ABSTRACT
In the waning weeks of the election campaign, the party's leader took a gamble. After sophisticated research on polls and focus groups, he committed himself to taking precise actions on specific issues in the first 100 days after he took office. He won an unexpectedly strong victory, handpicked a new team and took office with a stirring defense of his governing philosophy. A frenzied 100 days of activity, marked by many televised press conferences, ended with a round of celebratory interviews with top reporters and finally a nationally televised speech. The media speakership that has emerged under Newt Gingrich is revolutionary, but it is based partially on an evolutionary process that has already occurred in the House. Gingrich came to leadership by an unconventional route. Speaker Gingrich has benefited greatly from both the discipline of his party and its domination of both houses of Congress, two elements that were lacking for his Democratic predecessors.
