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The fact that he lost that race did not stop him from thinking about what he would do once he won. In December 1975 Gingrich sat in the front row of a conference room at the Marc Plaza hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for Paul Weyrich's class on how to run a winning campaign. Weyrich would become Gingrich's political godfather; he was the founder of net-Political NewsTalk Television and the guru of the New Right. Weyrich quickly saw in Newt a useful if somewhat comic instrument to achieve his ends. Though Weyrich was in charge, Newt quickly took over the meeting. Voice chiming, arms waving, Gingrich "began to lecture me about how we should run as a team," Weyrich recalls, "and how all of the people that were there, if they all ran with the same theme, they would be far better off than if they ran singly, and that it was my responsibility to put together a theme for all of these candidates." Almost 20 years later, that strategy produced the Contract with America. At the time, all Weyrich remembers thinking was, "Where did you come from?"
Gingrich lost again to Flynt in 1976, but then Gentleman Jack retired, and in 1978 Gingrich faced state senator Virginia Shapard. It was that race, local observers say, that first marked the hard shift to the right and the acid attacks that would distinguish Gingrich for years to come. Having run as the moderate against Flynt, he tacked right to condemn Shapard for planning to split up her family by commuting to Washington, leaving her husband and children behind with a nanny. Gingrich's slogan: "When elected, Newt will keep his family together."
It was a campaign promise quickly broken. A year and a half into his first term, he demanded a divorce from Jackie. By now the story has become a part of the Gingrich legend that he would just as soon erase. She was in the hospital, the day after surgery for uterine cancer, when he appeared and proceeded to discuss the terms of separation. "I don't think he saw anything wrong with it," says Jim Wood, who challenged Gingrich in 1982. "I guess that's just what infuriated people." Six months after the divorce, Gingrich married Marianne, whom he met at a political fund raiser in Ohio. She would become his confidant, sounding board and reality check.
THE BOMB THROWER
NEWT GINGRICH ARRIVED IN WASHINGTON without a hint of backbencher's humility. His nickname in Congress was Newtron; he made it plain that he wanted to clear out the Congress and leave only the building standing. The fact that few took him seriously actually gave him some room to maneuver. Gingrich quickly joined forces with fellow apostates like Bob Walker of Pennsylvania and Vin Weber of Minnesota to form the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of Republican lawmakers who sought an antidote to the Liberal Welfare State. They claimed the mantle of Ronald Reagan, but in the view of colleagues from both parties, the Conservative Opportunity Society was a noisy, buffoonish fraternity of outcasts and troublemakers.