Capitol Hill 20510.

Giving good quote, stealing credit, and other tricks for turning any congressman into a media darling

For the last year you've been the hottest ticket in Hasting, Nebraska. Throngs of voters crowd your path; miles of bunting bear your name; and front-page coverage in the local gazette is as easy as saying "we need a new zoning board." But somehow you just can't shake the ugly, looming truth. When you cash in on that anti-incumbent spirit and arrive in Congress this January, you'll be ready to make your mark, rattle some cages, and decorate the front page of The Washington Post. Problem is, so will 534 other guys, most of them more expert than you at snagging one of the few scraps of media attention Congress merits daily. You'll be nothing, less than nothing, slapped silly with your own horrific nothingness. . . .

Get ahold of yourself, young man. What you need is a role model--some mover and shaker to teach you the Washington media ropes. How about, say, William Natcher. After all, the Kentucky congressman, second-ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, is one of the most powerful and respected members of the House. "One of a kind . . . one of the few who make the House work," glows the Almanac of American Politics. "[N]ever missed a roll call . . . courteous, scrupulously fair." But whoa--this Natcher guy's been slogging away for nearly 400 years. And after all that time, he gets about as much press as a House page, a celibate one at that.

You can't wait that long. You want headlines now. And fortunately, there's a better way. Put down that almanac and pick up the remote control. There's Arlen Specter leading a hearing featuring erstwhile porn goddess Linda Lovelace. There's Al D'Amato on CNN in Israel at the height of the Gulf war wearing a gas mask. There's Headline Howard, the good Senator Metzenbaum, conducting self-serving press conference number 999. There's Phil Gramm, claiming credit for a project he actually voted against. There's Jim Traficant, calling his colleagues a bunch of prostitutes. For years these trailblazers have been lighting your path to positive Washington press. By following their example closely, you can scale the congressional ladder in a fraction of the usual time, and with a fraction of the legislative effort. Just ask Newt Gingrich, whose name has been bandied about as a candidate for speaker of the House if the Republicans win a majority. His biggest legislative success has been a bill commemorating the invasion of Grenada.

Too degrading for an upstanding citizen of Hastings? Make you long for the days when congressmen worried more about Big Questions than Good Hair? Well, grow up, son. Most modern congressmen feel about the media the way teenagers feel about sex: Once they've recognized the possibilities, there's no going back. And for you, there's really no choice. You can lose sleep drafting arcane bills that, if you're lucky, will be featured in The Brookings Review. Or you can hop along with us down the Newt Route. It's shorter, and a heck of a lot more fun.

Seize the Moment

To most of the delegates sitting nearby on the first day of this summer's Republican National Convention, it simply looked like an accident: A camera light stand tipped over, crashed onto the head of a woman seated nearby, and knocked her unconscious. But that's one reason why they're lowly delegates in goofy hats and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is one of the most powerful men in the Senate. By the time the TV cameras focused, Specter was kneeling beside her, applying an ice-filled table napkin to her wound, and--yes!--offering the television audience a sound bite.

Turning to the camera, he reported that the woman "had taken a real hit . . . but is going to be fine. I think the rest of us have taken a real hit," he continued charmingly, referring to criticism he'd suffered in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings, "and we're going to be just fine, too."

The first rule of congressional media mongering is a lot like the first rule of the Boy Scouts: Be prepared. Capitalize on anything. Let no opportunity slip away.

Pick Your Niche

Of course, by the time you get to Congress you've probably already learned the ins and outs of shameless self-aggrandizement; otherwise you wouldn't be here. Unfortunately, most Washington media opportunities won't hit you, or anyone else, in the head. You have to make you own. So let's move on to Rule Number 2: Pick your niche and stick with it.

Yes, claiming as your own some tiny speck on the issues map involves something you may not have a lot of--humility. It's tough to admit that no one cares a whit about your insights into the trade deficit. Yet the most critical skill of a media-successful congressman is the ability to be stunningly predictable in a limited area of study, because that's what the deadline media demand. Get on "MacNeil-Lehrer" and hog airtime explaining that you're actually reconsidering your stand on protectionism in the light of a new Congressional Budget Office report, and bookers will toss your card from their Rolodexes. The media folk want to sketch the issues in black and white with as little effort as possible. They want politicians who can be counted on to say exactly what they're expected to say.

