Newt Gingrich was in an even more obscure spot Sunday night: watching the de- bate and having a beer with supporters at Houck’s Restaurant at the corner of Johnson Ferry and Paper Mill Roads in suburban Atlanta. He hadn’t been invited to Hartford; the Bushnell Theater was the last place the Dole forces wanted to see him. Better that he be in Georgia. Dole’s advisers weren’t eager to have the Speaker around at their headquarters last week, either. He stopped by one day while the candidate was in debate prep–and wasn’t invited into the room. ““We don’t need advice on how to be unpopular,’’ said one Dole aide.
Not long ago, Perot and Gingrich were the angry giants of politics, commanding cover stories and colossal audiences. But last Sunday they were missing from the endgame of the election cycle they had set in motion, radicals replaced on center stage by dealmaking men of the middle. Perot lost a last-minute bid for a court order to include him in the Hartford forum. Gingrich had long since lost something else: the momentum of the GOP ““revolution.''
In politics, ““outsiders’’ almost always have their themes co-opted by mainstream figures. So it is with Perot and Gingrich. Though his ideas on trade and campaign reform have been largely ignored, Perot’s sermons about fiscal responsibility have not. Congress and the president have managed to cut the federal deficit four years in a row for the first time in 150 years. Though Republicans denounce Clinton as a liberal in hiding, the president claims to have accepted the Gingrichian view of history: that ““the era of big government is over.''
The law of unintended consequences marginalized the two agitators. Perot’s strong showing in 1992 encouraged congressional Republicans to stand firm against some of Clinton’s spending proposals in 1993. Dole had no choice but to lead a filibuster–and earned points with the GOP rank and file in the process. Gingrich’s own new troops in 1994 responded to Perot’s sense of urgency about the deficit. They emboldened the new Speaker to take on the Medicare issue–which Clinton and the Democrats have used to scare voters ever since. ““It’s amazing how things work,’’ said Gordon Black, a polltaker who has worked with Perot. ““Perot helped create Gingrich, who then helped resurrect Clinton.''
Churlish response: The missing men seem strikingly bitter. When Dole took the lead in excluding Perot from the debates, the response was churlish. How could the senator claim to be a ““war hero,’’ Perot wanted to know, and not have the guts to let him onstage? In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Gingrich appeared deeply frustrated. When asked whether he had played any role in making the culture of Washington so full of personal recrimination, Gingrich interpreted the question as a comparison between his bringing down of Democratic Speaker Jim Wright and his own current troubles with the ethics committee. He flushed, then paused. ““I’m counting to 10,’’ he said, ““because I find the context of your question entirely grotesque.''
Visionary and imperious, Perot and Gingrich were sidelined by their own personalities. Gingrich could end up in the House minority, and in real legal trouble. Perot lost ground when he tried to control the Reform Party. ““He blew it when he didn’t give Dick Lamm a fair chance to win the nomination,’’ said Micah Sifry, who launched his ““Perot Periodical’’ in 1993, and a companion Web site last year. Out in Newt Gingrich’s favorite place–the Information Superhighway–there’s more bad news for the Texas billionaire. There are very few ““hits’’ on the Perot Web site these days.
