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Newt Gingrich , (born June 17, 1943Newt Gingrich is an American politician who is best known as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. In 1995 he was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year for his role in leading the Republican Revolution in Congress, ending 40 straight years of Democratic majorities in the House. During his tenure as Speaker he represented the public face of the Republican opposition to President Bill Clinton.

table in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Newton Searles McPherson and Kathleen Daugherty. His parents separated soon after Newt's birth, and his mother raised him by herself until she married Robert Gingrich, who adopted Newt, hence the name change. Gingrich has a younger half-sister, Candace Gingrich, who was born when he was already a young adult. Gingrich rarely saw her when she was growing up.

Gingrich's adopted surname has been generally pronounced "Ging-ritch" since his entry into public life. However, his adoptive family has always pronounced the name "Gin-grick," as would be customary in the Pennsylvania Dutch ethnic milieu.

Gingrich attended school at various military installations and graduated from Baker High School, Columbus, Georgia, in 1961. He received a B.A. degree from Emory University in Atlanta in 1965. He received an M.A. in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1971 in Modern European History from Tulane University in New Orleans. He taught history at West Georgia College in Carrollton, Georgia, from 1970 to 1978.

In 1974 and 1976, Newt Gingrich made two unsuccessful runs for Congress in Georgia's sixth congressional district, which stretched from the southern Atlanta suburbs to the Alabama border. Gingrich lost both times to incumbent Democrat Jack Flynt.

Jack Flynt was a conservative Democrat of the Georgia delegation who had family political ties that bound him to a particular powerbase within his district. He had never faced a serious challenge prior to Gingrich's two runs against him. In both cases, Flynt just barely squeaked by even though 1974 and 1976 were generally considered bad years for Republicans due to the Watergate scandal. Flynt's struggle, which was emblematic of the struggle of many southern Democrats to hold onto political power, is documented in Richard Fenno's Congress at the Grassroots.

Flynt chose not to run for re-election in 1978, and the Democrats fielded state senator Virginia Shapard in his place. Shapard's support of the Equal Rights Amendment backfired against her in the socially conservative district, and Gingrich defeated her by eight points.

Gingrich was reelected ten times, facing only one truly difficult race. That came in 1990 when he barely defeated Democrat David Worley.

In 1981, Gingrich cofounded the Congressional Military Reform Caucus as well as the Congressional Space Caucus. In 1983 he founded the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group that included young conservative House Republicans. In 1983, Gingrich demanded the expulsion of fellow representatives Dan Crane and Gerry Studds for their roles in the Congressional Page sex scandal.

In May 1988, Gingrich (along with 77 other House members and the nonpartisan good government group Common Cause) brought ethics charges against Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright, who was alleged to have used a book deal to circumvent campaign finance laws and House ethics rules and eventually resigned as a result of the inquiry. Gingrich's success in forcing Wright's resignation was in part responsible for his rising influence in the Republican caucus. In 1989, after House Minority Whip Dick Cheney was appointed Secretary of Defense, Gingrich was elected to succeed him. Gingrich and others in the house, especially the newly-minted Gang of Seven, railed against what they saw as ethical lapses in the House, an institution that had been under Democratic control for almost 40 years. The House banking scandal and Congressional Post Office Scandal were emblems of this alleged corruption.

In his memoir "Man of the House", long time Democratic House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill took note of Gingrich, characterizing him as having a spark of genius and a passion for politics, but an erratic nature.

During the 1990s round of redistricting, Democrats in the Georgia state legislature tried to draw Gingrich's district out from under him by splitting most of his old territory among two other districts. At the same time, they created a new 6th District located in Fulton and Cobb counties in the wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta—an area that Gingrich had never represented. However, the plan backfired when Gingrich sold his home in Carrollton, moved Marietta in the new 6th and won a very close Republican primary. This was tantamount to election in the new, heavily Republican district. Also, five-term incumbent Richard Ray, whose district was redrawn to include much of Gingrich's former territory, lost to Republican state senator Mac Collins.

In the 1994 campaign season, in an effort to offer a concrete alternative to shifting Democratic policies and to unite distant wings of the Republican Party, Gingrich presented his famous Contract with America, a list of campaign promises given as intended acts of Congress. The contract was signed by himself and other Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The contract ranged from issues with broad popular support, including welfare reform, term limits, tougher crime laws, and a balanced budget law, to more specialized legislation such as restrictions on American military participation in United Nations missions. In the November elections of 1994, Republicans gained 54 seats and took control of the House for the first time since 1954.

