Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House - Softcover

Drew, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684825511 ISBN 13: 9780684825519

Publisher: Touchstone, 1997

Synopsis

Elizabeth Drew presents a vivid account of the dramatic and historic political clash between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich as the Speaker of the House sought to repeal the New Deal. Her reporting also reveals the turmoil within the White House and among Republicans -- Bob Dole and Gingrich in particular -- as this remarkable story progressed. Her new afterword shows the political fallout from this struggle and discusses the implications of the '96 elections.

About this title

Review:

Elizabeth Drew is a reporter's reporter. She goes after the facts with a vengeance, sorts through the issues, absorbs the full context and then lays out the tale in simple yet intelligent language. Her subjects in Showdown offer plenty of material for a behind-the-scenes look at a rather tumultuous time in Washington. She contends that House Speaker Newt Gingrich went too far in his fervor to scale back government. Meanwhile, the Clinton White House helped itself by standing up to Gingrich but failed to answer many of the hard questions of the debate.

From the Back Cover:

Showdown is the story of the most dramatic political rivalry in decades. The Democratic President, brilliant but seen as indecisive and vulnerable, is directly challenged by the equally brilliant new Republican Speaker of the House, who seeks to complete the Reagan Revolution by repealing the Great Society and the New Deal. Drew writes with proven authority and intimate detail of the titanic battle that ensued between the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress - especially between the wavering President and the determined Speaker. Drew's masterly reporting exposes the range of Gingrich's ambition and the way he sought to control the House. She describes Gingrich's complex relationship with Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who, no enthusiast, struggled to keep up with Gingrich's revolution, and shows the impact the race for the Republican presidential nomination - in particular, between Dole and Senator Phil Gramm - had on national policy. Through amazingly candid interviews with key congressional figures, Drew elicits exactly how the GOP leadership formed a strategy to roll back the welfare state and destroy the power of the Democratic base. She again takes us behind the scenes to show us what the key players - on both sides - were doing and saying privately as they waged their all-out war. She tells us what the outwardly confident Gingrich worried about. She shows President Clinton trying to regain his footing following the devastating election (a humiliation that he and his wife took much harder than was publicly understood) and turning to a new key adviser, Dick Morris. Drew describes what effect Morris, a former Republican adviser, had on Clinton and the new strainswithin the White House his arrival caused. She presents a White House more riven than any in memory. Showdown makes clear the enormous stakes of this political struggle - no less than the future direction of the federal government and the fate of programs that affect everyone's life.

About this edition

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0684825511
• ISBN 13: 9780684825519
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400