Pundits, aghast in the brazenness of this strategy, predicted backlash from voters—but few did actually notice
also some Republicans had been amazed in what they certainly were getting away with. Bill Kristol, then the GOP strategist, marveled during the popularity of their party’s “principled obstructionism.” An up-and-coming senator called Mitch McConnell ended up being quoted crowing that opposing the Democrats’ agenda “gives gridlock a great title.” Once the Congress that is 103rd adjourned October, The Washington Post declared it “perhaps the worst Congress” in 50 years.
Yet Gingrich’s plan worked. Because of the time voters went along to the polls, exit surveys unveiled extensive frustration with Congress and a deep appetite for modification. Republicans attained the most sweeping electoral victories in contemporary US history. They found 54 seats in the home and seized state legislatures and governorships around the world; for the very first time in 40 years, the GOP took control of both homes of Congress.
On election evening, Republicans packed right into a ballroom into the Atlanta suburbs, waving placards that read liberals, your time and effort is up! and sporting rush limbaugh for president T-shirts. The band played “Happy times Are Here Again” and Gingrich—the next presenter of this home, this new philosopher-king regarding the Republican Party—took the phase to raucous cheers.
With triumph at your fingertips, Gingrich did their better to have fun with the statesman, saying he’d “reach off to every Democrat who would like to make united statese of us” and guaranteeing become “speaker of the House, perhaps perhaps perhaps not presenter regarding the Republican Party.”
