Gingrich’s Reagan ties debated

SARASOTA, Fla. — Having breezed through the high points of his two decades in Congress, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich settled on the comparison that forms the crux of his message.

“The Reagan-Gingrich model is lower taxes; the Obama model is higher taxes,” he said at a rally in advance of Florida’s primary. “The Reagan-Gingrich model is less regulation; the Obama model is more regulation.”

The height of Gingrich’s political power came during the Clinton administration, when Gingrich was the House speaker. Yet he far more often invokes the Ronald Reagan administration. Gingrich calls himself a “Reagan conservative” and is the only candidate who can say he worked with Reagan, whose Republican Party status was assured well before his 2004 death.

Gingrich frequently touts his ties to the 40th president — in one 27-minute speech in Manchester, N.H., he uttered the word “Reagan” 23 times. But during the 1980s Gingrich was a junior member of Congress. His depictions of his influence do not always match recollections of Reagan contemporaries and now have come under political attack. Some support Gingrich’s claims, but others say they are “misleading at best.”

Gingrich’s chief rival for the nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, tried to belittle the connection last week during a debate in South Carolina by noting that Reagan only mentioned Gingrich once in his diaries.

A Romney-allied super PAC, Restore Our Future, is airing a television ad in Florida saying that to hear Gingrich in debates, “you’d think Newt Gingrich was Ronald Reagan’s vice president. ... Gingrich exaggerates, dropping Reagan’s name 50 times.” In the one mention in Reagan’s diaries, the ad points out, Reagan rejects Gingrich’s idea to freeze the budget.

Gingrich’s defenders say he does not exaggerate his claims, but Gingrich is inconsistent in how he characterizes his role.

For example, Gingrich often talks about supply-side economics, the theory that tax cuts and reduced burdens for employers lead to a healthier economy for all.

On Jan. 9 in Manchester, Gingrich said he worked with economists Art Laffer, Larry Kudlow and others “and we developed what was called supply-side economics.”

Kudlow, who became Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, would put it differently.

“Newt was not one of the original, original supply-siders,” Kudlow said. “Newt wasn’t in that group, but as I’ve written, it is fair for Newt to say he was part of the Jack Kemp gang.”

Kemp was a more senior congressman who served as a mentor to Gingrich and was an influential force in the White House. Kemp co-wrote the 1981 tax cut bill, a major moment for supply-side policy.

“In those meetings in ’78, ’79, when Reagan was being briefed both by economists and by Kemp and others and increased his commitment to supply-side economics, I was there. Newt wasn’t,” said Charlie Black, a top Reagan adviser and Romney supporter.

Kudlow, who has not endorsed a presidential candidate, now hosts a television show on CNBC, and Gingrich is a frequent guest. He said he has not heard Gingrich exaggerate, and Gingrich does not always take credit for the concept on the stump.

On Jan. 8 in Derry, N.H., Gingrich said of his first congressional race in Georgia in 1978: “I ran on a new concept that ... others had developed called supply-side economics.”

Said Kudlow: “You’re talking about Newt — nothing is ever perfectly consistent. But I think Newt has a pretty consistent narrative on supply-side tax cuts.”

On defense policy, Gingrich evolved during the Reagan decade.

In 1981, Gingrich joined the newly formed Congressional Military Reform Caucus. The caucus initially focused on strategy, attempting to shift the military away from preparing for a conventional ground war.

Bill Lind, then a staffer for caucus co-founder Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., said Gingrich was active in rallying congressional conservatives and commanding media attention. “We were making the Pentagon’s life hell,” Lind said, particularly with a report critical of the 1983 invasion of Grenada.

The military reform caucus became more budget-minded as Reagan increased Pentagon spending — but by then Gingrich had become more of a White House ally.

“He’s the guy who comes to town and kicks the establishment in the shins and keeps kicking the establishment in the shins until it says, ‘If we let you in, will you stop kicking us?’ ” Lind said. “He viewed things like the military reform caucus as a horse to ride, and once he got where he wanted to be, he discarded them.”

Gingrich became an avid supporter of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative on missile defense, also known as “Star Wars.” He frequently was in touch with Reagan National Security Adviser Robert MacFarlane, a major proponent of SDI. MacFarlane, who later pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, is now a Gingrich campaign surrogate and has introduced Gingrich on the trail.

MacFarlane said Gingrich’s support was critical for SDI, which was criticized at the time as being too expensive and far-fetched. Though still a back-bench congressman, Gingrich held sway among House conservatives.

During his Manchester speech, Gingrich went further, saying: “I helped develop many of the aspects of defeating the Soviet empire.”

Asked directly about that claim, MacFarlane said, “He certainly was a contributor and a key supporter, no question about it.”

Black, the senior Reagan political aide, called Gingrich’s Soviet claim a stretch.

“For all Newt’s schemes, he was not looked to as a national security expert during his years in Congress,” Black said.