"All reporters have a staple list," says Susan Rasky, former congressional correspondent for The New York Tunes. "Three on the right, three on the left, three in the middle." Actually, it's more complicated than that. Reporters' Rolodexes encompass countless ideological/attitudinal subcategories, ready to be mined for a quote. Need the line on enterprise zones from a progressive Republican? You can always count on Jim Leach. From a man o' the people? Al D'Amato. From a Washington insider? Vic Fazio.

Or maybe you need a do-good consumer advocate outraged over the latest shenanigans at the FDA. Oregon's Ron Wyden is your man. A liberal to plead for federal child care? Who else but Pat Schroeder. A conservative geared up to gaybash? The one and only Robert Dornan. Fortunately for the newcomer, though, there are categories within these subcategories. Defense work emeritus: Les Aspin. Defense wonk of the moment: Barbara Boxer. The defense wonk of the future? Possibly you.

Having a role counts for a lot when you're trying to get some air time. But some roles will get you more pay than others. Say you have some expertise on America's toxic waste problem. See you on local access cable. The smart mediamonger will latch on to a big, recurring topic--one he can ride again and again (look, no homework) into fame. For instance, "Nightline" will need to ring up a hawkish, pro-Israel politician every couple of weeks. The New York Times will need that position every other day. Which leaves a guy like Stephen Solarz--our man on Israel--sitting pretty.

If you're a reporter or booker in Washington, you've probably had 225-2361 committed to memory for years. But it wasn't always that way. When Solarz first showed up in Washington in 1974 as a congressman from Brooklyn, his notion of foreign turmoil was a shooting in the Bronx. As a freshman, he lobbied for an assignment on either the Ways and Means or Appropriations Committees. But when he drew a seat on Foreign Affairs, he immediately took off for a 20-day tour of the Middle East. Since then, he's made it his life--and his media niche--learning anything and everything he could about it.

Be Nice to Guys with Notebooks

But knowledge isn't enough. Fortunately, Solarz knows how to treat the press that feeds him. One congressional correspondent calls him a "non-stop press conference," and that's not far from true. He calls those conferences about as often as the entire State Department does. His ceaseless flow of op-ed's and press releases lets the entire Washington media know exactly where he stands, just in case they want to quote him. And don't worry: Solarz is accessible, and then some. One reporter recalls phoning the rep for a routine quote and leaving a message with his office. A few hours later Solarz, who, unbeknownst to the reporter was in Syria, phoned back in the middle of the night to conduct the interview.

Whether it's Gaza or the Gulf, reporters can count on Solarz to deliver exactly what they're looking for: the stand-tough, hawkish line. Which is one reason why he's made national headlines in the last year alone on the Persian Gulf, Zaire, Cambodia, the Philippines, Pakistan, China, South Africa, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. He's also reeled in profiles in each of the big three: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. "There are few things as comforting to a reporter as being 45 minutes from deadline and running down to the speakers lobby and, thank Jesus, there's Stephen Solarz," says Peter Osterlund, former congressional correspondent for The Baltimore Sun.

Give Good Quote

Yet if predictability breeds airtime, it's not enough. You've got to convey your predictable position--sorry, Pete Domenici--without putting the reporter or producer to sleep. You've got to learn the high art of the Outrageous Quote.

Sure, there's no logical reason the public should care what Al D'Amato thinks about federal banking regulators. But when he says. "These guys could screw up a two-car funeral procession," a reporter's gotta get it in. New York Rep. Charles Schumer, another sure bet for a soundbite, was once quoted so many times in a single issue of the The New York Times (he appeared in five different stories) that an editor handed down a memo chiding the reporters. But if you're looking for the very best quote in Congress, you'll have to turn to Youngstown, Ohio's Rep. James Traficant.

His legislative record is anorexic. About the only things he sponsors are "Buy American" amendments, which he slaps on any legislation that comes near him. (He recently attached one to a family planning bill.) He's got a history of legal and ethical problems. So why has Traficant garnered more network air time than most of Ohio's House delegation combined? Listen. . . .

*On President Bush: "Those are not roses near the White House. That must be marijuana because President Bush seems stoned."

