With former Speaker Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, former Gov. Mitt Romney has finally decided it’s time to go on the offensive. One of the men Romney has lined up to attack Gingrich is former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu.
The feud is not new.
As a former chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush, Sununu has a long-held grudge against Gingrich — who fought Bush’s budget deal that included raising taxes.
Here’s an excerpt from a 1990 Fred Barnes article that describes a meeting for Bush’s re-election efforts:
Sununu attacked congressional Republicans for abandoning the president. House Republican whip Newt Gingrich, who led the opposition to the budget deal, wasn’t invited to the meeting. But he was on Sununu’s and [former OMB director Richard] Darman’s mind. “You could see the Newt chip on their shoulders,” said one Bush adviser. “It was a strikingly bad discussion. The death embrace [of Sununu and Darman] grew tighter.”
It is, perhaps, ironic that Sununu is being trotted out as a sort of expert conservative witness. Aside from advocating and defending the Bush tax hike, John Sununu — who tomorrow will be on a Romney conference call to disparage Newt Gingrich’s record — also gets credit for advocating David Souter’s appointment to the Supreme Court.