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But there were many lawmakers who thought Gingrich was too flighty and volatile to be treated like a grownup. Paul Weyrich still sounds exasperated when he recalls Gingrich's early days: "The man had no organization; he was helter-skelter. Undisciplined. Unfocused, interesting, but not destined to accomplish much." Even as he was learning to be statesmanlike, to buckle down and count votes and hold his tongue when the circumstances required, he was working hard to recruit and train the G.O.P. troops who would eventually become his Republican Guard.
GUERRILLA WARFARE
AS HE RAILED AT WRIGHT, PEOPLE OUTSIDE Washington were watching--especially aspiring G.O.P. politicians who shared Gingrich's view that the national party wasn't bothering to help its farm team. Gingrich was taking note of the aspirants too--often when no one else would. "When you are a candidate and you are out there struggling along in a difficult district, generally speaking, the party apparatus will not pay much attention to you," Weyrich says. "They only pay attention to the favored candidates who have a good chance to win."
All that changed in 1986, when Gingrich took over as general chairman of GOPAC, the machinery created in 1979 to help get Republicans into state and local office. He made himself available to G.O.P. candidates in weekly conference calls, mailing them his audiotapes and appearing in person in their districts. His coaching didn't just help them get elected; it also helped hone their message, so that Republican candidates all across the country would be hitting the same themes, with the same language, and creating an impression of a growing consensus in the party.
"We are on the way to becoming the Bell Labs of politics," he once declared. "The first thing you need at Bell Labs is a Thomas Edison, and the second thing you need is a real understanding of how you go from scientific theory to a marketable product." Divisive issues such as abortion were explicitly avoided; the focus was on strategy, not philosophy. Gingrich taught his acolytes "our rhythm and style," how to use his serrated language to cut their opponents; Democrats were to be described as traitors and with such adjectives as sick, corrupt and bizarre. Gingrich eventually became such a cult figure among young Republicans that supporters considered publishing a comic book with him as the hero fighting bureaucratic bloat.
In the long, happy sessions spent dreaming about what he would do when he was king, Gingrich put everything on the table. At one "ideas meeting" of GOPAC charter members, he suggested that the government should offer an $8 billion reward, tax-free, to the first private enterprise that could put people into lunar orbit. And he even tried selling it as a deficit-reduction strategy. "If they do it, they just pre-empted nasa's $140 billion program. We saved $132 billion," he said.