The following is an exclusive Q&A between The American Spectator editor Paul Kengor and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on his new book, March to the Majority: The Real Story of the Republican Revolution, written with Joe Gaylord, former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The book will be released on June 6. You can order it online now.
*****
Paul Kengor: Mr. Speaker, let’s start with the title of your book, which is truly about what it says, i.e., marching to the majority, both historically speaking and moving forward into the future. For some politicians, the latter might seem like mere rhetoric, talking points, hype. But in your case, you have credibility. In 1994, you led Republicans to the first majority in the House of Representatives in 40 years, and it was a huge majority, a net gain of 54 seats. It was historic. And yet, few have written that history or lived it like you. You lived it and led it. Why did you decide to write this history now? What can be learned from it? (READ MORE from Newt Gingrich: Speaker McCarthy, Balance the Budget to Save America)
Speaker Gingrich: The situation we find ourselves in today is remarkably like the one we were in after the 1992 election. Bill Clinton had won the presidency running as a centrist, but the liberals in the Congress convinced him to move sharply to the left. By 1994 he had alienated a lot of the country that had voted for him. We had spent 16 years growing a GOP big enough to be competitive almost everywhere and Clinton gave us the issues to win on. When we won, we spent four years negotiating with President Clinton and getting him to sign a remarkable array of conservative reforms, including welfare reform, the largest capital gains tax cut in history, and four balanced budgets (the only four in your lifetime).
I think there are principles, almost like a cookbook, that can be applied by today’s activists to achieve similar breakthrough results.
Kengor: Let’s back up. Many would assume that your role in this historic victory began when you were first elected to Congress in 1978, but it arguably began, ironically, quite humorously, at a zoo in Harrisburg. Could you share that story here?
Speaker Gingrich: When I was 11, I went to see a double feature about African animals. When I came out of the theater, I saw a sign that pointed to city hall through an alley way. I was excited about the animals and thought Harrisburg needed a zoo. My grandmother had always taught me to do my duty (my father was serving in the Army in the Korean War, so he was quite an example). I went to city hall, and they told me to come back next Tuesday and appeal to the city council. When I did, the local reporter, faced with covering a boring mid-August city council meeting, decided that writing about an 11-year-old appealing for a zoo was a better human interest story. My entry into the media began then.
Kengor: It hasn’t stopped since! Your political trajectory began in earnest two decades later with the elections of 1974, 1976, and 1978. Among them was a crucial Republican primary battle in 1976 between the incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford and his challenger, Ronald Reagan. This is a very interesting part of your book. I’m sure it’s hard to sum it up here, but give readers a glimpse of what happened and what it meant in terms of the big picture.
Speaker Gingrich: Running for office in the middle of Watergate was very hard. I was taking on the dean of the Georgia delegation while the Georgia GOP was very weak. I received 48.5 percent of the vote despite Watergate. Two years later, in 1976, I was running as Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia was at the head of the Democratic ticket. I ran what may have been the best race of my career, but because of the power of a home-state Democrat at the head of the presidential ticket, I dropped 0.2 percent to 48.3 percent. For the GOP primary, I had to remain neutral between Reagan and Ford that year because I had strong supporters on both sides of that contest (although Reagan was much more popular in my district, but Ford had many strong supporters). Finally, in 1978, the incumbent congressman retired, and Georgians had begun to realize Carter was both more liberal and more incompetent than they were comfortable with, and I won.
Kengor: You draw out from the 1974 and 1976 races a parallel to Glenn Youngkin in 2022. Tell us about that and the key takeaway for Republicans running for office right now.
Speaker Gingrich: I survived for three races in part because I ran a campaign that reached out to a lot of different groups, including college students (I was a young teacher at West Georgia College at the time), African Americans, and environmental activists (a much more moderate group back then). Those extra votes kept me within contention when a narrowly Republican campaign would have had me losing so badly I could not have run for a second and third time.
Similarly, Youngkin would not have won without a determined outreach to minority voters (with an African-American lieutenant governor candidate and a Cuban-American attorney general candidate) and his appeal to parents about their rights to know what the schools are doing with their children. Similarly, [House] Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy’s efforts in 2020 and 2022 to reach out to women and minority candidates and veterans candidates both worked in winning elections and began to develop a broader House Republican Party.
Kengor: You refer to the 1980 Reagan campaign as “the First Contract,” i.e., a decade and a half before your 1994 Contract with America. That’s an insightful observation that I had never heard before. Please explain.
Speaker Gingrich: I was actively involved in thinking through the 1980 campaign. First, because I had been asked to head up a brand-new planning committee to become a majority (at the time I was elected in 1978 we had been out of power 24 years; little did I know it would take another 16 years to grow the majority). That gave me standing to be involved in the highest levels of campaigns. Second, Bill Brock of Tennessee had become the Republican National Committee chair, and we had known each other for years in what was then a small southern GOP. Bill involved me in the national campaign, including briefings by the teams that had put together Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979. We came up with the idea of having a Capitol steps event and having all the Republican candidates for House and Senate come in to stand with Reagan and Bush and pledge to accomplish five big ideas. Reagan himself called it a “contract,” and that experience was certainly a part of the reason I worked on a Contract with America in 1994.
