Comeback Kid?

Fourteen video cameras lined the ballroom of the National Press Club on a steamy August day, drawn by the back-to-the-future presence of Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker and possible presidential candidate. The audience of journalists, industry representatives and assorted hangers-on sat transfixed as Gingrich wowed them with his versatile intellect and his political derring-do.

In an angry election season, this could be Gingrich’s moment. He’s a bomb thrower, and this time he’s hurling smart bombs, blasting risk-averse candidates and the army of consultants that have sapped all spontaneity out of the presidential-election process. His fury at the ways of Washington echoes the way he tapped into voter disgust with the status quo in 1994 when he led the Republican revolution that captured control of the House for the first time in 40 years. He defined the conservative takeover, and then became part of its decline when he resigned the speakership in 1999.

Now he is poised to shake up the system once again. With such media titans nodding their approval as David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, and Marvin Kalb, the former CBS newsman turned media analyst, Gingrich took aim at the presidential-nominating process and particularly the flurry of faux debates. They’re more like auditions than a serious exchange of ideas, he said, likening them to a combination of “The Bachelor,” “American Idol” and “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?”

Gingrich would like to see the candidates mix it up with each other in smaller settings, even across party lines, but he knows that’s not going to happen. So he’s reserving his firepower for a bigger idea that he thinks frustrated voters would welcome, and that is nine debates featuring the two major-party nominees, one each week between Labor Day and Election Day 2008. It’s not a new idea. Sixteen years ago, Kalb and a group of journalists and scholars, spurred by voter revulsion with the negative tone of the 1988 election, suggested “Nine Sundays” of 90-minute debates. All the candidates in ’92 were pleased with the proposal, but none of them accepted it, Kalb said.

It’s not surprising that the polite introduction of an idea that requires candidates to take a risk would be quietly shelved. But if anybody can tap into voter anger to force an overhaul of the political process, it’s Gingrich. He did it in 1994 with the Contract With America, and he’s prepared to enter the presidential race as the agent for change on the Republican side. Watching him, it’s hard sometimes to square his new-found zeal for civil and civic dialogue across party lines with the bombastic figure that first burst on the national scene calling Democrats “pathetic.” But he’s a smart guy, and a serious guy, and he just might pull it off.

Gingrich says he’ll wait until October and see how Fred Thompson and the others are doing before he decides whether to jump in the race. “The trick is not to delude yourself,” he said in response to a question. He would only run if there was a large enough demand, and if his party was still looking for someone capable of debating Sen. Hillary Clinton, who he called a “very formidable professional.” Gingrich dismissed the notion that getting in the race late would hurt his chances. He said voters don’t focus on the election until after Christmas, and that six to 12 weeks should be plenty of time to design a winning campaign.