Word: gingrichs
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With Wright's downfall and Tony Coelho's resignation, Gingrich is at his zenith. A year after he first sent the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct sniffing along a well-laid trail of charges against Wright, the Georgia conservative can proudly say he has had a hand in throwing the Democratic leadership of Congress into turmoil. Characteristically, he is not satisfied. "Let's have an honest House, and not one corrupted by the arrogance of power," he says. "I'm out to break the Democratic machine...
Although Republicans are a daunting 184 votes short of a majority in the 435-seat House, Gingrich has his sights trained on a full-fledged G.O.P. takeover. Working with his political soul mate, Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater, he also wants to see his party recapture the Senate, as well as statehouses and city halls all over the nation. But unlike Atwater, whose blues-playing, guitar-strumming sideswipes can be entertaining, Gingrich approaches his mission with a humorless holier-than-thou style that makes him easy to dislike...
...fellow conservatives, however, find him delightful. Says John Buckley, spokesman for the Republican Congressional Committee: "Gingrich is classic agitprop -- great with devising the arguments to forward our revolution. I see him as one-third Thomas Paine, one-third Winston Churchill and one-third Genghis Khan...
...Democrats are responding with threats and name-calling. Wright's son, Jim Wright III, calls Gingrich "another Joe McCarthy." Says Arkansas Congressman Beryl Anthony, who wants Coelho's whip post: "The Republicans should be getting ready to see what this feels like. I think it will be very therapeutic for our members if it dragged out for a while...
Their means of evening the score is a House ethics committee inquiry into Gingrich's finances, focusing on a book deal that is at least as unorthodox as Wright's. When Gingrich co-wrote Window of Opportunity in 1984, he formed a limited partnership and gathered $105,000 from 21 conservative supporters to underwrite the project. Window sold only 12,000 copies, but the lost investments turned into tax write-offs for the backers. Gingrich's wife Marianne was paid a salary of $11,500 for her work in helping establish the partnership. Democrats filed a formal complaint about...