From Permanent Minority to Revolutionary Majority

Abstract

The Republican Party in the United States regained control of Congress after four decades during the midterm elections of 1994. Believing as it did that its revival lay in rediscovering itself as a rigidly ideological organization opposed to any kind of compromise with the Democratic Party and its policies and programs promoting Big Government, Republicans under then House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-GA) presented Americans with a positive governing agenda that doubled up as its campaign document in 1994. In November that year, Republicans under Gingrich (subsequently elected House Speaker in the 104th Congress) won handsomely, recapturing Congress for the first time after 1954 and posing a serious threat to the political and legislative goals of President Bill Clinton, Gingrich’s bête noire. That campaign document, called the Contract with America, and that victory turn 25 this year. This article intends to remind students of American politics (and even the general reader) about that remarkable document (never had a campaign document been published during an off-year election) and that revolutionary victory on that occasion.