Kengor: You played a key role in the Reagan revolution. I don’t think a lot of people know just how much. Ronald Reagan counted on you in the House in the 1980s. Tell us about your role and characterize that revolution and the key to Ronald Reagan’s success.
Speaker Gingrich: I had been very active as Congressman Jack Kemp’s ally in working with Art Laffer, Jude Wanniski, Larry Kudlow, and others in developing what came to be known as supply side economics. I worked very closely with the Reagan speech writing staff, and Tony Dolan [President Reagan’s chief speechwriter] would have me come down for a working lunch at the White House where we would develop strategies. Then I would go back to the Hill and give special orders outlining the ideas. President Reagan would then give a speech on that topic, and I would put it in the Congressional Record. The whole concept of a conservative opportunity society replacing a liberal welfare state came out of that collaboration. Today we talk about free-market capitalism, which is vastly more popular than big-government socialism.
Kengor: When Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, you were looked to as the Republican to carry on the Reagan revolution: “Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive,” said former first lady Nancy Reagan in 1995. How did you and that new Republican Congress elected in 1994 do that?
Speaker Gingrich: It really started with President George H.W. Bush’s decision to break his word and raise taxes. His pledge at the Republican Convention in 1988 had been such a clear signal to conservatives that “read my lips, no new taxes” was at the center of our willingness to work with him. Bush himself never understood Reagan, and as soon as he became president, he purged the Reaganites from the executive branch. Nonetheless, we worked with him. When he caved to the Democrats in 1990 and agreed to raise taxes, we were at an enormous crossroads. I was the only member of the GOP leadership in either the House or Senate who fought the tax increase. We carried a majority of the House GOP against President Bush and [Republican Minority] Leader Bob Michel. It convinced people we were serious and was the beginning of the momentum that led to the 1994 victory. When we designed the Contract with America, it was pure Reaganism. Every item in the Contract was something that Reagan believed in. It is fair to say that we stood on President Reagan’s shoulders and our victory could not have occurred without his ideas.
Kengor: I think the Contract with America was brilliant in so many ways, and, obviously, it was vindicated by your 1994 historic victory. Two things that really struck me: 1) You advertised the contract in TV Guide, and 2) you picked (if I recall) issues that all had something like 70 percent–plus approval among citizens (correct me if I’m wrong). In other words, you chose winning conservative issues that people wanted. Could you speak to that here?
Speaker Gingrich: The TV Guide ad was the key to the Contract with America working. (And the biggest mistake we made with the 2022 Commitment to America, which was a terrific concept and far more complicated and sophisticated than our Contract, was that it was not advertised enough to really penetrate.) In 1994, TV Guide sent out 92 million copies a week. It was far and away the most widely read magazine in America, surpassing even Reader’s Digest. Republican National Committee Chair Haley Barbour committed that if we would develop a Reaganite program of 10 issues with 70 percent or more support and include litigation reform, he would buy a four-page ad in TV Guide. When our members learned that the RNC was willing to put $250,000 into helping us, they were thrilled. People had seen the House GOP as such a permanent minority that they had never gotten this kind of help. It was a major turning point. (READ MORE from Newt Gingrich: A Contract to Defeat Big Government Socialism)
Picking issues that were popular grew out of my belief in President Abraham Lincoln. He said that “with popular sentiment anything is possible. Without popular sentiment nothing is possible.” That was the basis of his call at Gettysburg for “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We were trying to develop a Contract that met that standard of popular support. I also knew from my many years of studying and working with President Reagan that he based his success on the support of the American people, as he vividly described in his Farewell Address. The Contract was a Lincoln–Reagan popular sentiment model.
Kengor: Looking past 1994 and on to 2024, the Republicans eventually lost that 1994 majority but did grab it back with the November 2022 election, though not by as wide of a margin. So, where stands the march today? Very optimistically, the conclusion of your book lays out a “disciplined, methodical approach” to mobilizing a victory in 2024 that you believe could help Republicans expand their House majority, win the Senate, and win the presidency — the trifecta. You give 23 examples of “what works.” I encourage people to read all 23, which you can’t hit here in this interview. If you had to flag two or three for here, what would they be?
Speaker Gingrich: First start with the American people. They are the engine that makes everything possible. Second, offer a bold positive vision but have very practical doable steps to get to that vision. Third, listen to everyone and learn from everyone and then try to help everyone. If they come to believe you are sincere, they will ask you to lead and they will stay with you through difficult times.
Kengor: Speaker Gingrich, thanks for taking the time to chat with us at The American Spectator, and thanks for this book.
Speaker Gingrich: It is a great honor to have this opportunity to talk about a book that I believe will be a road map for people who want to understand how to govern effectively. The American Spectator continues to be a leading conservative center of ideas and it is a privilege to talk with you about these ideas.
Order March to the Majority: The Real Story of the Republican Revolution online here.