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Newt's Reagan Fantasy
Mike Theiler / Reuters
Before Newt Gingrich runs against Obama, he's resurrecting Reagan through a new documentary. The former Speaker talks to Lloyd Grove about what the GOP needs now—and whether he's the solution.
When the house lights came up at last night’s New York premiere of Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny—a triumphal documentary narrated by Newt and Callista Gingrich—women in the audience sniffled. Grown men dabbed their eyes.
The movie, funded to the tune of $1.1 million by the conservative activist group Citizens United and commercial real-estate developer Lawrence Kadish, was the occasion of yet another sentimental get-together in the extended Republican wake—with a dollop of nostalgia and perhaps a dash of necrophilia—that has kept right on going without surcease since the 40th president of the United States quietly expired in 2004.
Newt noted to rousing applause that “the present drift toward debt, socialism, and weakness is a brief detour in the march toward freedom.”
Actually, much longer than that: The poignant celebration of all things Reagan hasn’t really stopped since he left office more than 20 years ago and subsequently announced that he was losing his mind to Alzheimer’s disease. It’s all part of the state-of-the-art myth-making machine (innumerable tributes, fundraising dinners, movies, hagiographies, and naming ceremonies) that constitutes Reagan Inc.—a juggernaut that has given the Kennedy family more than a run for their money.
“Newt and I love President Reagan and what he stands for,” the former Speaker of the House’s wife, Callista, told me as her guests filed out of the Directors Guild of America auditorium in Midtown to much-needed drinks on the floor below. Perfectly blond, she was trim and stylish in Republican pearls and an elegant black suit. “We wanted to remind people of the horrors of communism and the dangers of unprincipled leadership—and we wanted to share his story with all Americans, especially young Americans.”
There were not many young Americans in the well-heeled crowd—a lacquered and manicured subset of Obama-loving Manhattan—unless you counted camouflage-wearing teenagers from the White Plains Young Marines and a blue-uniformed female Marine sergeant who belted out an American Idol-worthy rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner” while everyone in the audience stood at attention (probably a first for this Hollywood industry venue).
And there were only a few brand-name Republicans in attendance, such as corporate lawyer Edward Cox, husband of Tricia Nixon and son-in-law to the 37th president; failed Hillary Clinton opponent Rick Lazio; former Richard Nixon muse Monica Crowley (who toiled for the disgraced president during his exile in Saddle River); and Crowley’s fellow Fox News regular, GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway.
The chirpy Crowley emceed the evening, and at one point recounted that when a declining Reagan paid a visit to Nixon in New Jersey, she posed for a snapshot between the two ex-presidents and somehow managed to “goose them.” Newt told the crowd: “I find every experience to be a learning experience, and one of the things I’ve learned tonight is to be very careful about how I stand near Monica.” Then he noted more earnestly, to rousing applause, that “the present drift toward debt, socialism, and weakness is a brief detour in the march toward freedom.”
Of course, the elephant in the room—with the Republican Party on the ropes—was the question of which Reagan wannabe will lead them back to glory. GOP talking head Joe Watkins, a former aide to Sen. Dan Quayle and the first President Bush, gestured at the silver-helmeted, broad-beamed Gingrich, who was a few feet away, posing for grip-and-grins. “He could easily be the Republican nominee in 2012,” Watkins said.
“We’ll see—anything’s possible,” said Callista, Newt’s wife of nine years (they fell in love when he was Speaker and married to his second wife, and she was a staffer on the House Agriculture Committee). “I suspect in a year, we’ll have a serious conversation again.”
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Duncan32
Yeah ... well, Ronald Reagan is gone with the wind. These admirers seem to forget that he ran up huge budget deficits from which we have yet to recover. Real conservative, huh?
jds8181
"Conservatives" don't like to talk about that. Let's talk about how Reagan single-handedly defeated communism instead! Man, those were the good old days.
