The Contract with America would change everything in Washington D.C. For four decades the United States House of Representatives had been controlled by one party. The Republicans had settled into a life of being a permanent minority. That total control of the Federal Government had led to decades of entrenchment for democrats everywhere you looked in the running of the government. They were in all the bureaucracy, the courts, and in control of everything within the congress.
It was a dominance that had brought down a President in 1974, and thwarted the agenda of three more Republican Presidents. It was time for a change and the unpopularity of the Clinton agenda would finally bring about an opportunity for that change. What Republicans needed was a field general. It got one in House Minority Assistant Leader, Newt Gingrich.
He would develop the Contract with America, help sell it to the country, and to his fellow Congressman, he would help educate not only a class of Congressional candidates but also a generation of campaign operatives that they brought in, and took to school educating them on how to run a campaign. They polled the issues, they polled the voters, and they laid the groundwork for a foundation to nationalize the election. It gave every candidate a set agenda to run on.
I would argue, and do in this episode, that it was a one-two punch that led to the success of the Republican Party in the elections of 1994. First off, you had Bill Clinton lurch to the left, which was unpopular with the vast majority of the electorate, but you also had Bob Dole there to stand the ground at a moment when every other Republican in the Federal Government was demoralized after the loss in 1992. It was Dole that held the ground against Clinton's left wing leap. Dole stopped the Gays in the Military, didn't have a single defection on the budget, and defeated the Healthcare boondoggle. It was a mighty impressive performance for a man leading the minority party in Congress.
It was Bob Dole's leadership during those two years that laid the foundation for the campaign that, without question, Newt Gingrich, was able to lead to victory in 1994. A one-two punch that nearly knocked out the Clinton Administration. It was the high tide of the Republican comeback from the debacle of 1992.
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