Armey began his climb to majority leader when he became ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee in 1991. He turned a moribund minority post into a GOP communications center, instituting "rapid response" faxes and issuing reports and charts for Republicans to attack opposition policies.
Disgusted by the 1990 budget deal where President Bush reneged on his read-my-lips pledge not to raise taxes, Armey made a run for the Republican conference chairmanship, the third-ranking slot in the GOP congressional hierarchy. He took on Jerry Lewis, a moderate, deal-making Californian. It was a defining moment in Armey's rise to power. He won by four votes, using a highly organized member-lobbying system, touting his work at the JEC, and arguing that Lewis was part of the old guard that was going to keep Republicans in a permanent minority.
The clincher, recalls former aide Ed Gillespie, came when Armey sent House freshmen a how-to binder called Hitting the Ground Running. "It gave new members basic advice on how to set up their offices, their press operations, their staffs, their newsletters, their town meetings. The freshmen got this thing and they said, 'Wow, this is great, this is what I need, this is what I've been looking for,'" Gillespie says. "That same day in the mail they got from Jerry Lewis--the House Republican Conference Chairman--a photo album that had everybody's Christmas cards in it, with pictures of their families. It was the silliest thing. The contrast between what Armey had given them and what Jerry Lewis had given them really kind of sealed the deal for him."
It surprised no one that when the Republicans took over the House in 1995, Armey ran unopposed for majority leader. "There's a substance to him," says John J. Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College who has written extensively on the contemporary Republican Party. (Pitney is also a REASON contributing editor.) "He knows what he's doing. He knows his policy, and that does count for something on the Hill. He has a very clear intellectual construct and he works to put that into policy." Far more than most politicians, what drives Armey is his belief in ideas and their power. He's quick to quote Adam Smith, Friedman, and economist Thomas Sowell, and he has written a respected textbook called Price Theory: A Policy-Welfare Approach.
Less-sympathetic observers use different terms to convey Armey's style and points of reference. Biographical sketches typically describe him as gruff, rough-edged, a crude ideologue, a "political brawler" of "impolitic bluntness."
"He is ideological," grants former aide Gillespie. "But only in [Washington] is it pejorative that you actually believe in something."
In fact, it's not even necessarily pejorative in Washington. Armey's forthrightness is seen by many members as an asset in a town where evasion is an art form. "Frankly, I would rather deal with a Dick Armey, where you know where he is on the issues and he's true to his program," says Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a liberal California Democrat for whom Armey is an arch ideological enemy. "There's no illusion and no misrepresentation in terms of what he stands for," Pelosi says. "He doesn't mince words."
The same holds true for many Republican moderates--the ones who would ostensibly block Armey's ascent to the speakership. "I've been in meetings where the subject matter was, for example, a woman's right to choose, and he manages very effectively," says Rep. Tom Campbell, a GOP moderate from Silicon Valley. "No one doubts he is on the other side of the issue, but he tells people exactly what he can accomplish, how far he believes compromise is possible," says Campbell, who adds that he is "very high on Armey."
Whether one sees Armey's dedication to core principles as a sign of character or ideological inflexibility, no one disputes that this quality has translated into a fearsome reputation when it comes to legislation.
"The only way Armey ever gives in is when he's crushed," says one close observer. "They have to roll him. He doesn't go into meetings thinking, 'Let me see what I can get, let's get to the middle, let's compromise.' He goes in saying, 'This is what I want to win,' and the only way you beat him is when Democrats are united and there are enough Republicans to peel off to cause us to lose a vote. He's not a player like Gingrich, who wants adoration and can't wait to hear himself talk."
Ironically, of late Armey has had to defend himself against charges that, like Gingrich, his cutting edge has been dulled by power. Certainly, the torpor of the current Congress is in marked contrast to the first Republican-dominated session. It's a fair question: Is the GOP leadership, and Armey in particular, acting smarter these days, or have they just been whipped? Or, as one Republican member of Congress asks, When the choice comes down to cowardice or taking a risk, which route will Armey choose?
"Some of us are worried that Armey has 'grown in office,'" says The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, who recently wrote a piece urging rank-and-file insurrection against a "brain-dead Republican Party, cowering in the halls of Congress." Kristol says he understands that Armey, as majority leader, has to be responsible and cautious. "But he also wants to let friends on the outside know that he remains something of a firebrand at heart, and that he's sympathetic with the insurrectionaries," says Kristol.
On at least a surface level, there is a new, more-modulated Dick Armey in office. Gone are the incendiary phrases--he once called Hillary Clinton a "Marxist," ridiculed the Family and Medical Leave Act as "yuppie welfare," and labeled ClintonCare "a Dr. Kevorkian prescription for jobs." In late February, Armey issued a "Time to Get Moving on the 105th [Congressional] Agenda" memo. In it, he downplayed legislative "drama" and urged a "broad communications effort that must begin this year." The message was more caution than action. "We have settled in as the majority party, returning to regular order and recognizing that we have more than a two-year window to undo the policies that for 30 years have undermined families and institutions across America."
But the Texan vigorously disputes that he has "grown in office." He insists that his principles have not changed, but that as majority leader he must play a different role than he did as a simple representative. "You don't hear all the old hot firebrand rhetoric anymore," he concedes. "I know that I have moderated my public discourse, out of consideration for my colleagues. But my line is, just because you don't hear my thunder doesn't mean I'm not there."
Certainly, Armey has reason to cool divisive rhetoric. The GOP majority is razor-thin in the House, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 227 to 210. As majority leader, Armey must get 218 votes from moderates and conservatives, operating with a nine-vote margin of error. (The spread in the Senate, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 55 to 45, is five votes.) Clinton remains president, and despite talk of leaving a legacy, seems no more willing than before the election to take any unpopular steps on the budget. Under such circumstances, particularly with Gingrich still leading the House, Armey can do little more than push for smaller victories--such as reforming public housing, consolidating job-training programs, and trimming corporate welfare--until the larger ones grow within reach.
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