Newt Gingrich is not a name you hear very often anymore. His brief, spectacular flameout was almost unnoticeable during the chaos of Monicagate, when a good chunk of the leadership of both parties went down in flames with him. You hear about Frist and DeLay, and powerful Christian activists like James Dobson, but nary a word about Newt. While there are good reasons for the GOP to avoid mentioning him, it’s also a tremendous act of ingratitude on their part, because without Newt Gingrich, the tattered old guard of the Democratic Party might still be in power.
Too much attention to Newt might also clue Democrats in to the secret of the Republican revolution. Folks might start to make the comparison between Gingrich and Dean…
Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean are, of course, miles apart in almost every ideological category, and, one hopes, in terms of personal character. Dean is, however, playing the Gingrich role to perfection and may yet pull off the same coup for the Democrats that Gingrich pulled off for the Republicans.
What did Gingrich do? He did exactly what an opposition leader should. He played to the party base, and he did it with what Republicans consider flair. But more importantly, he was a relentless attack dog for the Republican Party. He could afford to be, of course: his Congressional district is one of the reddest in the nation. This gave him the maneuverability to dog the Democrats at every turn, and Gingrich did so, tirelessly. No battle was too small for him, and no left-wing foible, real or imagined, escaped caricature by him. He was articulate, suprisingly intellectual, a brilliant strategist, and focused with white-hot intensity on the goal of driving the Dems from power.
Newt overreached, of course. First, during the government shutdown and the intemperate remarks he made. And second, during Monicagate, a nasty affair that damaged the perpetrators at least as much as the victim. He had played the role of opposition leader for too long, and couldn’t make the transition to being in the majority. But by then, his job was done. The Clinton Administration had been hobbled, and Gore was damaged enough by it that what should have been an easy win against Bush became a very close race. The rest is history.
So what does this have to do with Howard Dean? Everything. While the Democrat establishment is up in arms about Dean’s blunt assessment of the Republican party as a white-Christian-only club run by trust fund babies who’ve never done real work in their lives, they would do well to remember that this is exactly the same tactic that made Gingrich a political superstar and helped give the Republicans control over all three branches of government. Dean is doing his job, and he is doing it very, very well.
Dean isn’t a congressman, but like Newt and his reddest-of-the-red district, Dean has no fear of losing the next election because he’s the party chairman. GOP congressmen didn’t have to worry too much about Newt’s excesses because they could project a more moderate message while Newt did the dirty work. When it came time to actually vote on bills, on the other hand, they pressed ahead with Gingrich’s agenda. Dean, likewise, can be disavowed by individual congressmen while he acts as a lightning rod and rips open soft Republican underbellies. They should take care not to disavow him too much. And they should also take note with how well Dean’s message resonates with the Democratic base.
In other words, Senator Biden, distance yourself from Dean when your constituents get edgy, not when some blow-dried mass communications major posing as a journalist gets edgy, okay?
The rest of the parallels between Dean and Gingrich are pretty obvious. Both are intellectuals, both are ideologues, both are tireless, energetic fund raisers and rabble rousers: exactly what opposition leaders need to be. You may think Newt Gingrich was a scummy, hypocritical little prick — and I’m not going to argue that point — but he knew what it took to rouse the troops and he led them to a chain of political victories that is still going on. Dean, thankfully, seems to have better character and is immensely more charismatic than Gingrich, and he, too, knows exactly what it takes.
The lesson the Democratic establishment needs to draw here is that the GOP got to where it is now in large part through the tactical brilliance of Newt Gingrich and the organizational skill of Tom DeLay. The Dems have been blessed, almost magically, by the rise of their own Gingrich and DeLay in the form of Dean and Reid. Reid, fortunately, seems to be progressing unhindered by his fellow Dems. Dean, on the other hand, seems to be getting more resistance from the Dems than from the GOP. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now. When you have Excalibur in your hands, you’d have to be a fool to wish for a butter knife.