Isn't it funny how W was the darling of conservatives until he turned their brand toxic? You won't find one these days that will admit to having put him in office twice, though. No, now he's not a REAL conservative. He abandoned their "principles" of small government. Small government my ass. If "conservatives" had any balls at all they'd go before the American public and tell senior citizens they want to cut their Social Security and Medicare benefits. After all, these two programs represent the lions share of government spending that they claim they want to cut. Instead, "conservatives" are the ones who gave America the disastrous prescription drug benefit that will wind up dwarfing the cost of the Obama stimulus plan. Conservatives are the phoniest bastards in politics.
Guillermo Cowley sounds like the prototypical conservative: rich prick who loves thinking about how lucky his poor nanny is to have a boss like him.
Progressive2
So instead of cumming with new ideas they're still going to bring back in the passed, sounds good to me go for it!.
When Reagon was president the people we're at WAR with now were his Ally so wtf are they thinking? good luck with that GOP.
pricklypear
Are you smoking weed?
JohnnyA
Prickly, as much as it irritates me, Progressive is correct. President Reagan did in fact use our relationship with Saddam in his cold-war maneuverings with the Soviet Union. It is how we knew Saddam was capable of using poison gas. The CIA documented this on several occasions, including on the Iraq-Iran front during their war, and in Iraq's southern marshes against his own citizens. In the interest of national security, we allowed the issue of war crimes to be overlooked.
piktor
You tell 'em, Progressive2!
Uncle Ronnie was a dunce. Or not. Or maybe. Don't confuse me, Progressive2
idicula1979
Ronald Reagan is porn to the republicans.
Banjo1
Newt is the most garrulous politician since Hubert Humphrey. That and all the baggage he drags behind him should be sufficient to keep him on the sidelines where his talent at never being at a loss for comment works best. Anyhow, wasn't TDB promoting a Cheney candidacy just yesterday? Tina, are the interns running the show?
stevensnell
Regardless of what you think of Newt's politics (and I'm no big fan), he's something of a loose cannon. For every good idea he has ("We have to improve science and math education in this country!") he comes up with an off-the-wall horrible one ("The government should buy a laptop for every child in America and give them out like penny candy!")
nortonclybourn
Newt is proof that Republicans can be self-parodying pseudointellectuals too. He'll have his comeback when Wham! has theirs.
muddog
Yes, Callista fell in love with Newt when his then wife was fighting cancer, they had an affair ( while he was impeaching Clinton ) and fell in love.
When a former aid for Dan Qualye is giving advice it's best you run and fast.
resurecting Regan is a trully sad spectacle. The G.O.P. has nothing new, just re packaged old.
These people just dont get it do they?. We have had their way of gorverning and look what is has brought us....
When Newt, Grover Norquist, Palin, Limbaugh and the like are the NEW voices of the party one has to wonder.
xbainx
Rich People, reminiscing about a rich man, funded by other rich men. Desperately trying to hold on to a world gone by, where you could hand scraps to the working class and they would thank you for it. Excellent.
scott1607
Wow, I grew up in the eighties when Reagan ruled the country. I didn't have a nanny or a mammy! What "Old World" is he talking about?
jarussell
As a lifelong GOP member, I would like to take this opportunity to invite Newt to go f*** himself before he f***s the rest of the party in the next election cycle. If, in his tiny little pin brain, he thinks that he has a chance of being elected after all he's done to turn people against our party, he's batshit crazy.
I voted for Ronald Reagan (my mistake) in my first presidential election vote in 1984 on the premise/promise that he would balance the federal budget. Instead, he tripled it. Then blamed Congress. Then he gave all the middle class the finger on his way out by endorsing trickle-down economics and being behind Iran/Contra and lied to throw Oliver North under the bus. If Newt wants to take partial credit for that, or revive the Reagan years, it just proves my point about being batshit crazy.
