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Posted on February 27, 2011 | tags

 
 

Politics: Government shutdown: Will 2011’s GOP ploy be like 1995?

  • If Gingrich couldn’t control his hard-line freshman class of 73 members in 1995 — he jokingly referred to them then as ‘a third party’ — it’s hard to imagine how the kinder, gentler Boehner will control his 87 freshmen, many of them lacking government or legislative experience, let alone the gene for compromise.
  • New York Times columnist Frank Rich • Offering the assessment of why the GOP should avoid playing the government shutdown game. It’s something that Rich says a number of GOPers are trying to argue doesn’t match the political playing field of 1995, where a defiant Newt Gingrich overplayed his hand too much and caused much embarrassment for the Republican party in the process. However, Gingrich doesn’t remember it that way, strangely enough. In a Washington Post column, he claims that he, on the other hand, plowed the way for much larger cuts in the ensuing years. Nice revisionist history, Newt. source