The contribution of the Contract to the successes of Republicans in this election are not clear. Although many credit the Contract with the Republican election successes of November 1994, polls following the election showed that the majority of American voters were not familiar with the Contract.

Longtime House Minority Leader Bob Michel of Illinois had not run for reelection in 1994, giving Gingrich, as the highest-ranking Republican returning to Congress, the inside track to becoming Speaker. The Congress fulfilled Gingrich's Contract, voting on all ten of the Contract's issues within the first 100 days of the session. Legislation proposed by the 104th Congress included term limits for Congressional Representatives, tax cuts, welfare reform, and a balanced budget law, as well as independent auditing of the finances of the House of Representatives and elimination of non-essential services such as the House barbershop and shoe shine concessions. While many of the major proposals of the Contract did not become law or were substantially weakened, they represented a dramatic change in the legislative goals and priorities of previous Congresses.

The momentum of the so-called Republican Revolution, however, was stalled in late 1995 and early 1996 as a result of a budget fight between Congressional Republicans and President Bill Clinton. Without enough votes to override President Clinton's veto, Gingrich led the Republicans not to submit a revised budget, allowing the previously-approved appropriations to expire on schedule, and causing parts of the Federal government to shut down for lack of funds and generating media attention they used to claim Clinton would not agree to a balanced budget.

The effort backfired, however. Gingrich inflicted a severe blow to his public image by suggesting that the Republican hard-line stance over the budget was in part due to his feeling "snubbed" by the President the day before, after being forced to leave Air Force One via the back door during his return from Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel. Gingrich was lampooned in the media as a petulant figure with an inflated self-image, and editorial cartoons depicted him as having thrown a temper tantrum. Democratic leaders took the opportunity to attack Gingrich's motives for the budget stand-off, and the shutdown ultimately contributed to Clinton's re-election in November of that year. [1], [2]

Gingrich was accused of hypocrisy and unethical behavior when he accepted a $4.5 million advance as part of a book deal, in light of his previous role in the investigation of Jim Wright. Following the accusations, Gingrich returned the advance.

Including charges related to the book deal, Democrats filed 84 ethics charges against Speaker Gingrich during his term, including claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes and using the GOPAC political action committee as a slush fund. All charges were eventually dropped following an investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee. However, Gingrich admitted to unintentionally giving inaccurate information to the House Ethics Committee during the course of the investigation. The committee did not indict him on charges of intentional perjury [3]. The matter was settled when he agreed to reimburse the Committee $300,000 for the cost of prolonging the investigation. The payment was described as a "cost assessment" and not a fine by the Committee [4].

In the summer of 1997, many House Republicans had come to see Gingrich's unsavory public image as a liability and attempted to replace him as Speaker. According to then-House member Joe Scarborough, the coup attempt resulted from a view that Gingrich's public notoriety was becoming a drag on party efforts. Texas congressman Dick Armey, then the House Majority Leader, the number two position in the House, started his efforts in 1997 by whispering to so-called "rebels" tired of Gingrich's leadership. Armey and other Republican leaders started approaching these rebels after the July 4th break in 1997.

Twenty-four House Republicans met on the night of July 10th in South Carolina congressman Lindsey Graham's office in an attempt to vacate the Speaker's chair. A simple majority was needed to oust the speaker; when Democrats' votes were included with those of the dissident Republicans, Gingrich would have had to step aside. However, due to a last-minute disagreement between Dick Armey and Tom Coburn over whether Bill Paxon or Armey should assume Gingrich's role, Armey informed Gingrich that his position as Speaker was at risk. Gingrich and the House leadership quickly and successfully moved to restore order within the party, and Bill Paxon didn't run for reelection in 1998. However, the would prove a precursor of Gingrich's future prospects as Speaker.

By 1998, Gingrich had become a highly visible and polarizing figure in the public's eye, making him an easy target for Democratic congressional candidates across the nation. At the time, he was at the forefront of Republican calls for the investigation and impeachment of Bill Clinton in the Monicagate scandal, and focused on the scandal as a unifying campaign theme in national Republican advertising. Democratic candidates in races across the country used the same opportunity to target Gingrich himself during the campaign season, with commentator David Horowitz estimating that 80,000 television spots ran over the course of the election season to Gingrich. These Democratic efforts would ultimately prove successful.

The Republicans expected big gains from the 1998 Congressional elections. In fact, Gingrich predicted a 30-seat Republican pickup. Instead, the Republicans lost five seats, the poorest results in 34 years for any party not in control of the White House. Having led the GOP to focus on the impeachment project as a principal strategy, Gingrich took most of the blame for the defeat. Amid threats of a rebellion in his caucus, he announced that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well. He had been elected to an 11th term in that election, but declined to take his seat.

