His strategy was to blow up the bipartisan coalitions that were essential to legislating, and then seize on the resulting dysfunction to wage a populist crusade against the institution of Congress itself. Gingrich recruited a cadre of young bomb throwers—a group of 12 congressmen he christened the Conservative Opportunity Society—and together they stalked the halls of Capitol Hill, searching for trouble and TV cameras.
Their emergence was not, at first, greeted with enthusiasm by the more moderate Republican leadership. They even looked different—sporting blow-dried pompadours while their more camera-shy elders smeared Brylcreem on their comb-overs.
Gingrich and his cohort showed little interest in legislating, a task that had heretofore been seen as the primary responsibility of elected legislators. Bob Livingston , a Louisiana Republican who had been elected to Congress a year before Gingrich, marveled at the way the hard-charging Georgian rose to prominence by ignoring the traditional path taken by new lawmakers.
For revolutionary purposes, the House of Representatives was less a governing body than an arena for conflict and drama. And Gingrich found ways to put on a show.
He recognized an opportunity in the newly installed C- span cameras, and began delivering tirades against Democrats to an empty chamber, knowing that his remarks would be beamed to viewers across the country. Although Congress had been a volatile place during periods of American history—with fistfights and canings and representatives bellowing violent threats at one another—by the middle of the 20th century, lawmakers had largely coalesced around a stabilizing set of norms and traditions.
Entrenched committee chairs may have dabbled in petty corruption, and Democratic leaders may have pushed around the Republican minority when they were in a pinch, but as a rule, comity reigned. This ethos was perhaps best embodied by Republican Minority Leader Bob Michel, an amiable World War II veteran known around Washington for his aversion to swearing— doggone it and by Jiminy were fixtures of his vocabulary—as well as his penchant for carpooling and golfing with Democratic colleagues.
Michel was no liberal, but he believed that the best way to serve conservatism, and his country, was by working honestly with Democratic leaders—pulling legislation inch by inch to the right when he could, and protecting the good faith that made aisle-crossing possible.
More important, Gingrich intuited that the old dynamics that had produced public servants like Michel were crumbling. Tectonic shifts in American politics—particularly around issues of race and civil rights—had triggered an ideological sorting between the two parties. Liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats two groups that had been well represented in Congress were beginning to vanish, and with them, the cross-party partnerships that had fostered cooperation.
Rather than letting the party bosses in Washington decide which candidates deserved institutional support, he took control of a group called gopac and used it to recruit and train an army of mini-Newts to run for office. Gingrich hustled to keep his cause—and himself—in the press. Effective as these tactics were in the short term, they had a corrosive effect on the way Congress operated. But Gingrich looks back with pride on the transformations he set in motion.
And no one was noisier than Newt. It was , and he was 15 years old. His family was visiting Verdun, a small city in northeastern France where , people had been killed during World War I. The battlefield was still scarred by cannon fire, and young Newt spent the day wandering around, taking in the details.
He found a rusted helmet on the ground, saw the ossuary where the bones of dead soldiers were piled high. His mother struggled with manic depression , and spent much of her adult life in a fog of medication. Gingrich moved around a lot and had few friends his age; he spent more time alone in his room reading books about dinosaurs than he did playing with the neighborhood kids. But this is not the stuff Gingrich likes to talk about.
Those family picnics at the zoo that he has been reminiscing about all day? It was in Verdun that Gingrich found an identity, a sense of purpose. The next year, Gingrich turned in a page term paper about the balance of global power, and announced to his teacher that his family was moving to Georgia, where he planned to start a Republican Party in the then—heavily Democratic state and get himself elected to Congress.
Gingrich immersed himself in war histories and dystopian fiction and books about techno-futurism—and as the years went on, he became fixated on the idea that he was a world-historic hero. As Gingrich tells me about his epiphany in Verdun, a man in a baseball cap approaches us in full fanboy mode.
I love you on Fox. After the superfan leaves, I make a passing observation about how many admirers Gingrich has at the zoo. As his national profile had risen, so too had his influence within the Republican caucus—his original quorum of 12 disciples having expanded to dozens of sharp-elbowed House conservatives who looked to him for guidance. The goal was to reframe the boring policy debates in Washington as a national battle between good and evil, white hats versus black—a fight for the very soul of America.
Through this prism, any news story could be turned into a wedge. In he founded the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of young Republicans in Congress that became known for holding long speeches on the floor of the House, mostly after hours.
In Gingrich initiated ethics charges against Speaker of the House Jim Wright that eventually led to Wright's resignation. In , when Wyoming representative Dick Cheney became secretary of defense, Gingrich succeeded Cheney as House minority whip.
Gingrich was recognized for his single-minded pursuit of conservative ideals, a quality that invoked the ire of opponents as effectively as it helped unify political factions of fiscal conservatives.
He advocated shrinking the size of the federal government in his "Contract with America," which summarized Republican proposals. This document was widely publicized and contributed to the results of the elections, when Republicans gained control of both the House and the Senate -- the first time they controlled the House since Majority Leaders.
Bean Soup! Featured Black Americans in Congress. Featured Mace of the U. House of Represen- tatives. House Trivia Timeline. Featured Resources for National History Day Office Representative. Party Republican.
Congress es 96th — , 97th — , 98th — , 99th — , th — , st — , nd — , rd — , th — , th — Congress [ Top ]. Papers: , 1, The papers of Newt Gingrich contain materials from his congressional career, including articles, bills, calendars, campaign files, correspondence, news releases, photographs, videos, and other sources of information. There are also materials related to his pre-congressional campaigns and post-Speakership years.
Some material is restricted. Finding aids are available online. Papers: In the Associated Press Records, , 3. Other authors include Newt Gingrich. Papers: In the Alvin Toffler Papers, , approximately , items. Subjects covered include Newt Gingrich. The collection includes an interview with Newt Gingrich. Tax cuts. Welfare reform. Those were just three of the 10 points of the Contract with America, Newt Gingrich's conservative plan, signed by plus Republican candidates and presented at a press conference just six weeks before the midterm elections.
The proposal by Gingrich, then Speaker of the House, has been credited with the "Republican Revolution" that ensued at the polls, with the GOP easily taking control of the U. House and Senate, gaining 12 governorships and regaining control in 20 state legislatures.
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