Incumbency has another advantage, the advantage of inertia. For years now it had been known and proven that incumbents — regardless of party, regardless of record, regardless of the amount of money spent, regardless of almost anything — have a 90 % chance of re-election. Eventually the odds would catch up to you and somebody else would push you out (like me with Andy Stewart) or the voters would send a message to the White House by a mass purge in Congress, like in 1994. I was not facing that this year.
I won re-election by 22 %, one of my highest margins ever. It was… intoxicating!
The effect in the House was interesting, to say the least. Newt had been running several polls all year long, and they were telling him that because of the Clinton sex scandal the Republicans could be expected to pick up between two and three dozen seats in the House. This would more than make up our losses in ’96 and cement him as a great leader of the House, like Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill. He then proceeded to share these polls with all his top buddies.
The actual net result? Zero! We lost four Republican seats to Democratic newcomers, and stripped four Democratic seats in return. To what extent the polls were accurate and to what extent Newt was simply finding things he wanted to find wasn’t clear. I can say with 100 % certainty that Newt blamed me for the discrepancy, because he reported this in the Washington Post. We had been on track to use the scandal to pick up all those seats in the House, when a rogue Congressman had to muck things up for everybody, derail the impeachment, and make friends with President Clinton.
This sounded great in theory, but a significant number of my fellow Republican representatives were not in agreement. I wasn’t as much of a rogue as Newt was making me out to be, and I had a large number of friends who weren’t buying Newt’s explanation. Among them was John Boehner, the Republican Conference Committee Leader, not quite as critical as the Majority Leader or Whip, but a nice step up the ladder. A revolt was brewing, he told me. Newt Gingrich had worn out his welcome. During the votes for leadership positions after the election, he would be voted out of his Speakership.
Somebody, maybe John, had a big mouth, and it got back to Newt. Newt called a meeting of the House Republican leadership (not including me, go figure!) and forced a response. I heard about it afterwards. Bill Paxon of New York announced he would challenge Newt for the Speakership. Since nobody really wanted Paxon, he was told to sit down and shut up. Newt told the rest of them that he didn’t want to ‘rule over a pack of cannibalistic wolves’ and said he was quitting as Speaker. Was it a bluff? I can’t say, but if it was, it failed. The wolves began arguing about who would take over. Newt’s four years at the helm were not considered successful, and the top people were tainted with him. Bob Livingston was going to be the next Speaker, as Newt’s chosen successor.
Well, maybe not.
There were new scandals brewing in Congress itself. Egged on by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, everybody and their brother in the House, especially the Republicans, was being investigated for extramarital affairs. Flynt had promised a reward of a million bucks for documented proof, although it was never clear to me what you needed to get the million. Charlie even got in on the act, asking his mother to put on a blonde wig and sit on my lap, so that he could get a photo and send it in for his piece of the million. Smartass! I chased him around the kitchen as his mother and sisters laughed, and then gave him a swift kick in the pants!
The results were predictable. You can’t pick 535 random people and find zero who haven’t cheated on their spouse. The likelihood is so vanishingly small as to be meaningless. The first victim was Bob Livingston, one of Newt’s closest henchmen, who was fucking around on Mrs. Livingston. With Livingston out of the running, Dick Armey stepped up. Too bad for Dick that he was too tightly tied to Newt. Nobody wanted him as Speaker either. At that point, Newt simply told us all to fuck off, and resigned his seat representing the Georgia 6th.
And that was my opportunity. Things had gotten too crazy, too much had been said, too many bad feelings were floating around. There was a significant chance that the Democrats could find a few Republicans disgusted by the entire affair and join with them to vote in a Democratic Speaker in a Republican dominated House. That needed to be shut down, and shut down hard! I talked to as many of the more moderate Republicans I could speak to. Interestingly, I also spoke to Tom DeLay, who was equally disgusted by what was going on. So he and I made a deal.
When the vote for House leadership positions came, Denny Hastert decided to go up against Armey for Speaker. On the third round of voting, Hastert won. That was when DeLay slipped a knife into the back of Armey. Tom got himself nominated for House Leader, which was Dick’s current position, and won the vote. Armey was stunned. The second half of the deal was the quid pro quo. My buddy John Boehner nominated me for Majority Whip, and DeLay seconded the nomination.
I was asked my philosophy of governing by one of the newbies, a fellow from out in the Midwest. I stood up and scratched my head, and then grabbed the microphone. “My philosophy? How about getting something done around here?! How about accomplishing something?! I’m not from some district that doesn’t have Democrats in it. I’m from the Maryland Ninth, where I am damn near the only Republican in the district. If I can’t work with the people on the other side of the aisle, I don’t come back here. If I don’t try and get something done here, I don’t come back here. If I don’t at least show some level of courtesy to the Democrats, I don’t come back here. So here’s my philosophy — Do your damn job! Every one of us told the people back home that they could trust us to fix the problems around this joint. So do it! I am going to ask every person in this room to figure out ways to lower the volume of nonsense we have been spouting, and work together to get some things done. So that’s my philosophy. Do your damn job! And you tell me what I have to do to help you. And that’s my job, to help you!”
I set the mike back in the mount and looked out at the others. Some of the people there had stunned looks on their faces, but others were nodding and whispering to each other. Then we took a vote.
I was the new Majority Whip.
I suspect that when the news got to the White House that for the next two years when they asked to see the Congressional leadership they would be seeing my smiling face went over like a lead balloon. In fact, a few people asked if I would shake his hand, and suggested I take some hand sanitizer for when I did. I smiled and laughed with them, but that would be ballsy, even for me. I would behave myself, or Marilyn would smack me, I’m sure.
At Christmas, we did the usual and flew up to Marilyn’s family for a few days. Everybody had heard about my promotion, and I spent a fair bit explaining to my brothers- and sisters-in-law what the job was, or at least what I thought it was. Everything went pretty well, but there was a somewhat uncomfortable conversation on Christmas day. It wasn’t about the truly dreadful meal, which Marilyn’s mother cooked — Marilyn got her abysmal kitchen skills honestly — but the question asked over dinner. Harriet looked across the table at Charlie and asked, “So, Charlie, where do you plan to go to school next year?”
I kept any expression off my face as I turned to face my son. I had been pushing him on this same question for almost a year now, and not gotten much in the way of an answer. Marilyn had argued through his junior year that I didn’t need to push him, but even she was starting to worry. He only had one more semester until graduation. So far he had only told us that he just didn’t seem to like the idea of going to college. I told him that he could enroll at one of the community colleges, go there for a couple of years and figure out what he wanted to do, and then transfer to a four year school. Essex or Hagerstown were certainly close enough if he wanted to live at home, or he could live on campus anywhere in the state.