Gingrich's role as master GOP strategist ended with his resignation from the House and Speakership, but his legacy in politics remains today.

A major part of Gingrich's legacy as a politican has been in achieving the effective use of language and the news media to further political goals.

Gingrich took the chair of the Republican political action committee GOPAC in 1986 and transformed it into an effective vehicle for electing conservative candidates to office. This was accomplished in significant part by establishing and promoting a consistent language and theme for use by Republicans at all electoral levels. This theme, in Gingrich's own words, was that of "a conservative opportunity society replacing the liberal welfare state", emphasizing "workfare over welfare" and promoting the idea that "we are the majority". GOPAC training tapes containing advice on "Newtspeak" were sent out to rising GOP political candidates throughout the country.

Similarly, GOPAC distributed a memo to freshman Republican House members. Entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," it listed a number of "optimistic positive governing words" that candidates could use when campaigning in order to "speak like Newt," (movement, opportunity, passionate, e.g.) and a parallel list of contrasting words, such as "bureaucracy, cheat, coercion, etc.," which it advised the candidate to apply to their "opponent, their record, proposals and their party."[5][6]

At the start of the Republican Revolution, Gingrich and GOPAC's efforts had succeeded in dictating the theme of national political debate at the time.

Gingrich has since remained involved in national politics and public policy debate. He is a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, focusing on health care (he has founded the Center for Health Transformation), information technology, the military, and politics. He sometimes serves as a commentator, guest or panel member on television news shows. He is listed as a contributor by Fox News Channel, and frequently appears as a guest on the channel; he has also hosted occasional specials for the FNC.

in January 2005, Gingrich has been mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He has made several trips to Iowa and New Hampshire to discuss his book and on April 1, 2005, David Yepsen wrote in the Des Moines Register that Gingrich was "setting a high standard for what other GOP candidates need to be talking about - and doing - if they want to win here." Gingrich has voiced criticism against the Republican Party, and has argued that the party must adapt if it is to remain a dominant force in US politics.

In 2005, Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista established the Newt L. and Callista L. Gingrich Scholarship for instrumental music majors at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. (Gingrich's wife is an alumna of Luther.) This scholarship provides Gingrich with valuable public relations in Iowa, which will hold the crucial Iowa caucuses in 2008.[7]

In May 2005, he raised eyebrows when he announced that he was collaborating with Hillary Clinton on a new health-care bill.[8][9] Some analysts speculated such a move was a calculated attempt to project a more "moderate" front on the part of both politicians, in anticipation of a potential 2008 run.

On October 13, 2005, Gingrich suggested he's actually considering a run for president, saying "There are circumstances where I will run", elaborating that those circumstances would be if no other candidate champions some of the platform ideas advocated by Gingrich. [10]

While in high school, Gingrich started to date his geometry teacher, Jackie Battley. On June 19, 1962, they were married. Their first child was born the following year.

In 1980, Gingrich asked his first wife for a divorce. In an often-reported incident, Gingrich tried to discuss the terms of his divorce with his wife while she was in a hospital bed recovering from surgery for uterine cancer. In February 1981, the divorce was finalized, and in August 1981, he married his second wife, Marianne Ginther.

In December 1999, Gingrich divorced his second wife, Marianne, revealing that he had been carrying on an affair for the past five years with a House aide twenty-three years his junior. Critics such as David Corn noted that this activity was concurrent with his leadership to impeach Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and ascension to speaker on a family values platform. On August 19, 2000, Gingrich married Callista Bisek as his third wife.

Presidential Determination Regarding Certification of the Thirty-Two Major Illicit Narcotics Producing and Transit Countries, in which Nazi Germany did not declare war on the United States during World War II, and a trilogy on the American Civil War, in which the Confederacy won the Battle of Gettysburg.

Newt Gingrich frequently posts book reviews to Amazon.com, and at one point was designated a "Top 500" reviewer. (The Weekly Standard covered this hobby in an article.) Amazon has an archive of his reviews.Candace Gingrich, his sister, works for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest gay and lesbian organization. In years past she has headed up HRC's "National Coming Out Day" campaign.All of Newt Gingrich's official papers and political artifacts are housed in the Annie Bell Weaver special collections area at the University of West Georgia (third floor) in Carrollton, GA. These papers are open to the public during limited hours.On the Coattails of a Contract: RNC Activities and Republicans Gains in the 1994 State Legislative ElectionsSatirical exploration of Gingrich's biography, revised Contract With America, and 2008 Presidential aspirations