But don’t bet on it. His GOP colleagues may love him, but the public doesn’t. Polls show only a third of the people like him –a much weaker showing than Bill Clinton’s–and even that number is dropping. Meanwhile, support for the Republican agenda itself is slipping, and Democratic strategists Believe that Gingrich’s personal unpopularity, is one of the reasons. “The leader of the revolution,” one Gingrich adviser says plaintively, “has the daunting task of trying to change the American political culture when 70 percent of the public isn’t behind him.”
Why does Gingrich rub people the wrong way? Anguished that his legislative accomplishments have not translated into adulation, the speaker this summer dispatched a consultant to help make him more likable. The results, NEWSWEEK has learned, offered Gingrich little comfort. The very things some people admire most, more people dislike. Although many of those Gingrich’s pollster questioned think Newt is “getting things done,” others believe “he’s shoving things down people’s throats.” Some praise him as a man “out there taking chances,” More think “he’s arrogant and abrasive.” There were other unhappy surprises in the study. Gingrich hoped his best-selling book, “To Renew America,” would make people view him as a Jeffersonian statesman-intellectual. Instead. they figured he was a typical pol capitalizing on his job for personal gain. And to the public, his flirtation with a presidential bid seemed less about advancing Gingrich’s ideas than his ego.
Gingrich has been fretting over how to burnish this image ever since. Joe Gaylord,his political guru, hatched a seemingly promising plan. As one internal memo put it, the speaker’s staff would “humanize” Gingrich by having him pose with “the aging” and people with “disabilities.” But even the most benign photo ops were a bust. At a recent ceremony celebrating the “Contract With America,” Newt turned to an adorable baby girl in her father’s arms. Then, instead of kissing the infant for the snapping cameras, he lectured her about the Republican legislative record. “The problem is, you can’t make someone look like something he’s not,” concedes one Gingrich intimate.
Like most politicians–including Clinton–Gingrich blames the press for his unpopularity. The speaker complains that newspaper editorial boards are loaded with “socialists” and the front pages “repeat routinely the lies of liberals.” It’s true that most Gingrich profiles haven’t just been critical, but decidedly negative. The most recent, a novella-length piece in The New Yorker, came complete with illustrations of Newt as a carnival barker, a reptile and a leader being honored with a fascist salute.
The speaker’s own advisers, however, acknowledge the problem isn’t really the press; it’s the speaker. His unkempt hair and high-pitched voice make him look harsh and undignified, says one confidant. “The speaker is cocky and abrasive and likes a scrape with the liberal media,” notes another. “He’s got something of a smart mouth,” concedes a third.
There’s a limit to what Gingrich can do. He doesn’t have a warm personal story to smooth the rough edges. Even Bob Dole, who can appear mean-tempered, has softened his image by talking about his debilitating war wound. And Clinton partly overcame his character problems by portraying himself as the child of an alcoholic household. Short of such narratives, Gingrich is turning to advisers like Mike Deaver, Reagan’s old media guru, who has told the speaker he should do more long-form talk shows and C-Span, where he has time to appear thoughtful–not just sharply partisan.
For now, Gingrich seems to have convinced himself that finishing the contract will somehow make people like him. “I think his natural negative is closer to 35 percent,” insists spokesman Tony Blankley–not the 49 percent it is now. And Gingrich knows other leaders overcame public distrust. His hero, Reagan, entered office with the highest negative ratings of any new president in history, but left a beloved figure, The difference is that for all his talk, Reagan only pushed the pleasant part of conservatism–lowering taxes-while Gingrich has actually slashed government benefits. Politically, it’s always easier to give than to take away.
