McLEAN, Va. — If GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich really is a Washington outsider — as he claims in just about every stump speech — it’s news to his neighbors in this tony D.C. suburb.
Gingrich and wife Callista live in a two-story home on a cul-de-sac encircled by dense trees that’s just a 20-minute drive from the White House (except during rush hour) and about 1,000 feet inside the six-lane Capital Beltway, which movers and shakers know truly defines who’s an insider and who’s not.
“I don’t really understand what he’s getting at when he’s saying that,” McLean resident Mary Amons, a cast member of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of D.C.,” said of Gingrich’s proclamations. “McLean is really like a little subset of Capitol Hill.”
McLean’s popularity with members of Congress and West Wingers dates to the Kennedy administration. Ethel Kennedy, Bobby’s widow, still lives here and Ted Kennedy, the late Massachusetts senator, owned a home here.
Republicans have settled in, too. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, the 2008 presidential candidate who has endorsed Gingrich, is a McLeanite. And former members of the Bush administration Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzales and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby all have called McLean home.
High-profile figures choose McLean because it’s so close to Washington — only a dozen or so miles — yet secluded, said Isabelle Jelinski of Keller Williams Realty, a McLean-based real estate agent.
“A lot of people who have a lot of money and who like their privacy make that choice,” she said.
Gingrich bought his house, a modern five-bedroom design with beige bricks and wooden shingles, more than a decade ago for $995,000, according to property records. Today, the real estate website Zillow estimates the property is worth about $1.3 million. McLean’s estimated median property value: $755,800.
“They’re nice people,” a neighbor who asked not to be identified said of the Gingriches, adding she hasn’t seen much of them since the campaign began.
The woman remembers the first time she met the former speaker of the House. He got out of his car to introduce himself. “As if I didn’t know who he was,” she said.
When The Daily visited the neighborhood, a white Cadillac Escalade hybrid was parked in the Gingrich driveway. The neighbor said the luxury SUV belonged to the couple, though they were in Florida that day drumming up votes for Tuesday’s primary.
Many of McLean’s 50,000 residents — whose median household income is $156,943, according to census figures — are pols who turn up on cable news; there are less-familiar faces, too, though: K Street powerbrokers, diplomats, government department heads, Pentagon officials, defense contractors and probably even a spy or two. The CIA’s headquarters is just down the road.
“The weird part of being here is seeing so many people in person that you see on TV,” said Fares El-Rashed, a college freshman who grew up in McLean. What’s even odder, he said, is being around all the people largely invisible to the rest of the world.
“I’d say one in four kids here doesn’t know what their dad does for a living and two in four knows he works for the government but can’t tell you exactly what he does,” El-Rashed said.
When Gingrich is in town, he gets around. One of his haunts is Old Book Co. of McLean, a bookstore specializing in military tomes. The former history professor comes in to browse both the fiction and history sections, said owner Philip Hanson.
Amons, the TV personality, has spotted Gingrich grabbing a bite out. “It’s not uncommon to see Newt Gingrich having dinner in McLean Family Restaurant,” she said, noting the eatery is also a favorite spot of former Republican presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan.
Amons, 45, has spent her life in McLean and said she was chosen for the show in part because she grew up ensconced in an enclave of D.C. bigwigs. She learned to identify Secret Service members when she was 6, she said. Her father’s tennis partner was Ethel Kennedy.
“It’s an interesting thing when a security detail shows up at your daughter’s basketball game,” which is what happened often when former Vice President Dick Cheney’s granddaughter was on the team, said Amons. “But that is kind of the norm here.”
Luke.Kummer@thedaily.com