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Dole: Gingrich made the right move
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, November 9) -- Former Senator Bob Dole says Newt Gingrich did the "right thing" by resigning from Congress. Speaking to a gathering of GOPAC, a conservative political action committee once led by Gingrich, the Republican Party elder statesman said that if Gingrich had stayed in the speaker's job, it would have been "a battle every day," and the party would have suffered.
Dole said he's glad to see that Gingrich put party before his own interests. The two talked by phone Saturday after Gingrich's announcement that he would step down as speaker. Dole urged Republican colleagues in Congress to unite, saying that would probably be the best going-away gift to Gingrich. Dole said Republicans need to broaden the GOP's base to avoid a repeat of last Tuesday's election setbacks. "It's not going to be easy with a six-vote margin...we have our work cut out for us," in passing a Republican agenda in Congress, he said. Dole admitted that after elections he "couldn't sleep last Tuesday night and I was not running." Dole also praised both U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., and Christopher Cox, R-Calif., both candidates for House speaker, but failed short of endorsing either one. GOPAC chairman Shelly Kamins hinted at the bitterness some Gingrich supporters feel over the public challenges that hastened his departure as speaker. Asked to respond to Livingston's announcement that he would run against Gingrich, Kamins said that "without criticizing Mr. Livingston, Mr. Gingrich's character is such that he would have been supportive" of Livingston if the situations had been reversed and Livingston had been under fire following Republican losses in the mid-term election. MORE STORIES:Monday, November 9, 1998
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