House Republicans Look Back to 1994

House GOP leaders are invoking parts of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 campaign playbook ahead of this year’s midterms.

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PONTE VEDRA, Fla.—Former House GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich approached the 1994 midterms with a clear campaign strategy—give his members a concrete legislative agenda to campaign on and make the case to voters that Democrats had tried and failed to govern effectively despite controlling both the White House and Congress. 

His strategy paid massive electoral dividends. That year, Republicans netted 54 seats in the House, eight in the Senate, and retook both chambers for the first time in four decades. 

Nearly 30 years later, Gingrich is playing a behind-the-scenes role ahead of the 2022 midterms, having addressed the House GOP conference during a closed-door session last Wednesday at this year’s three-day issues retreat in Ponte Vedra, Florida. 

House Republican leaders made clear to reporters at this year’s conference that they are keeping Gingrich’s 1994 playbook in their back pocket: running on a concrete legislative agenda while keeping the central focus on Democratic failures in Washington. It likely also means using media much the same way as Gingrich, with fiery floor speeches and combative, made-for-TV congressional hearings.  

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ At least when it comes to policy, for now McCarthy’s yet-to-be-released agenda isn’t shaping up to look anything like Gingrich’s 1994 legislative playbook, which focused mostly on un-flashy policy issues like welfare reform, a balanced budget, and tax policy.”

    That says it all right there. Look how far we’ve come… or fallen.

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    J. Eric

    Thanks, as always for insightful and useful information. As someone who was in their mid-late 30’s in 94’, I cannot fathom why Republicans, or any reasonable person would listen to Newt Gringrich, or want his advice. He was a deplorable disgrace at that time, and has David’s grandmother would say, has only gotten more

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  3. Kurt Von Fuchs

    Given that not everything wrong with the GOP is actually Newt Gingrich's fault a lot of it started with him. Do we really want to play this game again sad. Makes normal people like me wanna stop voting

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  4. Avatar photo
    Mike CS

    The concrete legislative agenda has to include clear plans on improving life for citizens, not just being against the Democrats’ X,Y, & Z. Though tempting, please avoid the siren of endless, expensive, Schiff/Nadler clown-show investigations and “hearings.” Get our energy production up, use our engineering horsepower to bring nuclear energy back into the mix, and regain control of the Southern border. Forget tax policy for now and look for ways to improve the economy that doesn’t include spending money we don’t have. Promote policies we can be for. Openly support the best, best candidates for elective office where possible. Give people a reason to vote for Republicans. Lastly, for now, don’t let the Democrat’s and their media get away with redefining our language with the Anti preface.
    Be well!

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  5. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    The return of Newt Gingrich... because our politics can always be just a bit more polarized.

    "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control, a pamphlet which was sent to Republican candidates running in the 1990 elections. The pamphlet was developed by GOPAC, a conservative group headed by the then House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich. This excerpt appeared in the November 1990 issue of Harpers Magazine. From the rhetorical analyst's position it constitutes a pile of examples of loaded diction (see RT&C). You might want to have some fun with this by thinking about whether there would be differences between this 90 and a possible 96 list. Consider, in this regard what the implications are for the "absoluteness" of the terms "negative" and "positive."

    As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC [instructional tapes] is that "language matters." As we mail tapes to candidates, and use them in training sessions across the country, we hear a plaintive plea: "I wish I could speak like Newt." That takes years of practice...

    Often we search hard for words to define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, his record, proposals and party.

    anti-child deeper liberal shallow
    anti-flag disgrace lie shame
    betray devour machine sick
    bizarre destroy obsolete status quo
    cheat excuses pathetic steal
    collapse failure radical taxes
    corruption greed red tape they/them
    crisis hypocrisy self-serving traitors
    decay incompetent sensationalists welfare"

    https://uh.edu/~englin/rephandout.html

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  6. SGruenwald

    Yay! Newt Gingrich, the politician most responsible for the current dysfunction in DC has entered the arena….

    P.S. there won’t be an actual Republican Party legislative platform in 2022 (or 2024), it’s culture war fiction all the way down.
    P.P.S. I hope we get another Remnant or GFile where Jonah laments reporters acting as defacto mouthpieces for the Parties.

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    1. Mathew A

      Hmm, it seemed Gingrich's republican congress worked pretty well with Clinton. We actually got a balanced budget.

      I would be thrilled if something similar happened now...

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      1. SGruenwald

        Gingrich started the politics as war mentality and yes there was a balanced budget because Clinton governed sorta kinda centrist (remember triangulation) and the Country benefited from a giant dotcom boom.

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      2. Seth

        Same here, except it seems that the incentive structure has shifted so much farther away from compromise and working together across the aisle. Plus, Biden has not made much effort to be the actual unifying leader he projected himself to be.

        I do aspire to hope, though. We sure do need it.

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    2. Seth

      Do you mean in addition to the one he just did, or have you not listened to it yet?

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      1. SGruenwald

        I guess I needed a /sarcasm tag. He wrote about it recently also. It’s odd though considering Jonah’s insightful criticism that there’s three pieces on current and former Rs. Only Hurd deserves it.

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    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    "...GOP leaders maintain confidence in McCarthy, who is poised to become speaker in the likely scenario that Republicans retake the majority"

    Man, if that doesn't indicate the pathetically disastrous state and utter lack of judgment the Republican Party represents then I don't know what will.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    I mean, everyone’s so stupid in the parties it’s like whoever isn’t the dumbest wins.

    But maybe things were dumb back then too and we didn’t realize it as much?!

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    1. Avatar photo
      Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

      There's dumb and then there's dumber... we're hitting the bottom of the barrel at this point.

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      J. Eric

      No, we always knew.

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        Victor Clairmont

        Heh.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Philbnichols

    If you reference FL Senator Rick Scott and SC Senator Tim Scott in the same paragraph, I would *love it* if after the latter's reference you add, ' - no relation - '. Just a small thing to brighten my day, please.

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      BWG

      Actually no, they're identical twins, isn't it obvious? ;-)

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    Pat Riot

    Republicans won't be able to pass a single aspect of their agenda because they won't have the White House.

    But they will be able to stop the 1/6 investigation and punish the investigators, thus clearing the way for more violence in the next election cycle.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Pat Riot

      "Trump-loving Nevada Republican preparing "voter fraud" challenges — 220 days before election"

      https://www.salon.com/2022/03/29/loving-nevada-preparing-voter-fraud-challenges--220-days-before/

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