A Political Super Bowl Gingrich Hopes To Square Off With Clinton Sunday
Speaker Newt Gingrich Friday seized on a semi-serious invitation from President Clinton and pronounced himself “happy” to join the president in a discussion of issues when both are in New Hampshire on Sunday.
A spokeswoman at the White House said Friday night that officials there would discuss the possibility and make an announcement today.
“I’m prepared to go to Claremont,” Gingrich said, speaking to reporters at one of the numerous “press availabilities” he has scheduled during his four-day campaign-like swing across New Hampshire. “That’s where he said he’d be, and it should be a lot of fun.”
Gingrich said his aides were in touch with the White House staff and trying to arrange rules.
The president, who is to deliver the commencement address at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., on Sunday morning, broached the idea in response to a question from New Hampshire editors and reporters in a conference call on Thursday.
Clinton said that if he had the chance, he would take Gingrich “to places and have some joint meetings and have citizens come in and ask us both questions and let us both answer them so we could try to end this kind of partisan divide that seems so prevalent in Washington.”
“I’d take him to representative groups and people all over the state,” the president added. “I’d probably take him to a bowling alley, and I might take him - even though I swore off them to get my weight down - I might take him to one of the Dunkin Donuts.”
Friday the White House press secretary, Michael D. McCurry, said the president was inviting Gingrich to join in a question-and-answer session at a picnic at the Earl Borden Senior Center in Claremont, N.H., scheduled for 4 p.m. on Sunday. McCurry said the two men could spend “a pleasant Sunday” at the forum.
The White House said later that Gingrich’s spokesman, Tony Blankley, had called McCurry with a counterproposal: that the forum be moderated by a Republican and opened to the whole town.
McCurry more or less demurred, saying the president was committed to visiting with the senior citizens at the picnic and would be there if Gingrich wanted to join him. Advance teams in New Hampshire for both camps were to meet Friday night to see whether they could come to terms, although White House aides emphasized that they were not “negotiating” with Gingrich.
“I don’t know the president’s current status,” Gingrich told reporters here with a glance at his own waist, “but I hardly need to go to a Dunkin Donuts. But I could be talked into it.”