Former House Speaker and possible Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is slamming presidential adviser Karl Rove, the New York Times reports...
President Bush has presided over a Republican Party in “collapse,” and Karl Rove’s strategy in the 2004 presidential election was “maniacally dumb” for focusing so heavily on the conservative base.That harsh assessment of the president and his chief political adviser is being offered rather by former Representative Newt Gingrich, who engineered the Republicans’ Congressional election victory of 1994 and went on to become speaker of the House.
Mr. Gingrich made the comments in an interview with The New Yorker, parts of which were published in this week’s issue. They opened a new feud between himself and the White House, which replied with a stiff defense late Tuesday.
The criticism speaks to a question that has hung over the race for the Republican presidential nomination since its early start this year: How will the candidates contend with the unpopularity of the president who heads their party? And will any of them break from him forcefully?
Mr. Gingrich is not in the race at the moment, but he has dropped many hints that he might eventually be. Should he get in, he suggested, he will be considerably more willing than the others have so far been to critique the competence of the incumbent.
I'm still betting against Gingrich getting into the race. He's more effective on the outside and he knows it.
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