With Gingrich surging in Republican polls, Democrat Nancy Pelosi has suggested she might dig up “a thousand pages” of dirt on the frontrunner. But critics from his own party may pose a bigger threat. From Ron Paul to Tom Coburn to Guy Molinari, see fellow Republicans who have clashed with Newt.
Don’t be so quick to tweak Herman Cain’s campaign slogan to Newt-Newt-Newt. In March, The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove spoke to the onetime GOP frontrunner about the other Republican presidential candidates. Cain said that too many voters base their decision on style and sound bites—two things that aren’t Gingrich’s strong points. “One of the most competent, knowledgeable people [in the race] is Newt Gingrich. I have the greatest amount of respect for Newt Gingrich. However, he’s going to have a challenge connecting with the American people.” While there were reports that Cain would endorse Gingrich, so far he hasn’t made an official statement.
Mark Humphrey / AP Photo
Sen.Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has feuded with Gingrich throughout his career in Congress. In his 2003 book, Breach of Trust, Coburn wrote that Gingrich lacked “courage” and “good judgment.” Now that Newt is running for office, Coburn is rallying other Republicans against him. Asked to weigh in on Gingrich’s rise in the GOP polls on Fox News Sunday, Coburn denounced the frontrunner’s leadership skills. “There are all types of leaders,” he began. “Leaders that instill confidence…leaders that have one standard for the people they are leading and a different one for themselves.” He concluded that he would have “difficulty” supporting Gingrich if he became the Republican candidate in 2012. Coburn put it more bluntly in an August interview with Oklahoma’s Tulsa World: “He’s the last person I’d vote for president of the United States.”
Susan Walsh / AP Photo
DeLay, who was elected to the House in 1984 and served as House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005, worked with Gingrich in 1994 to bring about the Republican Revolution and on1995’s K Street Project to further Republican ideals. DeLay, nicknamed “Hot Tub Tom,” was a notorious libertine in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. It wasn’t unusual for him to drink “eight, ten, twelve martinis a night at receptions and fundraisers” by the time he was elected to Congress in 1985, but DeLay became a born-again Christian in 1986. He later criticized House Speaker Gingrich, who was cheating on his wife with a White House staffer when he led the move to impeach Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. “I don’t think that Newt could set a moral standard, a high moral tone, during that moment,” DeLay said. “You can’t do that if you’re keeping secrets about your own adulterous affairs.” DeLay added that his own philandering record had been wiped clear prior to Clinton’s impeachment trial. “I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time.”
Alex Wong / Getty Images
While he’s so far kept quiet amid Newt’s feud with Nancy Pelosi, Dick Armey, another former House Majority Leader (1995–2003) and Gingrich partner, has been one of Newt’s biggest critics in recent years. Armey, who is now head of the conservative group FreedomWorks, also denounced Gingrich’s hypocrisy regarding the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, claiming the two “bonded” over their office affairs. “They had many meetings that we didn't know about where they'd drink wine and smoke cigars and talk about their girlfriends,” Armey said in a 2010 interview with World Magazine. He added, “It's fascinating; why would you confess to your mortal enemy what you wouldn't tell your closest friends?” Armey got fired up last spring when Gingrich criticized Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan, telling the National Review that Gingrich had alienated Tea Partiers “by attacking the one guy that they see as being courageous” when it comes to getting “government spending under control.”
Cliff Owen / AP Photo
With allies like Newt Gingrich, who needs the left? At least, that’s what Congressman Paul Ryan said in May after Gingrich labeled Ryan’s Medicare proposal a “radical change.” The comments came on the television show Meet the Press, when Gingrich rejected Ryan’s plan as “right-wing social engineering” and a “big jump.” Facing heat from the Tea Party—and to avoid an early campaign meltdown—Gingrich opted for quick damage control, apologized to Ryan over the telephone, and held conference calls with Tea Party leaders. Gingrich’s official mistake: clumsy phrasing. The incident, however, won’t go away—it’s now featured in Ron Paul’s “Serial Hypocrisy” attack ad.
Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo
Ron Paul’s “Serial Hypocrisy” campaign sums up how he feels about his GOP rival. The video, which will be emailed to conservatives rather than shown on television, portrays Gingrich as a lobbyist and Washington insider who has weaseled money from companies like Freddie Mac. It also shows him supporting liberals, and is intended to “debunk the myth” of who Gingrich “really” is.
Chris Carlson / AP Photo
Gingrich caved to angry moderates and pulled a harsh anti-regulatory bill off the House floor in 1996, Paxon, then a House representative from New York, was among a group of freshmen in Congress (along with Dick Armey and Tom DeLay) who led a coup to topple Gingrich as speaker of the House. In light of Gingrich’s recent surge in the polls, however, Paxon has said he’d “rather not revisit the past.”
Newscom
Guy Molinari, one of Gingrich’s former House colleagues, still harbors resentment against the GOP presidential hopeful from a feud that began in the 1980s. Molinari blames Gingrich for unseating him from his position as the head Republican on the Investigations and Oversight subcommittee of the Public Works and Transportation Committee, after he’d signed an agreement pledging not to do so. For Molinari, this loss marked the beginning of the end of his career as a representative from New York, inspiring him to run for Staten Island borough president instead. Molinari told the Staten Island Live that the former House speaker is “an evil person” prior to Gingrich’s arrival in the borough for a Tea Party town hall meeting at the end of November. While other infamous Gingrich haters like Paxon and Armey have kept quiet in recent days, Molinari has continued to be vocal. “There are so very many stories out there about his failings, his moral failings, that he certainly would be a bad pick to bear the title of the president of the United States,” he told Politico on Monday.
Anthony Deprimo / Landov
