Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur by Matthew N. Green and Jeffrey Crouch (review)

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• Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur by Matthew N. Green and Jeffrey Crouch
• Andrew E. Busch

Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur. By Matthew N. Green and Jeffrey Crouch. Congressional Leaders. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2022. Pp. xiv, 287. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7006-3326-5.)

For many years, students of American politics have elaborated on how various members of Congress act either as procedural entrepreneurs who devote themselves to reforming the way Congress does business, or as legislative entrepreneurs who prioritize enshrining their preferred policies in legislation. In Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur, political scientists Matthew N. Green and Jeffrey Crouch identify a third type of congressional entrepreneur, who devotes unusual resources to building the strength of his party. They have produced a richly researched, insightful, and evenhanded account of Newt Gingrich’s long drive to win and then maintain a majority for House Republicans.

Their account follows Gingrich from his first election to the House of Representatives from Georgia in 1978 and finds that party entrepreneurship consistently explains his career both before and during his stint as Speaker of the House. The story is told in five stages. During the first period, 1979–1984, Gingrich was the “Entrepreneurial Outsider”—a backbencher whose ambition far exceeded his resources, and who had little to show for his efforts (chap. 1). He nevertheless planted the seeds of future success by forming the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS) of like-minded House Republicans. He gained his footing in the second stage, 1985–1989, when, as an “Ascendant Party Warrior,” he built up the COS and inherited control of Pete DuPont’s GOPAC, an external structure to build support around the country (chap. 2). Gingrich also won respect within the Republican conference by bringing down Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas. In the third stage, the Georgian became an “Entrepreneurial Insider,” entering the House Republicans’ leadership when he was narrowly elected party whip after Dick Cheney left to become President George H. W. Bush’s secretary of defense (chap. 3). In the election of 1994, Gingrich reached his goal of a party majority and his own speakership, leading to a two-year period of “Promise and Pitfalls” (chap. 4). He won impressive policy victories but also was outmaneuvered by President Bill Clinton. Finally, 1997–1998 represented “A Failing Speakership,” marked by a loss of Republican House seats in the 1998 election and Gingrich’s own resignation (chap. 5).

From 1978 to 1998, Gingrich did not really change. He was driven to win a majority for Republicans and was convinced that hard-hitting differentiation from Democrats on both policy and ethical issues was the way to achieve it. He succeeded by drawing other House Republicans to him, many (but not all) of them junior, who became convinced over time that accommodation and compromise with Democrats was unfruitful. Gingrich was aided tremendously by the high-handed approach of the House Democrats themselves, who increasingly abused their majority power.

Another consistent thread through Gingrich’s career was his relative lack of attention to organizational detail and his tendency to pursue lofty goals well beyond the reach of the means at his disposal. He had barely entered Congress when he informed his staff that his job was “to save Western civilization” (p. 23). By the time he became Speaker, his resources had grown tremendously, but even then, as Green and Crouch note, “Gingrich was never going to be able to [End Page 465] run the entire federal government from the House of Representatives, let alone shift all of society in a conservative direction” (p. 166).

In the end, the authors assess Gingrich’s importance carefully. He was a consequential Speaker whose impact continues today, but he fell short of his most ambitious objectives. He was hardly solely responsible for turning the House into a more partisan, more media-conscious institution. Those trends had already begun, and Gingrich was a creature of them as well as their promoter. [End Page 466]

Andrew E. Busch Claremont McKenna College Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association ...