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Gingrich insists in his interview with TIME that his revolution begins with a grand vision and then proceeds to strategy and tactics. But there was little disguising the fact that the items in his Contract were polled for popular palatability--hardly in character for the brave manifesto of a new social and political order. Newt Gingrich is not a philosopher nor, despite his pretensions, a political theorist of the first rank. The Speaker is a politician who uses words and ideas to gain power. There is no particular shame in this. All the great leaders who changed the direction of America made it up as they went along. Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan acted and gave meaning to their action by their words. The result was never a pure philosophy, only a working theory that gave plausible explanation to what they were doing and where they were going.
Perhaps the best thing about this conservative revolution is that it has broken the intellectual gridlock in Washington. The liberal welfare-state model of American government has run its course; it has not ended poverty and has lost the faith of the American people. Nowhere near a majority of the electorate still believe the Federal Government works well or even works for them. The politics and policies of Washington have become a giant money-gathering and money-spending machine, the chief purpose of which seems increasingly to be to pay off the interest groups that vote for the party in power.
Newt Gingrich and his followers have not yet risen above this pattern. They have dislodged one entrenched set of interests only to replace it with a new set of interests. The test of Gingrich's revolution won't be whether it can propound a coherent ideology but whether it can create a broad sense of national purpose.
Gingrich has begun to tear down the old structures. Says political analyst Kevin Phillips: "This is a necessary precursor for some useful and provocative change that wasn't going to happen with a Democratic Congress." But from there, Phillips' analysis turns harsh, citing especially the growing sense that the Republicans are simply favoring the rich and the people who can afford lobbyists. "Gingrich," he concludes, "is this interesting half-phony, half-historic figure who lacks discipline and talks too much to be an effective leader."
Worse, from the point of view of Gingrich's disciples, there is a backlash setting in, based partly on disgust with the Speaker. Declares California Democratic Party chairman Bill Press: "It's the biggest con job ever foisted on the American people. If there was a revolution, it's peaked. People have seen what Newt is all about, and they don't like it." It's doubtful Press would have said that a year ago, in the wake of the 1994 elections.
Still, attempts to demonize Gingrich are of limited efficacy to the Democrats. In the race for a vacant House seat in California, they cast the G.O.P. candidate Tom Campbell as a stand-in for Newt. Last week Campbell won by a landslide.