>> “Didn’t Newt basically invent Republican coattails in 1994 on a massive scale?” <<
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No, really he didn’t. He just recognized the backlash to Clinton’s overreach and jumped on the bandwagon as it rolled by. Public distrust of his ‘contract’ almost derailed it all.
LOL, what a load of revisionist history. There isn’t a single person out there, Democrat or Republican, no matter how much they hate Newt, who doesn’t give him credit for the 1994 takeover. It was already decided he was going to be the Speaker before the election happened. Everyone knew he was in charge of the whole thing. And the Contract with America was an extremely popular driving force behind it. Of course the Clinton backlash was part of it but there were millions of new voters. There was genuine excitement generated for the Republicans, it wasn’t simply an anti-Clinton vote.