Fighting for the Right
By Marc Sandalow
Examiner Staff Writer 11/23/08
An unabashed conservative, John Boehner arrived in Washington as a protege of Newt Gingrich, helping to craft the Contract with America. "I'm about as transparent a person as you'll meet," he says. Andrew Harnik/Examiner John Boehner remembers cringing as he walked up New Jersey Avenue toward the Capitol after arriving as a freshman member of Congress in 1991.
Democrats had held a majority in the House since he was in kindergarten and Republican leaders seemed to accept their place as the permanent minority. The circumstances bore an uncanny resemblance to the Ohio Statehouse, where he had just served six years in the legislature.
Boehner had grown up with nine brothers and two sisters in a two-bedroom home outside Cincinnati. He was a heavy-smoking, hard-drinking former linebacker who played high school football under Gerry Faust, who went on to coach Notre Dame.
He was not a go-along, get-along guy.
“They had thrown in the towel and were willing to take whatever crumbs were left on the table — not willing to risk the crumbs to fight for a piece of the cake,” he said of his own party leaders.
Three years later, Republicans won control of the House and held it for more than a decade. But now they’re back in the minority, facing ominous projections that they could remain there for many years.
As House Republican leader, Boehner must figure out how to take on the Democrats and bring his party back to the majority.
If Republicans lose more seats, Boehner is probably out of a job. If they win back control, he would be the prohibitive favorite to become the first speaker from Ohio since Nicholas Longworth during the Great Depression.
“We have a new president. We need to give him a chance to work with both parties to focus on the issues the American people are concerned about,” Boehner said in an interview with The Examiner.
“But if [Democrats] veer off into higher taxes, into bigger government, into more government control, we will be the loyal opposition. We will not be bashful about outlining our concerns.”
Boehner (pronounced BAY-ner) is a throwback to a generation of lawmakers who boasted of their drinking and golfing prowess. His blue eyes, trim hair and mahogany voice draw comparison with Don Draper, the cigarette-smoking ladies’ man who is the lead character on “Mad Men,” AMC’s series about a 1960s-era advertising agency.
Boehner doesn’t watch the show.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Boehner said when asked about the comparison. Yet his perpetual tan and trim figure distinguishes the 59-year-old Republican leader in an institution where pale and pudgy are far more common characteristics.
“I don’t smile as well as Boehner because I don’t tan as well. Few people do,” said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., who was elected to serve under Boehner as Republican Policy Committee chairman, the party’s No. 4 post in the House.
Boehner has given up chain-smoking Barclay cigarettes in the ornate Speaker’s Lobby just off the House floor, not for health reasons but because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared the entire Capitol smoke-free and the brand has been discontinued.
Instead he sneaks extra-long Camel ultralights in a variety of undisclosed locations. “I have my places,” he said.
In an era of departing Republican icons — Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Larry Craig of Idaho are leaving with a combined 133 years of Washington experience — Boehner is a GOP survivor.
He is an unabashed conservative who boasts that he has never asked for a single earmark for his district. He has close ties to many lobbyists and has been known to enjoy their hospitality, but he has never been accused of unethical behavior.
“I’m about as transparent a person as you’ll meet,” he said.
Boehner arrived in Washington as a protege of Newt Gingrich, helping to craft the Contract With America. He was one of the “Gang of Seven” who demanded Democratic accountability on ethics and was elected chairman of the House Republican Conference when Gingrich became speaker.
Boehner developed his political touch while working in his father’s tavern during his high school years.
“You just never know which jackass is going to walk in that you’re going to deal with — but you do meet a lot of interesting people,” Boehner said several years ago. “And I used to watch my dad around the bar and learned probably more lessons in life than I learned from anyone. Because I don’t care who you were that walked in — you could be black or white, rich or poor, CEO to a laborer — and they all got treated the same.”
After earning a degree from Xavier University, becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college, Boehner prospered as a salesmen — then as president — of a plastics and packing company.
He says he got into politics by accident. Friends asked him to serve on a neighborhood association, and he soon found himself serving on his township’s board of trustees and then in the Ohio House. He defeated Rep. Donald E. “Buz” Lukens for his seat in Congress in 1990 after Lukens was convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old girl.
His meteoric rise in the House appeared to be grounded after the 1998 election, when Republicans lost seats and Boehner, suspected of plotting with others to oust Gingrich, lost his leadership post to J.C. Watts of Oklahoma.
Despite speculation that he would return to private life, Boehner plowed into his assignment as chairman of the house education committee, proving instrumental in helping President Bush pass the No Child Left Behind Act, which the president signed into law in his district.
Boehner is very blunt about the need for his party to make changes, even if he is uncertain exactly what those changes must be.
“There are parts of our country where the Republican brand doesn’t work,” he said, ticking off a depressingly long geographical list: “New England, the upper Middle West, the West Coast, increasingly mid-Atlantic states, and every major town in America.”
“We have to understand what it is that we don’t connect with those voters,” he said. “We also cannot afford to just cede minority voters to the other team.”
Boehner said he plans to convene a series of conversations with his colleagues to “figure out what went wrong and fix it.”
Boehner insists that Obama’s election was not a transformational moment that will keep the Republican Party in the minority long.
“Look at the exit polling, on the size of government, the level of taxation, the cultural values. It just jumps out at you that America is a center right country,” Boehner said.
“Barack Obama is an attractive candidate. He comes across well and he ran a marvelous campaign. And he outspent John McCain five to one. You give me a five to one financial advantage and I can win almost any election.”
Boehner has cut back on his golf game because of back pain, which forced him to endure his tenth or eleventh surgery — he loses count — just days before the election.
“The election hurt a lot more,” he said.
But he has no doubts he’ll be back on the links — he plays off a 7.6 handicap — and that the GOP will be back in the majority.
“How long it will take, I don’t know. That’s unknowable. That depends on how well we do offering solutions.”
2 Comments
Reader Comments:
POSTED Nov 23, 2008
Stefan: "Boehner is no conservative and is part of the problem with the failed Republican Establishment! He should give up his leadership post after presiding over a loss of the majority for Republicans in the House and then further losses this year. He has failed to advance core conservative issues and offer a clear alternative to the Democrats' ideas."POSTED Dec 1, 2008
Laughing at republicans: "The republican crackers still don't get it"