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Gingrich is imposing extraordinary discipline on his troops as well. In the manner of most successful revolutionaries, Gingrich is moving first to make himself stronger, exploiting the broad authority granted the Speaker by the Constitution, at the expense of not only Democrats but fellow Republican Congressmen who have waited decades for their own taste of power. Though he has yet even to try out the big leather chair from which he will preside, some are saying that his could be the strongest speakership since the legendary Republican Speakers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "These were Speakers who were the dominant figures in Congress," says Rutgers University political analyst Ross K. Baker.
Gingrich already has moved to recapture much of the power that had drifted into the hands of committee chairmen. In recent decades, Democratic barons such as Commerce Committee chairman John Dingell and Ways and Means chairman Dan Rostenkowski had been able to run things pretty much as they pleased, battling each other for jurisdiction over important matters such as taxes and health care. But the Republicans who replace those chairmen will see their power sharply curtailed. Along with putting term limits on chairmen, Gingrich plans to take tighter control of scheduling by requiring that each committee submit to him a monthly "planning document."
The new Speaker has also stacked key committees with freshman lawmakers, who are least inured to habits of bipartisan back scratching and who feel strong personal loyalty to Gingrich and his vision. Thirty-three of the 73 G.O.P. freshmen, in fact, were recruited and trained by Gingrich and his political organization, GOPAC.
By centralizing power, as independent congressional experts have recommended for years, Gingrich hopes to keep House Republicans tightly focused on the agenda -- most of it economic -- that they spelled out in their "Contract with America." Lately the former history professor, who believes there is a precedent to fit any situation, has been checking out every book that the Library of Congress has on the Duke of Wellington's 1808-14 Peninsular War campaign, when Britain sent troops to help the Spanish in their revolt against Napoleon, which Gingrich regards as simultaneously "one of the great focused efforts of all time" and "a very weird experience." The lesson of that war, he says, is that "victory is the avoidance of being crushed."
The House Appropriations Committee will serve as the ultimate battleground between Gingrich's priorities and Clinton's. It is also a place where Democrats and Republicans have traditionally enjoyed a cozy relationship based upon mutual support for pork-barrel spending on highways and "research" projects in each other's districts. Gingrich has tried to break that system by requiring any Republican taking this plum committee assignment to reaffirm in writing that he is committed to the contract -- and, implicitly, to the Speaker's wishes. "I needed to really drive home for them, right now, how different their committees are going to be by summer," Gingrich told TIME. But, he conceded, "some of them don't quite get it yet."