Chapter One

General Gingrich

Sonny Bono got it first. Before most professional image advisers and veteran Republican pols had a clue, the freshman congressman from Palm Springs anticipated what would happen. Newt Gingrich was rocketing into a new realm, and he seemed to have no idea how different and dangerous it would be. It mattered little that he had prepared himself to be Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives since his college days, or that he had spent thousands of hours with managers at Delta, Coca-Cola, Ford, and the Army studying how large institutions operated. Everything he had learned about...