*On granting $12 billion in foreign aid to the Soviet Republics: "I think it's time for Congress to tell the president to shove that $12 billion up his deficit."

*On the trade deficit: "We have a trade crisis ahead that will make the |29 crash look like a fender bender, and for all those who keep making light of it, in about 10 years, you try and eat your Toyota."

*On the budget: "I believe that Dr. Ruth is beginning to advise the president on the budget because this must be a massive sex experiment the way the taxpayers are being treated."

What exactly does this sassiness buy him? More national media publicity in the last four years than Kentucky's Rep. Natcher, for one, has gotten in the last 40. And this without holding press conferences, without a leadership position, without using headline-grabbing hearings, in fact, without using anything except his mouth. Well, not just his mouth: Traficant also boasts a catchy visual. His favorite material is polyester, his favorite style bell bottoms with skinny ties.

Many of his congressional colleagues, and even some reporters, dismiss him as an "eccentric," a "lunatic," and a "nitwit." But none of that keeps him off the air. There was the glowing profile on "60 Minutes"; a front and center Washington Post Style section article headlined "Wild Man on the Hill: Ohio's |Teflon Congressman' Making His Presence Felt"; recent appearances on "Crossfire," "MacNeil-Lehrer," and "ABC News with David Brinkley," two entire "Donahue" segments where he was permitted to rant on any topic he wished, and, of course, a regular diet of soundbites on the networks, especially "Fox Morning News." "We're aware we use him a lot," admits CNN Capitol Hill producer John Roselli, "but sometimes his quotes are so good you can't resist." So good that in the Capitol, says one Hill reporter, the occasional rush to get a quote from Traficant has recently dubbed a "Trafic-jam."

Bite the Big Dogs

A word of caution here: If your goal is simply to get your mug on the tube, Traficant is your man. But too many off-the-wall comments can remove you from the political map. "He's one I don't take seriously," says one veteran Hill print reporter of Traficant. "He's a caricature of what a legislator should be." You, one the other hand, want to be taken ' seriously. You're ready for the next level: using the media to accumulate real power.

Position papers? Trade bills? Forget it. As Republican Whip and Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich--pick the fattest, most powerful targets, and then attack your way to the top.

Gingrich's legislative record is paltry, his efforts on behalf of his constituents virtually nonexistent. But so what? He is by far the most quoted, visible member of Congress. While Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, for example, was quoted or cited in just over 2,000 stories in 150 of the nation's largest papers and magazines. Gingrich has appeared in more than 6,000 pieces during the past three years. And in 1992, he's appeared on, or been mentioned as part of, more TV stories (151) on ABC, CNN, and "MacNeil-Lehrer" than either Mitchell (95) or Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (139). A comparison to Democratic Whip David Bonior is almost laughable: Bonior has earned himself less than 20 percent of Newt's print haul.

"His is not leadership by example," says Georgia Republican operative Jim Lovejoy, "but by soundbite." And in Gingrich's case, soundbite seems the right word. The nobody who arrived from Georgia 14 years ago has built his media monarchy by sinking his teeth into his betters. In fact, it was in waging a personal battle in 1984 with Tip O'Neill that the lowly three-term congressman from Jonesboro first made his name as a giant killer.

After O'Neill reacted to a Gingrich attack on contra aid as "the lowest thing I've ever seen in my 32 years in Congress," the press suddenly noticed little Newt and started to quote him. Gingrich's grenades have been flying ever since. Under the guise of ferreting out corruption, Gingrich has gone after House Speaker Thomas Foley (helping propagate the rumor that Foley is a homesexual), Barney Frank, and, in his grandest coup, former Speaker Jim Wright. In recent months he's called the Democratic leadership "sick" and its past three speakers "a trio of muggers."

How good is Gingrich at being bad? While dozens of politicians invoked family values at the Republican Convention this summer, the one line that drew the most media attention was his: "Woody Allen is not having incest with his daughter. He only has been a non-father because they have been a non-family." Sure, Gingrich was called onto the carpet by Republican colleagues for that whopper, but the next day his one-liner was the lead political story in the Atlanta papers, even though Bush had been in the state the previous day.

