NEWT MELTS

After hearing Boehner out, the good soldiers present said they would endorse the move, but only if two vital conditions were met. First, the Republican leadership had to make sure all other House Republicans understood the strategy and were given the tools to explain it back home. Second, there had to be a tax-cut bill in the works and a date certain for its consideration in the House.

Didn’t happen.

Instead, Gingrich casually informed a gaggle of reporters on Monday, March 17, of the stunning GOP retreat on tax cuts. It was the hottest budget news in Washington since the two government shutdowns. The Washington media happily declared the unconditional Republican surrender on the issue that has united and galvanized the party since 1980 — cutting taxes to balance the budget.

The Gingrich announcement infuriated conservatives who have always held that cutting taxes is essential to shrinking the size of government as a means of getting to a balanced budget. “It is troubling to me for us to move away from lowering the tax burden of working Americans,” says Rep. David Dreier, a California Republican. “It’s capitulating. It’s a hell of a mistake. Clinton has $ 100 billion of tax cuts in his budget. Why let him be the tax cutter?”

The move on taxes followed two lesser acts of political perfidy conservatives have yet to comprehend fully. First came Gingrich’s outreach to Jesse Jackson at the State of the Union. Then came his huddle with Alec Baldwin and the likelihood of continued funding of the National Endowment for the Arts (despite a supposedly ironclad written agreement Gingrich negotiated between moderate and conservative factions in 1995 to abolish all NEA funding in fiscal year 1998).

But fury was not the only reaction Gingrich elicited among House Republicans, particularly conservatives. Where once there was awe and gratitude, there is now disdain and disgust. Palpably, one can feel the mood overtake the House Republican conference that the time has come for a change at the top.

A good number of seasoned House Republicans saw within the speaker’s offhand repudiation of the party’s philosophical essence the beginning of the end of his reign. “He is a transitional figure,” says one House Republican who has long supported Gingrich and has participated in numerous leadership strategy sessions. “He was a crucial figure in the party’s rise to a congressional majority, but his time has passed.”

William J. Bennett, a stalwart supporter of Gingrich lately driven to distraction by the speaker’s attempts to win the favor of his enemies, began checking with Republicans on their support for Gingrich after his reversal on taxes. Several prominent House Republicans told Bennett there was no move afoot to oust Gingrich, but there was no reason to think such a movement could not materialize at a moment’s notice.

Bennett will not call for Gingrich’s ouster, but he remains bedeviled by the speaker’s recent inability to lead. “Where is he? Who is he? Who is he speaking for?” Bennett asks. “Part of the job of the speaker is to embody the philosophy of the party.”

If the matter were only when and how to make tax cuts, Gingrich’s problems would not so threaten his command of the House. But it isn’t. The speaker’s refusal to build a strategy, find appropriate language to explain Republican ideas, or even take the time to heed the advice of his party’s loyalists on taxes, arts funding, and affirmative action has convinced an increasing number of Republicans that his days are (and should be) numbered.

“To use one of Newt’s military analogies, to be a good general you have to manage multiple fronts at the same time,” says a senior House Republican aide. “Right now, he’s managing the supply line but not the front line.” Indeed, by the end of last week he was unable even to marshal enough Republican support to pass a resolution funding the Burton committee’s investigation of President Clinton.

A plausible case can be made for delaying tax cuts until a budget deal is reached. While it would have been difficult, the House leadership could have sold most members on the following approach:

First, announce with a flourish that the Republican party would temporarily suspend its demand for tax cuts in order to achieve a balanced budget with Clinton on terms that ensure the solvency of Medicare, maintain the integrity of welfare reform, and rid the nation of government waste (like the NEA, the Legal Services Corporation, and Americorps).

Second, set a date certain for House and Senate consideration of a budget resolution that meets balance in the year 2002 and does not delay nine-tenths of the cuts until 2001 and 2002, as Clintoh’s budget does.

Third, invite conservative Democrats in both chambers to join with Republicans to make the budget resolution bipartisan, forcing Clinton to chose between a congressional budget and his own.

