To Survive, Gingrich Has to Pull a Nixon

One of the most surprising things about the ethical morass into which House Speaker Newt Gingrich has blundered is that, for all his political astuteness and academic wisdom, he seems not to understand that vindication lies with the American public, not just his colleagues in Congress: He is not only the constitutional leader of the House; he is also third in the line of presidential succession. And even if he succeeds in persuading House Republicans of his fitness to continue as speaker, he still must satisfy the American people that he is more than just a smart-alecky master of evasion pulling off a hair’s-breadth escape from serious punishment.

In framing his survival strategy, Gingrich the political historian ought to refer to the precedent of another master politician whose career was close to being derailed by accusations of financial impropriety until he went to the public with an appeal for understanding and forgiveness. The penitent was Sen. Richard M. Nixon of California, the year was 1952, and the stratagem was the now-famous “Checkers speech.”

On Sept. 14, just after the Republican vice presidential candidate had finished an appearance on “Meet the Press,” he was taken aside by columnist Peter Edson, one of the program’s panelists. Edson wanted to pin down rumors of a $20,000-a-year “supplementary salary” contributed by California businessmen. Nixon maintained that the money was not a “slush fund” for personal spending but to cover extra expenses. But the questions persisted, nearly causing Dwight Eisenhower to dump him from the ticket. Nixon averted that fate by buying prime TV time and baring his soul to the nation.

Nixon’s infraction was actually no big thing. In the more ethically relaxed 1950s, many politicians, including Eisenhower’s highly principled adversary, Adlai Stevenson, had slush funds set up by friends to defray travel expenses and cover other incidentals. Most of the media paid little attention to the nagging of Nixon until the then-liberal New York Post proclaimed in bold headlines that his was a “secret fund” designed to allow the Nixons to live beyond their modest means.

What contributed to the runaway reaction to the Post story and very nearly sunk Nixon was that he was not a very sympathetic figure. He was seen as a hatchet man, an unscrupulous politician who had won both his House and Senate seats through the use of innuendo and cruel insinuation against his opponents, yet who affected a kind of self-righteousness and wounded innocence when faced with charges about his own conduct. Even many Republicans loathed him. But whatever the professionals thought of him, Nixon knew that he needed to win the favor of the American public to survive.

Gingrich faces many of the same problems, yet he has failed to realize that reassuring his congressional colleagues and stroking those Republicans who are wavering in their support is an inadequate response to his problem. Gingrich must not only satisfy the insiders that his sins were sufficiently petty to not disqualify him from another terms as speaker; he also must go before the public and make a clean breast of what he did.

If Gingrich persists in treating his problem as one that can be understood only by tax lawyers and members of the House Ethics Committee, he will lose any chance to dispel the cloud that hangs over his head. Gingrich must humanize his difficulties and enlist the sympathy of the legions of Americans who fill out their tax returns haunted by the fear that some deduction they take will trigger an audit. There is a constituency in the United States composed of people who could well sympathize with someone who ran afoul of some tax code enigma and the pitiless metaphysicians of the IRS.

Of course, any act of contrition by Gingrich will have to finesse the fact that he more than anyone is responsible for ratcheting up the standards of financial propriety for politicians to the point where only H. and R. Block could feel entirely confident running for office.

Winning back the speakership by twisting arms in the House cloakroom would be read by many Americans as a victory based on a technicality. Only a national gesture of penitence of the kind that Richard Nixon offered will win Newt Gingrich the public support he needs to function effectively in his job.

It will not be easy for this proud political figure, whose intelligence is matched only by his overweening arrogance, to publicly scourge himself. He is less practiced in the art of contrived humility than was Nixon. Moreover, Gingrich is not known to have a puppy named Checkers. Perhaps he can borrow a reptile to perch next to him and lap up his tears as they fall.