Whenever he reaches into his bag of tricks, Newt Gingrich seems to pull out the same old attention-grabbing ploy: a dire warning about an impending third-party movement.
His pronouncements always assume the same basic form: Person or Group X must do as I say, or the traditional two-party structure will collapse. Headlines in major publications and television appearances customarily follow. Generally, his warnings are aimed at fellow Republicans—but not always.
The onetime House speaker, run out of the Capitol by his own party in 1998 but now—somehow—a prime contender for the G.O.P.'s 2012 presidential nod, was at it again this past week.
While delivering a speech in Missouri on Wednesday, Gingrich denounced the hefty federal spending that marked the Bush years and prophesied that "if the Republicans can't break out of being the right-wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third-party movement in 2012."
His words quickly made their way to the national media, and, sure enough, there he was on Sunday, appearing on Fox News Sunday to talk about the future of the G.O.P.—thus allowing Gingrich to reinforce his conservative credentials (he bashed spending, earmarks and the Obama administration) to a large audience overwhelmingly comprised of potential G.O.P. primary voters. Well played, Newt.
Of course, he's been at this for years. In November 1994, just three days after Republicans won control of the House in that year's midterm elections, Gingrich, then the 51-year-old speaker-in-waiting, declared the results a mandate for his vision of conservatism and swore that he would not compromise with Bill Clinton or Congressional Democrats.
Then, he reached for the Third Party card, this time in an effort to scare Congressional Democrats into submission: "If this just degenerates after an historic election back into the usual baloney of politics in Washington and pettiness in Washington, then the American people, I believe, will move towards a third party in a massive way."
Third parties were similarly on his mind in early 2005, when his old intraparty antagonist, Tom DeLay, was rapidly collecting ethical baggage and facing the prospect of an indictment. In response, DeLay's fellow House Republicans at first passed a rules change that would have allowed him to keep his leadership post even after an indictment.
Unquestionably, it was a politically tone-deaf move, one that equipped Democrats with an easy talking point. Gingrich, eager to pay DeLay back for his treachery when Gingrich was speaker, saw an opportunity to twist the knife and to score political points for himself. House Republicans, he announced, "should be careful about understanding that to the degree that we are seen as no longer the reform party, we create space either for a third party or for people to just stay home. And both are dangerous for our majority."
As usual, his warning made news, no small feat given that Gingrich had been out of the House for six years and was only beginning to try to reintroduce himself as a national political powerhouse. That third-party movement never emerged, but the ploy won Gingrich attention, turned the heat up on an old enemy, and put him on the right side of an issue—ethics—that would haunt the G.O.P. in the 2006 midterm elections.
He went back to the well again last summer, when John McCain seemed inclined to offer his No. 2 slot to Joe Lieberman. By then, Gingrich had firmly reestablished himself as a national player, one who had passed on a 2008 campaign of his own but who was clearly readying himself for the next open nomination. Asked on FOX (FOXA) News last August about Lieberman joining the G.O.P. ticket, Gingrich knew what to do.
"Well," he said, "I like Senator Lieberman a great deal, I admire him a lot, he'd be a great secretary of state, he'd be terrific as an attorney general, but the idea of him being the Republican vice president nominee would split the convention, and (Libertarian Party nominee) Bob Barr would get 15 percent of the vote."
Had Gingrich simply said he was against the idea, his remarks wouldn't have stood out very much; many on the right (mainly religious conservatives) were speaking out against the pro-choice, pro-gay-rights Lieberman. But by ratcheting up the drama and forecasting a tidal wave of support for Barr, Gingrich's comments—which surely went over well with the religious conservatives he will need in a '12 campaign—surely stood out more.
This routine might not be quite so tiresome if there was some legitimacy to Gingrich's hysteria. But even when his advice is ignored, the spontaneous third-party eruption never seems to materialize.
Take his 1994 threat, for example. Clinton and Congressional Democrats ended up doing exactly what Gingrich warned them not to and blocked his agenda, ultimately forcing a shut-down of the federal government in the fall of 1995. Roughly from that point on, Clinton turned into a shoo-in for reelection in 1996, while Gingrich became so miserably unpopular that his face was used in numerous (successful) Democratic campaign ads throughout '96. Blocking the Gingrich agenda didn't foment any third-party fervor, but it did take the wind out of the G.O.P.'s sails.
Gingrich's new forecast of a "small government" third party for '12 is best considered against the backdrop of his previous warnings. Logically, there is no basis for his claim; Republicans are now locked out of power in Washington, so they can't be the "big government" party that they were under Bush. Had they kept power in '08, especially with McCain as president, a split could have been plausible. But now they are just a powerless opposition party, mouthing all the right words about small government. Conservatives aren't about to break off from that.
But by pretending that there's a threat, Gingrich knows that he can get what he's really after: attention.