But you have to pick the right evils to exorcise, and Gingrich leaves little to chance. Although the media sketches him as a true believer--"As a Guerrilla or a General, Gingrich Has a Mission" says The New York Times--when Gingrich chooses an issue, he's a lot more likely to chat with a pollster than with the Lord. As Lovely tells it, Gingrich follows "the 80-20 system": When poll results show that at least 80 percent of those surveyed line up on one side of an issue, you run with it.

An aptitude for the grand slam doesn't just get you power; it lets you wiggle out of the occasional embarrassing squeeze. For instance, Gingrich came out swinging against pernicious congressional check bouncers, perk-mongers, and abusers of the franking privilege (which allows congressmen to send free mail to their districts) despite the fact that he's guilty of each himself. Yet the rep understands that while the breaking story gets the page-one headlines, detailed follow-ups naming names and citing numbers get buried. For instance, when Gingrich took on the frankers, the press lapped it up: "Gingrich Seeks to Seize Reform Label" was the headline over one New York Time story that pointed to his anti-franking effort. And who noticed the later story reporting that he was guilty of sending out twice as much franked mail as any congressman from his state? Similarly, his perk-busting campaign drew minutes of air time on CNN and the networks, as well as headlines like The Houston Chronicle's "Foley Promises Reforms in Houses; Gingrich Rips Dems." Less interesting to the press were the later-learned facts that his Whip's office had a payroll of more than $750,000 and that he was paying a chauffeur $60,000 out of the public coffers.

"Most human beings are aware of the maxim about glass houses," says Rick Allen, a political analyst with CNN, "but not Newt." Rather, Gingrich's lesson for newcomers is that if you throw enough stones at enough important people, they'll be so busy dodging, your house will be left alone.

Steal Credit

Still, it's the rare creature who can accrue power while accomplishing so little. To sustain the good press, most newcomers, unhappily, will have to do something. Or rather, they'll have to look like they're doing something. And the role model for that trick is Arlen Specter, the Pink Panther of the Senate.

Ask the average American to describe the secondterm senator and you'll hear something about his shameless questioning of Anita Hill; ask Capitol Hill insiders and they'll point to his shameless swiping of credit. "You have to have your eye on your back with Specter," says a staffer in one Pennsylvania congressional office, "or he'll show up at the last minute and walk off with the glory for things you've spent years working on."

Specter is so fast at stealing credit that he's changed the way the rest of the Pennsylvania delegation does it own PR. Staffers say they've taken to writing press releases days in advance of expected announcements of new federal funds just to be able to react as quickly as Specter. But if the technique has won the senator the resentment of a few colleagues, it's also earned him a library of positive press clips. Consider the recent legislation pushed through the Senate by Pennsylvania Senator (and Environment and Public Works committee member) Harris Wofford aimed at reducing the massive amount of out-of-state trash being dumped in Pennsylvania. Specter was not on the committee. Wofford's staff had no contact with him in drafting the legislation. Yet as soon as the bill was passed, Specter broke the story to the Pennsylvania press. One July 1992 report went so far as to label the reform "Specter's proposal."

While Specter takes credit for keeping trash out, he's even more brilliant at grabbing credit for pork coming in. After Rep. Joe McDade had lobbied for three years to bring a federally funded railroad museum to Scranton, the House approved funding, only to have it cut out in the Senate. Finally in 1989, when a House-Senate budget conference approved the $12 million pork, Specter was the first to call a press conference to herald the news.

Nor is Specter shy about swiping credit from the executive branch: A few hours after deadly toxins were found in railyards just outside of Philadelphia a few years back, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dashed off a memo to all members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation outlining a step-by-step cleanup program, complete with dates and places of action. Three days later, Specter reaped huge press coverage when, with cameras rolling, he outlined in great detail a plan of action that he personally would demand that EPA undertake. Specter's "plan," of course, was lifted from EPA's original memo.

You'd think by now the media would have caught on. Think again.

Specter's campaign ads say, and the press repeats, that he's a force behind increased federal funding for breast cancer research--an important facet of his effort to woo women voters after the Hill-Thomas fiasco. Perhaps Specter meant an invisible force. It was Senator Fritz Hollings who was the prime player on the recent $279 million increase for cancer research (Senate insiders say Specter served mostly as spectator). When the Appropriations Committee held its mark-up on the bill, Specter was absent. When the bill went to the floor, he was tied up in the Thomas hearings. When it went to the conference committee, he made an appearance but didn't utter a word in support of the breast cancer provisions.

