Despite his current surge in the South Carolina polls, Newt Gingrich's star
is not rising among one group of workers who have been a key talking point on
the campaign trail: unionized janitors who the former House speaker says make
"an absurd amount of money" and should be fired and replaced with poor
schoolchildren.
At a high school in Hudson, N.H., where Gingrich gave a speech last week, the
janitors are represented by the Teamsters union. They start off earning $16.86
an hour, or $28,324 a year, according to the local union contract.
Before Gingrich arrived on Jan. 9, several of them were readying the
auditorium for his event. The men weren't impressed by his plan for their jobs.
Those surveyed began with one basic point: If their jobs are turned over to
schoolchildren, they would be out of work. But they quickly moved on to what
they see as the more offensive issue: that a man like Gingrich -- who made
around $1.6 million offering advice to mortgage giant Freddie Mac -- would claim
to know anything about janitorial work.
"If you leave these custodians go, they're going to be out of a job," said
Jerry Mishow, head custodian at the school, who earns the top janitorial wage of
$25.41 an hour, or $42,688 a year. "Leave well enough alone."
"It just shows how out of touch with reality he is," added Brian McNamara,
another custodian.
"I don't think he knows what it feels like to be down in the trenches,
actually, you know, with the average everyday guy," said a third custodian,
Peter Petrakis.
That's so wrong on so many levels," Petrakis agreed.
Janitors are not the only people to disparage Gingrich's controversial strategy to fight both child poverty and the jobs
crisis by replacing adult janitors with working kids. Economists who study
job creation say it won't improve the economy, academics who study children and
poverty say it won't help poor kids, and unions who represent janitors say it's
an affront to working people.
"You could take one janitor and hire 30-some kids to work in the school for
the price of one janitor," Gingrich said at Monday night's Republican debate in
South Carolina. "And those 30 kids would be a lot less likely to drop out. They
would actually have money in their pocket."
His remarks were greeted with cheers from the audience.
"It's another absurd statement designed to appeal to the anti-union
right-wing base," said Robert Troeller, president of Local 891, International
Union of Operating Engineers, which represents New York City custodial
engineers. "A man with a million-dollar line of credit at Tiffany's has the
audacity to claim janitors are overpaid."
Newt Gingrich makes a point during the
opening question in the GOP debate in South Carolina.
It took only a matter of minutes for the explosive allegations by Newt Gingrich’s
ex-wife that he once asked for an “open marriage” that would include his
mistress to emerge front and center at Thursday evening’s Republican debate in
South Carolina.
Immediately after the candidates introduced themselves,
Gingrich was asked about claims his second wife, Marianne, made to ABC
News and the
Washington Post this week that the former House speaker in 1999, allegedly
in the midst of an affair with now-current wife Callista, had asked her to
engage in a permissive three-way arrangement.
Gingrich, who must have
anticipated the inquiry, theatrically responded with a blistering critique of CNN’s
John King, who asked the question, the network, and the media in general.
“I am appalled you would begin a presidential debate with a topic like this,”
Gingrich said, as the crowd at the North Charleston Convention Center roared and
rose to their feet in support.
“Every person in here knows personal
pain,” Gingrich said. “Every person in here has had someone close to them go
through painful things.
“I am, frankly, astounded that CNN would take
trash like that and open a presidential debate.”
When King countered that
it wasn’t CNN, but ABC, that was promoting the interview with Marianne Gingrich,
Gingrich would have none of it.
“John, it was repeated by your network.
Don’t try to blame somebody else,” he said. “You and your staff chose to start
the debate with it.”
Marianne Gingrich, who was married to Gingrich for
almost 20 years, is expected to tell her story fully after the debate on a
special edition of ABC News’ “Nightline,” and her allegations come just as
Gingrich appears to be surging in the polls days ahead of South Carolina’s
primary.
Because Gingrich’s personal baggage is well documented (three
marriages, ethics issues, etc.), it remains unclear whether the claims will hurt
him among Republican voters. But Gingrich clearly had decided to attack the story — and the media — with a
maximum of outrage. He called his ex-wife’s allegations “false” and suggested
that the media were purposefully targeting Republicans.
“They would like
to attack any Republican,” he intoned. “I am tired of the elite media protecting
Barack
Obama by attacking Republicans”
The other three candidates on the stage in South Carolina, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney
and Rick
Santorum, were asked about the relevancy of Marianne Gingrich’s allegations.
Only Santorum seemed to suggest that Gingrich may have crossed a moral line, but
did not condemn him. “This country is very forgiving,” he said.