It's time for new Republican leaders with common sense and an ability to connect with people (like Jesse Ventura) to take over and throw out all the old geezers who's main focus was to line their and their friends' pockets. I've seen the future and it ain't this bozo.
stevensnell
I doubt that Jesse Ventura would return to the national stage as a Republican -- he's an Independent, after all -- but I have to agree about Newt. He only cares about himself. He makes a nice living writing books and going to various shows, but come on: he's had his chance, and he blew it.
jarussell
Yeah, I know he's an independent, but I think he kinda leans more right than left....also, that's why I said ~like~ Jesse. He doesn't care who he offends or how he speaks, but it's usually the truth or close to it. I couldn't, I think, see Jesse being president. After all the weird crap he did in the studio wrestling genre, it would be tough imagine him in the high office. Also lotsa drug stories out there too, not that that matters anymore. But he's a guy that lays it out there....did you see him on Hannity? It was great seeeing Hannity suck up to him, even when he was knocking Hannity around. Hannity was practically grovelling. I'd vote for Jesse just to shut Hannity up.
idicula1979
I am no fan of Newt's but I think he is a very odd and surprising how he can stay in the media spotlight for so long, while being a complete hack and just recycling the same old talking points.
And also Ronald Reagan is porn to republicans.
milkman57
I was curious if there was anything about Reagan's tax increase history during the presidency here is a clip from Forbes magazine. "Reagan signed into law major tax increases every year of his presidency after the first. By the end of his presidency, he took back half of the 1981 tax cut in the form of higher taxes. And it should also be noted that when confronted with a crisis in Social Security in 1983, Reagan endorsed a rescue plan drafted by Alan Greenspan that consisted almost entirely of higher taxes." That is the real Reagan the republic party should know and love.
allonfla
One more chapter in my upcoming book: WTF?, 2008 edition.
FreddySez
I admire Gingrich as a thinker and writer, but I'm afraid his stint as speaker laid bare too many of his weaknesses as a governing leader. They are different roles, and even great intellect doesn't necessarily qualify a person for both.
In addition, whatever his actual qualities, he's got too much baggage with the electorate. Some earned, some unfairly slapped on him, but it's all there.
As for "finding the next Reagan," can we stop already? I don't remember anyone chattering in the late 1970s about "finding the next Ike," or "the next Teddy Roosevelt."
Gingrich is right, as quoted above, when he says people like that either come along or they don't. You can't groom them into being. This party, any party, should plow its energy into cultivating relevant ideas. Finding people to champion them is secondary.
nikkya
these people are all jokes this man was a crook when he was in office and he is still one and who could trust a man who walks out on a wife in the hospital and them marries his intern i tell you repubs are the worst (christians) i have ever seen and it is hard to believe people actually follow them
rowland
Calista Gingrich is straight out of Stepford.
piktor
My favorite scene from the Reagan Nostalgia Tour:
"A retired Central Intelligence Agency official has confirmed to the Senate Intelligence Committee that on the secret mission to Teheran last May, Robert C. McFarlane and his party carried a Bible with a handwritten verse from President Reagan for Iranian leaders.
According to a person who has read the committee's draft report, the retired C.I.A. official, George W. Cave, an Iran expert who was part of the mission, said the group had 10 falsified passports, believed to be Irish, and a key-shaped cake to symbolize the anticipated ''opening'' to Iran."
Yes, you read correctly, Ronnie and friends made a bee line to Teheran bearing an autographed Bible, guns as gifts and a key-shaped cake. Ever hear of the Iran-Contra scandal?
Google "iran reagan cake" and reminisce all the laughable nostalgia...
kansas1946
a triumphal documentary narrated by Newt and Callista Gingrich-women in the audience sniffled. Grown men dabbed their eyes.
************************************* "Callista Gingrich" Now refresh my memory. Is this his second wife, his third wife, which. I can never keep that straight. Is this the one he was sleeping with when he was married to his second wife, or the one he was sleeping on when his first or second or third wife had cancer, which. When a guy has so many "family vaules" it is hard to keep them straightened out in your mind.
doko84
Newt Gingrich for president? Thats just what we need. Another old, white, ignorant moron as commander in chief.
Enough with the old white guys already. Our country is more diverse and interesting then that.
stevensnell
Don't worry! He's unelectable.
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