I first met Newt Gingrich in 1989. As an intern for House Minority Leader Bob Michel, my short-term task was to deliver Newt his lunch as he was meeting with a Michel staffer. The lunch consisted of a fruit plate. Newt was trying to lose weight, and apparently the fruit plate was a tactic in his strategy to achieve his vision of a slim, svelte Gingrich.
While he never achieved that vision, Newt has done pretty well for himself. An army brat with a funny name, Gingrich transformed Congressional politics forever, and established an international brand in the process.
Newt is now trying to turn that brand into presidential timber. The problem for him is that his brand might just be too big for a presidential campaign.
Gingrich’s tenure as Speaker was the most aggressive since Henry Clay. Like Clay, Newt wasn’t content to run the House. He wanted to run the country, and in many ways, he succeeded.
Newt’s bombast suggests a right-wing conservative, but his actual ideology is much more activist in its roots. Like Clay, who promoted a national system of roads and canals in the mid-19th century, Gingrich is a T and I guy. As a former member of the Transportation Committee, Newt believes strongly in the power of concrete to transform a nation.
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