Word: gingrichs
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...case, Gingrich's ambitions never stopped at the classroom. "You've got to go from teaching to implementing. I'm one of the implementers," he contends. The son of an Army officer, Gingrich had his eye on elective office even before he had finished work on his Ph.D. in history at Tulane University. After unsuccessful tries for a House seat in 1974 and '76, he entered Congress with the class of 1978 and had soon founded the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of right-wing Young Turks. In 1981 his 19-year marriage to his high school math teacher Jacqueline...
Once in Congress, Gingrich excelled at turning ordinary exchanges into blood feuds. When he tore into Democrats who had sent a letter to Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega, Speaker Tip O'Neill described Gingrich's remarks as "the lowest thing that I've ever seen in my 32 years in Congress." Gingrich gained his reputation as a giant killer in 1987, when he brought the ethics charges against Speaker Jim Wright that led to Wright's resignation two years later. That positioned Gingrich for his successful 1989 run for minority whip, despite the fact that the House Republican leadership supported...
More interested in plotting revolution than passing bills, Gingrich has never made much of a mark as a legislator. He was sufficiently indifferent to the need for stroking his constituents that in the 1990 election he held on to his seat by just 974 votes. Two years later he came close to losing the Republican primary against a challenger who went after him for bouncing 22 checks at the House bank. Redistricting has given him a more secure base and a solid lead in the polls this year, freeing Gingrich to travel on behalf of other candidates. His Democratic opponent...
...What Gingrich remains famous for is a willingness to play a much rougher political game than the one practiced by House minority leaders like the newly retired Bob Michel of Illinois, whom Gingrich has the votes to succeed if the G.O.P. remains a minority in that chamber. As his power has grown, he has even been willing to go after fellow Republicans when they weren't sufficiently radical, once calling Bob Dole "the tax collector of the welfare state." Gingrich insists now that he will have no trouble working with Dole, though he manages...
...Senate, Dole is already promising a scaled-down health-care proposal. As for the House, Gingrich has mapped out a schedule for what he will do if his party gains control. "I think you'll see a pretty productive opening 40 days," he says. Most of the bills that Gingrich promises would be quickly moved by the new House are mentioned in the Contract with America, his brainchild. Those include term limits, a balanced-budget amendment -- which came close to passing the last Congress -- and some kind of welfare reform. "Then you'll see us settle down to 60 days...