Among other things;like allowing himself to believe the News Media actually liked and respected him?, Like believing his own press clippings? Like playing the game mastered by the smarmiest huckster ever in the White House? Like having a tantrum over a calculated baiting insult on A1 ?Like allowing himself to be blindsided by the Government shutdown? Yeah Newt screwed the pooch badly in a lot of ways.You're right ,kristinn.His actions crippled the movement in ways we are feeling now.Had his ego been in check, we'd not be having to fight over the squishy middle as we are now.
That was not the disaster the gov't-loving revisionists make it out to be.
On the first day of the shutdown, polls showed that 60% of the people held Republicans accountable for the shutdown, while 40% blamed Clinton. Now keep in mind that many of us though the gov't shutdown was a great thing, and would have answered a poll question in a manner to "blame Republicans". The poll method was inherently biased since it assumed that a gov't shutdown was "bad".
The statist media staged an all-out assault on the GOP. This was before Fox News and the internet, so people only got one side of the story. But even then, Gingrich got the message out with help from talk radio and millions of dedicated supporters.
After 3 weeks, I remember watching Nightline, and they had a poll showing that the country was split 50/50 on who they blamed for the shutdown. Again, keep in mind there were a lot of us who thought the shutdown was good, and "blamed" Republicans for it. So you probably actually had 55%-60% of the people supporting the GOP here. The Clinton folks were fully aware of this as they paid very close attention to the polls.
The next day, the usual RINO suspects like Bob Dole and a few House moderates caved. The result was the end of the Republican Revolution. From that day forward, all Clinton had to do was threaten to shut the gov't down again, and the GOP would roll over and give him what he wanted.
And remember those "radical House Republicans", who were hated by the American people for shutting down their beloved gov't? Guess what? The American people returned them to office in 1996. And in 1998. And in 2000. And in 2002.
By contrast, look how they responded to Dole's sellout.