Romney
wouldn’t touch it. “Let’s get onto the real issues,” he said. “That’s all I
gotta say.
BUT.......
The GOP's multimillion dollar
ad campaign invoking President Clinton's relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky
was devised by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and tested before more than
three dozen groups of likely voters before Republicans unleashed the assault,
party sources said yesterday.
In reviving the presidential sex scandal just one week before Election Day,
Gingrich and his chief strategists aimed to energize their most loyal
supporters, whose enthusiasm appeared to be waning after House conservatives
lost the budget fight and the Clinton scandal fell off the front pages.
The New York Times editorial board has shocked the world again with
this surprising nugget of analysis; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was
playing to the latent racism of South Carolina voters when he answered honestly
Juan Williams’s pointedly racial question at Monday night’s debate.
“For
months, Mr. Gingrich has made racial resentment an integral part of his platform
as a conservative challenger to Mitt Romney,” reads the Times editorial
“Preaching
Division in South Carolina.” Who knew?
The
exchange that the Times specifically takes issue with was when Williams
asked Gingrich if calling President Obama a “food stamp president” (a phrase he
has been using for months) was not belittling “black Americans” – a telling
sentiment in itself. Gingrich responded “no,” and went on to say correctly that
during Obama’s administration, the rate of recipients of nutritional assistance
has increased dramatically.
“The
fact is that Mr. Obama has “put” no one on food stamps,” the Times
clarifies. “Mr. Obama eased the eligibility requirements as part of his stimulus
program, a desperately needed measure that helped struggling families and the
economy.” The Times is perfectly aware that the food stamp
metric is a sad measure of the strength of the U.S. economy and the state of the
nation – they also know how poorly it reflects on the Obama White House.
The
Times also took issue with Gingrich’s proposal, also months old, that high
school age children be allowed to perform basic janitorial duties as part-time
work after school – the benefits would be to decrease public school funds spent
on unionized janitorial labor and to decrease the rate of high school drop
outs.
MSNBC
anchors Chris
Matthews and Alex
Wagner echoed the Times’ sentiment yesterday – Matthews found
particular animus in the way Gingrich addressed “Juan” by his name in answering
his question. This dramatic flair by Gingrich was, no doubt, influenced by the
animated crowd’s “boos” which followed William’s leading question.
This is the real issue with which
the Times takes issue with; just how powerful Gingrich’s answer was
with the crowd at the Myrtle Beach debate. The crowd leapt to its feet to give
the former House Speaker a standing ovation that continued into the commercial
break.
“For
these divisive thoughts, Mr. Gingrich earned his ovation and Mr. Williams won a
round of boos,” says the Times. Conservatives have long become used to
being called racist for advocating self-reliance; indeed, conservative voters
see the rate at which the left becomes self-righteously livid over imagined
racial infringements as a measure of success.
That
South Carolina recently elected a black, Republican Congressman to represent the
district where Secession was born and where the first guns were fired on Fort
Sumter in 1861 (Rep. Tim Scott), does nothing to alleviate the sins of our
fathers for the luminaries in the 52-story New York Times
building.
Liberals
believe Gingrich to be a weaker Republican candidate than Romney – precisely
because he articulates conservative beliefs and values combatively and
unapologetically. They imagine that American would reject a candidate that
lectures the president on revered national values like perseverance,
self-determination and hard labor. They may be correct, but it would be the
lecture and not the substance of the argument that American’s would
reject.
The
perennial, thinly-veiled critique of Republican candidates who advocate for work
over handouts as racist is no substitute for substantial criticism – it is the
last gasp of a defunct ideology that has no better rebuttal than to accuse its
opponents of malice. The voters are savvy enough to recognize this, whether the
New York Times or MSNBC know it or not.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- It was telling that as soon as the Republican
presidential debate ended here Monday night, Newt Gingrich made a beeline to
talk to reporters.
Gingrich, the recently embattled, always controversial and irascible former
speaker of the House from Georgia, had just watched a massive crowd inside the
convention center respond to him with a passionate standing ovation after his confrontation with one of the debate's moderators.
The exchange lit a fire underneath the crowd, and in so doing seemed to
increase his chances of gathering momentum ahead of Saturday's primary in South
Carolina.
"It's the only time I've ever seen a standing ovation, certainly in the
debates I've been involved," Gingrich told reporters after the debate in an area
set aside for the press. "There was a spontaneous sense that somebody finally
had the courage to just tell the truth about how we've got to go about helping
people, and the fact that I was very clear."