Nevertheless, the thievery redounds to his credit. In the last two years, Specter has appeared in, or been mentioned as part of, stories more than 70 times on CNN, ABC News, and "MacNeil-Lehrer." Some of this is obviously related to Anita Hill, but it's still remarkable compared to most other senators who share his approximate rank--such as South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle (3 mentions) or Nebraska Senator James Exon (5 mentions). Within the last few months Specter has offered nationally televised opinions on topics ranging from congressional ineptitude and the transfer of weapons technology to foreign nations to the Gulf war and the nomination of Robert Gates.

"One of the most dangerous places to be, with the possible exception of between a dog and his dinner," observes Bob McCarson, a press official for the campaign of Lynn Yeakel, Specter's opponent in this year's Senate race in Pennsylvania, "is between Specter and a TV camera."

Hold Sensationalized Hearings

Still, to be a real mover and shaker, most newcomers will have to dip into something substantive. For many veteran members, the sensationalized subcommittee hearing has done the rick quite nicely. Michigan Rep. John Dingell came to fame by tracking down $640 military toilet seats and scientific fraud, among other things, at his hearings. Stephen Solarz used hearings to expose the shocking truth about Imelda Marcos's 3,000 pairs of shoes. Yet in the last decade a new wave of congressmen has discovered that Hollywood stars get almost as much attention as sinister, self-aggrandizing autocrats--and they take a lot less work to get.

Need good press for a crime prevention hearing? Joe Biden brings in scarred model Marla Hanson. To promote child abuse prevention, he hauls out Oprah. Porn stars, as it happens, are doubly effective. When Specter sponsored hearings on child pornography, he dredged up an (adult) porn princess to testify that her boyfriend had forced her into her career at gunpoint. Specter hit the media jackpot--newspaper headlines like "Sex Offenders Cite Pornography's Influence" and "Ex-Porn Actress Wants Movie Suit Law," plus prime-time TV spots.

Newcomers may think the sexy angle has to be relevant to the substantive issue being explored. Old hands don't make that mistake. Specter not long ago packed a subcommittee room by holding hearings on Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, to probe, of all things, the failings of the juvenile justice system. (Specter used the logic that a probe of Mengele was crucial to the issue as Mengele had been accused of conducting experiments on children.)

Above all, the pros don't let tedious committee appointments discourage them. Look at Ron Wyden, one of the more creative employers of the subcommittee's special power. From his outpost at the Small Business subcommittee, he's built a specialty in consumer and health-related issues--classic do-good Democrat territory. But Wyden knows how to pick his targets. Slim-Fast and the rest of the $33 billion-a-year quick-fix diet industry may not be a national scourge, but it will get you national press. And the media may cotton to a story on the mislabeling of over-the-counter drugs when your hearing hands them their story's lede: a sweet 72-year-old woman who almost died of a hemorrhage after taking regular aspirin. "His hearings are one-stop shopping," explains a Hill reporter who covers health-related issues. "He'll have a GAO report, a sexy topic, a quotable witness, plenty of background material, and of course, he'll be available himself to talk about it."

One reason Wyden can get the most out of reporters is that he knows how they think. He's the son of Peter Wyden, a journalist and writer of bestsellers like The Overweight Society and Inside the Sex Clinic. Of course, like his dad, Ron sometimes overstates it, as when he took on companies that advertise junk food during Saturday morning cartoon hours, arguing that the sweetened cereals are a "potentially deadly mix of sugar and fat."

Still, Wyden's hearings helped lead to 14 pieces of legislation in 1990 alone. Thanks to his follow-through, fertility clinics must now make public their success rates; Medicaid now covers senior citizens who wish to receive nursing care at home rather than at an institution; Medigap fraud has been brought under control; and there is a national data bank to track physicians with a history of misconduct or malpractice. But the personal payoff is his repeated good press in The New York Times and The Washington Post, not to mention an appearance on "Geraldo." When the nets need a white-hatted consumer crusader, who better than the guy who took on Slim-Fast?

