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The greatest blunder, the ultimate example of Gingrich making a personal moment out of an impersonal one, came with the government shutdown. He could have stuck to his argument that the ordeal was necessary because what he was trying to do was so bold, so historic that the country should come to a halt and reflect on the choices before it. Instead, he said he was peeved about his treatment on Air Force One.
Thrown back on the defensive, the Republican leadership began to whine in public and despair in private. On the first day of the shutdown, the recriminations were flying. As Gingrich convened his regular 9:30 a.m. meeting with his leadership, he offered a proposal. It was essential that they restore some discipline and get back "on message." So he declared that henceforth anyone caught calling the budget legislation by its technical name, "reconciliation," would be fined $1. Instead, they were to refer to it in the future as "The Balanced Budget Act of 1995." Everyone caught on quickly to the rule. Everyone, that is, except the Speaker. By the end of the day, he was down $20.
It didn't help that the Speaker was running ragged. There was very little time left in his day for eating and sleeping and getting his shirts pressed. During the government shutdown, the Senate barbershop was deemed nonessential, so Gingrich had to duck into Bubbles, one of those high-volume, walk-in chains that has a shop up the street from the Capitol. He would turn up at the office with a load of dirty shirts under his arm and pay someone to take them to the cleaners. His lunch typically reflected his fortunes: on a good day he stuck with vegetables; when he needed a lift, it was cheeseburgers, Fritos and frozen yogurt. But no matter how busy things got, he called his mother-in-law Virginia Ginther in Leetonia, Ohio, at least once a week. The week of the Air Force One ruckus, she says, "I told him, 'Just don't say anything.' And he admitted that it might help to try and just keep his mouth shut."
A MILITARY CAMPAIGN
GINGRICH was always obsessed with military strategy, which means he absorbed the lesson about generals who were so burdened by past failures that they tried to re-fight the old war and lost. As a futurist, Gingrich would prefer to fight the next war and win--and the best way to do that is by constant, brazen overreaching.
Even in high school he talked about what it would take to break the Democrats' headlock on Congress. He was the guy who always wore a tie to class in the 1960s. He became a professor in order to become a politician, which is why he did none of the things successful professors are supposed to do, like publish, and instead spent his time running for Congress. When he eventually became a Representative, he did none of the things lawmakers are supposed to do, like make laws, and instead used his seat to unseat the Democrats. Rather than obey his elders as Republican minority whip, he rebelled against his party and President and denounced the tax-raising 1990 budget deal, in the belief that the mutiny would eventually pay off at the polls. Every time, he invited scorn and political-death threats; every time, he turned out to be a step ahead of everyone else.