did not rise from his slumber and missed the vote.45

The vote wasn’t even close. Bush’s budget went down 254–179. Many Democrats joined in with Gingrich’s Rebellious Republicans. Why should they take the heat for a tax increase when Bush’s own party refused to?

It was a signal moment in the history of Republicanism and conservatism. Republican presidents usually got their way, even when members of their own party had differing notions. Richard Nixon got much from Congress, as had Ronald Reagan, but they had a hold over conservatives that Bush did not possess. Indeed, as of this vote, Gingrich now had a greater hold over American conservatism than any elected official in America. Reagan was still numero uno and would always be, but he was happily retired in California, riding horses, spending time alone with Nancy.

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