Newt Gingrich is the first Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives in 40 years. He was the architect of the election sweep of 1994 which gave the Republicans control of Congress. He modestly gives the credit to President Clinton's health plan for the Democratic rout.
In 1995, Gingrich shut down the government for a month to force changes in the US budget and outraged the country. It was a major miscalculation, he admits. "It should have been obvious to us that the Democrats had polling information reassuring them that the public favoured their rhetoric in the fight, but it wasn't," he writes in his new book, Lessons Learned the Hard Way.
Gingrich adds: "We not only lost the battle over the legislation itself, but the far more important one for the public's understanding and approval of what we were trying to do. The second shutdown, which stretched for three weeks over the 1995 Christmas holidays, seared into the public's mind a deeply negative impression of our efforts." It was a bad time for Gingrich.
In 1996 Clinton won re-election although "a year before had seemed hopelessly mired in failure and scandal". No longer the conquering hero of the Republicans, Gingrich lost face with his colleagues, even though the Republicans retained control of the House. He suppressed a simmering mutiny and was re-elected Speaker.
The House Speaker is a powerful political figure. Gingrich won the post following the sweeping Republican election victory of November 1994 of which he was organiser-in-chief. With MA and PhD degrees from Tulane University, New Orleans, he must be the best educated Speaker in history, if not the smartest. Gingrich's doctoral thesis on the Belgian Congo of Leopold II has a favourable reference to Roger Casement's work there, journalist Christopher Hitchens has written in the Nation.
Gingrich has the same drive for power as Margaret Thatcher. "I admire her tremendously," he writes. He wants to be president and may make his bid in 2000 when he will be 59. He has come a long way from the "army brat" - his stepfather was a military officer - who moved from post to post with his parents as a boy. He did not serve in the military, perhaps for that reason.
As a young professor of history at West Georgia College in 1974 Gingrich challenged a veteran Democrat, John J. Flynt, for a House seat with the help of environmentalists. He drew 48.5 per cent of the vote and won in 1976.
Between September 7th, 1994, and April 22nd, 1996, 81 ethics charges were filed with the House Ethics Committee against Gingrich. He blames lawyers, subordinates and political foes for the charges which resulted in a reprimand by the committee. Should he run for president they will be resurrected, no doubt, and aired again. Which is the way of US politics.