Reid Calls ‘Presumptive Nominee’ Gingrich a Bad Example

Amid the talk of a possible government shutdown this weekend, there’s one Republican presidential contender who is getting an awful lot of attention from Democrats: Newt Gingrich.

Calling Gingrich the “presumptive nominee,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered up Gingrich’s handling of the 1995 and 1996 government shutdown as an example of what not to do.

“I think that everyone can see very clearly that my friends on the other side of the aisle obviously want to have the government shut down,” Reid said on the Senate floor this morning. “They have had experience doing this. That presumptive Republican nominee, Newt Gingrich, tried that once. It didn’t work so well. So I don’t think it’s going to work very well again.”

Then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich was involved in a similar race-against-the-clock deadline with President Bill Clinton, ending with a presidential veto of the spending bill sent to the president’s desk by Congress.

Congress’ situation now is not similar in substance, but the threat of a shutdown is real, as the majority leader has tied the spending bill to the tense fight over the payroll tax holiday.

“The issue facing the American people is whether they’re going to have tax relief that the Democrats want to give them,” Reid said today, “or whether they’re going to face a shutdown that was first made very unpopular by Newt Gingrich.”