Finally, put a Republican tax-cut bill on the legislative calendar, one that emphasizes the party’s two top goals: capital gains and the family tax credit. The size of both might have to be smaller than originally proposed, but passing such legislation nevertheless would keep the faith on tax cuts. This would also force an important debate about tax cuts and the economy: Republicans could argue that all families and investors need tax relief, not just the upper-middle-class families destined to receive Clinton’s tax credits to send their kids to college.

That strategy is politically defensible and riscally responsible. It would change the terms of debate and force Clinton and liberal Democrats to demonstrate the “will” to balance the budget they always speak about when they vote down the balanced-budget amendment.

The problem, more and more Republicans were conceding privately last week, is that Gingrich did not take the time to build political support for this strategy. What’s more, since surviving his near-death experience on the ethics front, neither Gingrich nor anyone around him has formed a coherent strategy for a political movement of any kind.

The problem Gingrich has created is that members of his own leadership have been forced to reject any delay of tax cuts (House majority leader Dick Armey did so two days after Gingrich’s casual remark). Another key figure in the Republican leadership, Rep. Bill Paxon, complains that “this was not a helpful chain of events. Everyone was caught off guard.” Without a legislative strategy, many Republicans will be forced to adopt an every-man- for-himself strategy — and by publicly redoubling their commitment to tax cuts, they will dig Gingrich and Co. into an even deeper hole.

“It’s already begun to happen,” Paxon says; he did it himself during an interview with a Buffalo talkradio station last week. While singing the praises of tax cuts does no harm at home, by definition it disconnects members from the leadership, undermining their ability to collect votes later on when inevitable compromises have to be reached on a balanced-budget package. Flexibility is crucial in any budget negotiation, and no one doubts that in the aftermath of Gingrich’s announcement, positions will harden.

After only a few days, a speaker who had been faulted for shortchanging the party’s principles was being privately assailed for failing a basic test of strategic leadership. What is left when faith is lost in the speaker’s ideology and tactics? “A lot of worry and not much enthusiasm,” says one top Republican. Members have been overheard openly discussing Gingrich’s coming downfall on the House floor.

Two ouster scenarios appear plausible at the moment. The first is that the leadership would hold off any precipitous move against Gingrich so that Armey or DeLay could line up enough support to make their candidacies inevitable. Others thought to be eyeing the speakership are Paxon and John Kasich of Ohio, the budget committee chairman.

Another scenario is that backbench conservatives could announce a challenge to Gingrich as leader of the Republican conference, possibly even requesting a new vote for speaker on the House floor. An ambitious young legislator could stage such an assault as a means of forcing more senior Republicans to step to the fore and seek the speakership.

Armey and DeLay have already gone out of their way to make peace with moderate Republicans by emphasizing (in Armey’s case) the need to tone down rhetoric and appear more receptive to opposing ideas. DeLay was the first publicly to float the idea of delaying tax cuts in an interview with the Washington Times, a move that suggested he was trying to reach out to moderates as well.

As in any battle of political importance, weapons of all kinds are being marshaled. Friends of Paxon have taken note of a transcript of Armey’s first press conference with reporters at the dawn of the 105th Congress. Some combustible comments could haunt his bid for the speakership.

According to the transcript, Armey greets the reporters by saying, “It’s great to be black — I mean, back.” Later, when Armey attempts to recall a passage from the Bible to make a larger political point, he offhandedly observes that the assembled reporters are probably all fans of “the Old Testament.” Combined with Armey’s infamous reference to Rep. Barney Frank as ” Barney Fag,” these comments could dampen support among Republicans looking for a speaker whose wisecracks won’t get them or the party into hot water.

“One of the great advantages of the Contract With America,” says one prominent Republican, “is it made us look like we knew what the hell we were doing. Now, we don’t.” That’s for sure.

Major Garrett is co-author with Tim Penny of Common Cents: A Retiring Six-Term Congressman Reveals How Congress Really Works — And What We Must Do to Fix It.