Top: Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press; bottom: John Duricka/Associated PressTop, Newt Gingrich presented his 21st Century Contract With America to employees of the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines on Friday. Bottom, Mr. Gingrich in September 1994 unveiling the original Contract With America.Newt Gingrich stood alone on a stage in a Des Moines auditorium on Thursday, flanked only by two banners, propped up like tricolor tablets, that outlined his 21st Century Contract With America.
The scene was in sharp contrast with the unveiling of the original Contract With America in 1994, when Mr. Gingrich was flanked by hundreds of Republican candidates.
He is trying to repeat the success of that dramatic campaign commitment, which was credited with helping Republicans retake the House after decades in the minority, with Mr. Gingrich leading the charge.
But at 26 wonky pages — and more to come — the contemporary contract is hardly the succinct, poll-tested, 10-point legislative agenda unveiled 17 years ago. It included proposals for a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform and term limits.
“It seems what Newt really needs is a good editor,” said John Feehery, a top Republican aide in the House during that era.
The new document, which Mr. Gingrich first released to The Des Moines Register, has four parts: legislative proposals; a set of “First Day” changes that Mr. Gingrich says he would make by executive order, including repealing the health care overhaul; a training program for the transition team and appointees to “lead the shift back to constitutional, limited government”; and a plan to create a “system of citizen involvement.”
More details on the latter two initiatives are “coming soon,” according to Mr. Gingrich’s Web site, because he is still formulating the ideas.
“In an age where massive pieces of legislation are written in secret and passed before anyone has time to understand their contents, it is my hope that this open process of developing the 21st Century Contract With America will help restore the bonds of trust between the American people and their elected representatives,” Mr. Gingrich writes.
The process and timing of this contract — about four months before the first presidential nominating contest — deprive it of the “visceral premise” behind the 1994 contract, which was unveiled just over a month before the general election, said Mr. Feehery, now president of the strategic communications firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates.
“It was a contract not only with a candidate, but with almost every House candidate running and almost all the incumbents running,” Mr. Feehery said of the original. Mr. Gingrich’s latest effort “just seems to me to be same old stuff.”
Once hailed as a Republican Party hero, Mr. Gingrich has struggled to regain the esteem of primary voters. In the last New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Sept. 10-15, 36 percent of the people who said they planned to vote in the Republican primaries said they had a favorable view of Mr. Gingrich, up 12 points since June. His unfavorable ratings remained static over that period at 34 percent.
Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting.