The Real Gingrich Record (by ContraSuggest):

By the early 1990s the Democratic Party had controlled the House of Representatives for over 40 years.  Upon entering Congress in the late 1970s, Gingrich consistently maintained that the Democrats’ hold on the House could and would be broken.  Many of his GOP colleagues scoffed at this prospect, but Newt had a multi-pronged strategy for victory, the oratorical and intellectual gravitas to back it up, and the political balls to ardently pursue it.  It was Gingrich who first leveled the ethics charges that eventually ended the Speakership of Jim Wright (D-TX) in June of 1989.  The charges against Wright were so solid that, after review, the Ethics Committee chairman Julian Dixon, a stalwart California Democrat, had no choice but to agree that Wright should resign.  Wright’s forced exit was followed soon after by the resignation of Tony Coelho, who was desperate to avoid a congressional investigation into his spider web-laden closet of skeletons.  Coelho was the Democrats’ craftiest political strategist, whose joint efforts with former Speaker Tip O’Neil allowed the Democrats to hold on to their House majority throughout the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.  How quickly the fickle media morons at National Review and Fox News have forgotten that it was Newt who exorcised the left-wing demons that possessed Congress for almost five decades.  The ‘94 Republican takeover would have been much less likely if Newt hadn’t succeeded in knee-capping the brain trust that was keeping the Democrats in power.                

By the early 90s, the House Democrats were withering under the assault, conceived and spearheaded by Newt; that had rightly characterized them as advocates for higher taxes and spending, unlimited government, more regulation and bureaucracy.  Despite his personal popularity, President Clinton clearly added to this public perception.  In order to focus and unify Republican congressional candidates with clear, succinctly stated policy positions, Gingrich, Dick Armey and their fellow conservatives conceived the Contract with America in 1994.  The contract consisted of ten legislative planks that signatories pledged to debate, send through committee, and bring to the floor for a general vote, within the first 100 days of a Republican controlled House.  Although a detailed version of the Contract was written and made available for those who cared to delve deeper, the version of the Contract printed in TV Guide magazine was devoid of the political double-talk and technical gobbledygook that tends to turn off the average voter.

As Election Day approached it was clear that the voting public had had enough; when the dust settled the Democrats lost a staggering 8 Senate and 52 House seats.  The electoral revolution that Gingrich and his colleagues were planning for 15 years had been brought about, delivering the biggest midterm electoral trouncing to an opposing party since 1930.  Even if many Americans weren’t familiar with it by name, Gingrich’s issuing of the Contract with America, which successfully nationalized the congressional elections, was essential to the victory and its scope.