Newt Gingrich is running for president on a dazzling record of success in the 1990s ? a record that encompasses a booming economy, balanced budgets and a historic welfare reform law.
It just so happens there?s someone else who lays claim to that record: Bill Clinton.
Continue ReadingNow, as the former House speaker ? whose rocky relationship with Clinton when both were in office is the stuff of legend ? steals some of the ex-president?s thunder and touts the ?90s as a Newt Gingrich production, former Clinton aides are crying foul.
?Newt Gingrich running on President Clinton?s record is like the coal delivery man stealing Santa?s sleigh,? said Joe Andrew, a former Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999 to 2001.
?The then-speaker was not only an impediment to the president?s policies that resulted in years of record-setting growth, the speaker nearly derailed the very constitutional system he swore to uphold and now claims as the basis of his radical policies. His only success is in making news ? bad news.?
Longtime Clinton adviser James Carville was equally blunt and equally apoplectic about the claims of Gingrich, who was once lampooned on the cover of the New York Daily News as a ?crybaby? for his response to a perceived Clinton snub.
?The idea that he had anything to do with balancing the budget is ludicrous,? he said, accusing Gingrich of doing little other than creating partisan obstructions at the time. ?There?s so many people claiming paternity here. There?s only one that passes the DNA test and that?s the president.?
?Newt Gingrich trying to claim credit for the Clinton economy is like Johnny Ringo claiming credit for the gunfight at the OK Corral? was the take of former Clinton adviser Paul Begala. ?He was involved in it ? just on the losing side. Newt opposed President Clinton?s economic plan with all the bombast, bitterness and bloviating for which he?s famous. ? What?s next? Is Newt going to claim credit for President Clinton?s weight loss??
Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond shot back, ?It takes two. A bill is just a bill, but working with Newt, bills became welfare reform, tax cuts and balanced budgets.?
On the 2012 campaign trail, Gingrich has laid out what he describes as his signature accomplishments. They?re familiar bullet points from the boom-time 1990s ? a balanced budget, the push for substantive welfare reform ? that earned Clinton the enmity of the liberals in his party and a reputation as Triangulator-in-Chief, but also cemented his legacy.
Gingrich has painted those efforts as the achievements of a rosier era of bipartisanship, ignoring the government shutdown in which he played a pivotal role. He lauds his former adversary Clinton?s leadership style at campaign events and even credits the former president with playing a role in welfare reform ? though he makes clear that he doesn?t consider it a starring one.
The 1990s jobs numbers have also been a key pitch for Gingrich: At one point, his campaign issued a press release outlining ?The Obama-Gingrich jobs gap,? comparing the number of new jobs created under the president to the number created during the Gingrich speakership.
?When I was speaker, our budget was balanced and 11 million jobs were created,? he declared in a recent campaign ad.
Gingrich?s reliance on ?90s-era stats prompted mockery from Mitt Romney adviser Stuart Stevens in Sioux City recently, in the post-debate spin room.
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