He was referring to his unapologetic and provocative dispute with debate
moderator Juan Williams, after Williams confronted him over his comments earlier this winter that poor children in
low-income neighborhoods should be given janitorial work in local schools.
"Can't you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all
Americans, but particularly to black Americans?" asked Williams.
Gingrich replied flatly: "No, I don't see that." The crowd erupted
approvingly.
Gingrich talked about his daughter "doing janitorial work at 13," and another
young man who started a doughnut company at age 11. He said that New York City
could "hire 30-some kids to work in the school for the price of one janitor, and
those 30 kids would be a lot less likely to drop out."
"They'd be getting money, which is a good thing if you're poor. Only the
elites despise earning money," Gingrich said, as the audience roared its
approval.
Williams came back at Gingrich, asking the former speaker if his comments had
been "intended to belittle the poor and racial minorities." The crowd, most of
it white, booed Williams loudly.
Gingrich channeled resentment felt by some whites about political correctness
with a salvo aimed at President Obama, followed by a high-minded summary of his
own ideals.
"First of all, Juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food
stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history," Gingrich said.
"Now, I know among the politically correct you're not supposed to use facts that
are uncomfortable."
Gingrich then brought up the run-down neighborhoods and schools along the
planned I-73 highway, known as the "corridor of shame," as an example of what he
said was President Obama's lack of action on behalf of low-income public
neighborhoods. He said that while Obama visited
the area as a candidate for president, "they haven't done anything."
"So here's my point," Gingrich concluded. "I believe every American of every
background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness.
And if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help
poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn
someday to own the job."
It was time for a commercial, but as Fox News' Bret Baier tried to preview
the next segment, he could barely be heard above the roar of the crowd, shouting
its praise for Gingrich.
"When we come back -- they can't hear me, but I'll talk to you -- foreign
policy," Baier said.
It was a moment that will likely be dissected, debated and discussed for some
time: a black journalist being booed by an overwhelmingly white audience in a
deep South state on Martin Luther King Day, as a white candidate for president
talked about the work ethic in low-income, majority black neighborhoods. It's
hard to imagine a more charged few minutes in public life in recent memory.
HuffPost asked Williams in an email if the booing and the environment had
made him uncomfortable.
'No," Williams emailed back. "But the intensity of the exchange pumped up my
adrenaline. The questions are important and I was in the moment."
Gingrich, afterward, called it "the most interesting single moment all
evening ... because it goes to the heart of the liberal confusion."
He tried to make clear that he was not talking only about African
Americans.
"The right to pursue happiness belongs to every single American of every
background in every community, which includes Native American reservations in
the Dakotas. It includes poor people in the hills of West Virginia. It includes
small towns in South Carolina," Gingrich said.
But Gingrich also let on that he knew he and Williams were talking primarily
about the black community in America.
"On the one hand [Williams] really is worried about the fact that we have
very high African American unemployment and that we have pockets of poverty that
really aren't being addressed. He even critiqued the Obama administration for
not doing it," Gingrich said in the spin room. "On the other hand, when you
start addressing it with solid, old-fashioned American solutions: getting people
to work, building I-73, creating a corridor of opportunity to replace the
corridor of shame that Obama himself talked about three years ago, you suddenly
got-he was on, 'Gee isn't this inappropriate?' No!"
"Anything which helps people break out of poverty, and anything which helps
people to have an opportunity to get a job, to learn to go to work, to get a
better job, to learn to rise, is an enormous advantage," he said.
Gingrich's big moment overshadowed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum,
his closest competitor in the only race that matters inside the GOP primary
right now: the contest to be Mitt Romney's top opponent and alternative for the
party's base. Santorum challenged Romney early in the debate over a TV ad run by
a super PAC supporting Romney, and caused the former Massachusetts governor to
break stride for a moment.
But Romney was able to wriggle free and for most of the night fended off
attacks and answered questions with his usual polish. His weakest moment came
when he gave a halting answer to the question as to whether he will release his
tax returns. It was unclear whether his answer indicated more of a willingness
to do so in April, or whether he was just dodging the question, but one Romney
adviser told The Huffington Post after the debate that it is likely he will in
fact release the returns.
Nonetheless, Romney is leading here in the Palmetto state in the most recent polls, and unless Gingrich can get a
massive boost of momentum from his performance and from another debate on
Thursday evening, he looks set to split the conservative vote with Santorum. If
that happens, and Romney is able to win the state, he will likely be treated as
the de facto nominee.
In that light, Gingrich's comments Monday night could be seen as a political
Hail Mary, as the clock ticks down to zero
.
