Marvin Olasky is another Newtrino, but of much greater heft. He is a history professor at the University of Texas, the author of several works beloved by the Speaker. Last week the conservative Weekly Standard published an adaptation of a memo Olasky sent Gingrich, in which he argued, “Colin Powell just possibly could make the best president of all those in the running.” Olasky says he hasn’t heard back from Gingrich about this, and couldn’t possibly guess the Speaker’s reaction. Nor is Olasky entirely convinced Powell would pursue a conservative “empowerment” agenda on issues ranging from welfare reform to discouraging (as opposed to banning) abortions. But he is hopeful on both counts. As is William Kristol, the publisher of the Standard and leading GOP strategist: “Newt is the key” to the general’s prospective candidacy, Kristol says. “If he seems favorable, it will make it much easier for conservatives to support Powell. Right now, I’d guess that Newt is favorably ambivalent.”
Gingrich plays an intricate, nuanced game. “He’s like Kasparov,” Olasky says. “He sees eight moves ahead.” There are elaborate feints. The Speaker has not been displeased when Newtrinos trashed Dole: it has induced the Senate leader to prostrate him-self–wantonly, if not fervently–before the Republican revolution (and may have encouraged Dole to finally support the $245 billion tax cut). But Gingrich also choreographs clever counterfeits: he hinted several weeks ago that he might reconsider a presidential run if Powell really turned out to be a “Rockefeller” Republican, then quickly denied the report. Clearly, this was aimed at the general, “but also at Dole,” a Gingrich intimate pointed out– “maybe mostly at Dole.” (The message: I’m still not impressed with your candidacy.)
So where is Newt on Powell? Intrigued, I suspect. And, as Kristol suggests, favorably disposed–with several caveats. He’ll want to know that the general would have voted for the Republican budget. He’ll want to remind the general that Thomas Dewey chose not to defend the GOP Congress in 1948, and lost. He’ll want to be certain that if Powell is a moderate, he is a radicalish one–not a mushy, split-the-difference, establishment sort. (Newt sometimes calls himself a revolutionary centrist.)
Indeed, Gingrich has been known to hang out with a small, priestly and tortured sect known as “empowerment” Republicans: conservatives who are also social activists. They include intellectually adventurous, bighearted people like Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett–and perhaps a dozen others. (Kristol once told me, “There may be eight of us.”) But they’re hooked on a pretty important idea: that it’s irresponsible to turn away from moral, social and economic decay; that it’s possible to use traditional virtues and market disciplines to alleviate poverty. After the 1992 election, they nested together in an organization called Empower America, which, more recently, has begun to take on the trappings of a Powell-for-President cell.
It was no accident–and may be of no small significance–that the first two political figures Powell called for campaign advice last week were Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett. Both are excited by the prospect of a Powell candidacy. Kemp sees a potential urban activist and racial healer. Bennett sees a moral presence. “If Powell were president,” he tells audiences, “you’d see mothers all over urban America telling their kids, ‘Hush up. Listen to that man. He fought for his country. He honors his wife. He raised his children. That is a man. Be like him’.”
For Bill Bennett, that would almost be enough. Newt Gingrich will want more. And here Olasky’s memo may be instructive. Much of it had to do with abortion (plausible ways for Powell to get right with the fight). But Newt, never an abortion-obsessive, may be more interested in Olasky’s second point: it is important to know how adventurous Powell will be on social policy. The current debate posits two dimwitted alternatives–preservation or elimination of the bureaucratic welfare state. “Our goal,” Olasky writes, “should be . . . its long-term replacement.” With what, you ask? The empowerment gang has lots of ideas-from school vouchers to the Coats amendment, which would rechannel federal welfare money from bureaucracies to local charities. Newt loves this stuff, much to the dismay of his GOP congressional infants (who seem to think any attempt at public-sector altruism has its roots in Lenin’s tomb). A Powell candidacy–if it followed the empowerment path–might liberate Gingrich to pursue a more creative, less astringent conservatism. He’d like that.
There does seem to be a natural synergy here: Gingrich can give Powell credibility with conservatives; Powell can give moral authority–and a centrist imprimatur–to Newt’s revolution. As of last week, the two hadn’t talked turkey. They will soon. Gingrich won’t endorse Powell; he’ll have to stay neutral until the convention. But keep an eye on the Newtrinos.
