I still feel sold out by the class that promised me a Contract With America. I didn’t see the staying power - an issue that might be relevant in a lot of other areas for this particular pick as well.
I could consider Gingrich, baggage and all, but only if Santorum, baggage and all, were not in the picture.
We’ll see.
As a matter of fact, for the record, Newt was kicked out by the Moderates(!) ....
"There is no doubt in my mind he had the votes to win the Speakership, but I'm not sure he had the votes to govern," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, a former White House chief of staff ... .... from the article (drum roll please) .....
"What I believe desperately needs to take place is to heal the alienation that currently exists," said Representative Steve Largent of Oklahoma, a 'conservative' football Hall of Famer who announced his own challenge today to Mr. Gingrich's second-in-command, Representative Dick Armey of Texas.
The heart of the Speaker's problems, many Republicans said, is that he had never made an adequate adjustment from being the minority to being the majority, from intense backbench opposition to governing.
The hard-edged partisan bite that worked for Mr. Gingrich in the minority came across as stridency in power, Republicans said. ''Whenever we try to go on the offensive, the White House tries to make Newt the issue and whenever that happens we lose,'' said Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island.
...... AND the "piste de résistance" ...
When Mr. Gingrich allowed Representative John R. Kasich of Ohio, the budget committee chairman, to try to rally House Republicans around a conservative blueprint for more than $100 billion in new savings [in 1998!], the moderates refused to back it.