Don't Discount Newt

       A Republican pollster says about the current Presidential campaign “we’re in the personality phase of the campaign but eventually it’s going to move from personality to policy”. Enter Newt Gingrich.  Liberals of course snicker and sneer which is what they did in 1994. That is, until Mr. Gingrich, the Republican Congressman from Georgia, lead the party to its first House majority in 40 years and Congressman Gingrich became Speaker of the House.

       It is interesting to hear Democrats today tout the 1990’s as the time when our country had a balanced budget. When President Clinton was replaced by George Bush, according to some Democrats, there was a budget surplus (not really, but I’ll save that examination for another time). If one studies history accurately you will see that these same Democrats did all they could politically to keep this from happening.

       In the spring of 1995 President Clinton revealed his plan to balance the federal budget after relentless Republican pressure.  In 1994 he said he thought a balanced budget could be obtained in 10 years. The speech in the spring of ’95 he had moved his balanced budget goal to 7 years. This was the direct result of pressure from the newly elected Republican house majority and Speaker Gingrich. Liberals were angry. Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Erskine Bowles, George Stephanopoulos and Laura Tyson said they were considering resigning because of the President’s budget proposals. President Clinton had, according to memoirs, remorse and thought he might have made the wrong decision. And these are some of the Democrats that today brag about the balanced budget of the 1990’s.

       Newt Gingrich was the driving force behind the federal balanced budget of the 1990’s. So we may be talking today about President Obama’s attractive personality or Donald Trump tossing the “f” bomb at a recent appearance but at some point, as pointed out by liberal pundit Walter Shapiro in the New Republic, we will move from personality to policy. Even die hard ideologues know that when that occurs, Newt Gingrich will be a very formidable opponent.