Relax and Enjoy It

Still, you're thinking, it all seems just a little too sleazy. Is it worth it, elbowing your way onto "Nightline," wallowing in the hype, stealing credit? Of course it is. In five years you could be the next Newt Gingrich. And in 10 you could graduate to the top: the empyrean heights occupied by Texas Senator Phil Gramm. Gramm is respected, awe-inspiring, the very personification of power; he seems like he's been around forever. Who remembers he's mere second-term senator from College Station?

How does he do it? If mediamongering were an Olympic event. Gramm would be a decathlete. He's mastered a niche, given good quote, attacked the Democratic Goliaths, blustered his way out of scandal, held high-profile budget hearings, and swiped credit from his colleagues. And he's ended up loved as much by the "Today" show as by the Tyler Daily Telegraph. Chances are that if you put this magazine down right now and checked your local paper, you'd find Gramm's name there somewhere. (Don't forget the TV listings.)

Take August 20, 1992, two days after Gramm delivered his address at the Republication convention. He was referred to or quoted in six different stories (plus a photo) in The Washington Post; four pieces (plus a photo) in The New York Times; four times each in the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times; three each in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the Boston Globe, New York Newsday, USA Today, and The Washington Times. He also appeared on CNN, National Public Radio, and ABC News--and even in the Japanese Economic Review.

Gramm carved his niche back in 1983, when he turned what could have been political suicide into the publicity coup of his career. A Democratic congressman at the time, Gramm was granted a budget committee seat by Speaker Jim Wright. But after Gramm attended the closed-door Democratic caucus sessions, he'd sneak over to the White House to share the details with Reagan budget director David Stockman. When his Benedict Arnold turn was discovered, his Democratic colleagues bounced him off the budget committee. But Gramm didn't crawl away. Instead, he repackaged the story as that of a young idealist taking on sleek liberal bosses intent on wasteful government spending. The Washington press lapped it up, portraying Gramm as a martyr. He switched his party, resigned his seat, and then rewon it in a special election. And his role was cast in stone: Congress's straight-talking wizard of the budget.

Gramm makes that role mark because he has the ability to translate arcane issues into English. And as an author of Gramm-Rudman, he has a right to offer nationally televised opinions on the nation's economy. But Gramm has managed to parlay his dull specialty into arching credibility--in the last few months he's appeared on national news programs to discuss literally dozens of topics, from the space station to unemployment to defense spending to the Balkans--in part because of his ability to launch a good, homey quote for the jaded Washington press corps. "I didn't come to Congress expecting to be loved," he's fond of saying, "and I've not been disappointed." Another favorite: "I do the Lord's work in the Devil's city."

But don't be fooled by the small-town line. Gramm can attack like a street thug. During the Robert Bork nomination hearings of 1987, he put Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden into place with this zinger: "The American people know what the people who cheated in college think. We want to give them a chance to hear the qualifications of a guy who was a straight-A student."

He steals like a street urchin, too--and not just credit for laws he's had nothing to do with. Gramm sometimes takes it for projects he's actually opposed. "Gramm Announces Texas Library Grant Awards" was the headline over a story in a Comfort, Texas, newspaper announcing $7.2 million in U.S. Department of Education grants to public libraries in Texas in 1989. This despite the fact that the senator had consistently voted against the legislation to provide the funds. Again in 1989, he was the first to announce in Beaumont, Texas, that Lamar University had won a $1.5 million hazardous waste research grant, despite being one of only eight senators to vote against that funding.

Of course, Gramm's paid a price for his stunning solicitation of the press. No, not self-respect--just the everlasting resentment of most of the Texas delegation. Is it worth it? Well, there's hardly a soul out there who thinks all those Gramm |96 lapel pins at the Republican National Convention were referring to his next Senate race.

Now don't tell us it's still nagging at you--the tedious social cost of this political self-promotion? What do you mean you can't shake the feeling that, instead of holding sensationalist hearings, stealing credit from your colleagues, and performing irrelevant publicity stunts, you could be doing something, anything to fix America?

Well, fine. Have it you way. Get up at five a.m. and review your constituents' rambling letters about health care and education. Sit down at seven and outline your position on Mexican water rights. By 10, when you're ready to take a break, you can still catch Newt on Oprah. And watch him carefully, son. In a couple of years he'll be running the country. And you'll be back in Hastings.

Christopher Georges and Katherine Boo are editors of The Washington Monthly. Research assistance was provided by Kevin Prufer.