With a new novel hitting shelves, the former Speaker of the House takes a minute to talk Obama, McCain, and the state of the Republican Party

By Wil S. Hylton

Stefan Zaklin/EPA/Corbis

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Ten years ago, Newt Gingrich fled the House of Representatives in a haze of ethics scandals and waning influence. Since then, he has spent much of his time rewriting history—literally—by authoring five historical novels that examine how a single change in history might have, well, changed history. The latest, Days of Infamy (out April 29th), explores the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Here, Gingrich speaks to GQ's Wil S. Hylton:

What do you want readers to take away from this book?
The idea that surprise can be extraordinarily painful. I think the reaction to 9/11 should have been vastly deeper and more complex, like the reaction to Pearl Harbor.

Why did you choose a novel to talk about these issues?
Well, first of all, writing novels is fun. But part of the goal is to get people to think about history as an active process, not just dates and facts that you memorize. History could have been different.

How does your background in history influence your political ideas?
If you think about the current situation, it helps to remember Harry Truman running in 1948, or even Sarkozy in France. Sarkozy distanced himself from Chirac without being hostile. That's what McCain has to do with Bush. And what McCain is trying to achieve by explaining the dangers of the world to the public is like what Lincoln had to do in the Civil War.

McCain doesn't exactly have Lincoln's rhetorical skills.
In style he's closer to Truman, who did not have the rhetorical skills, but had passion.

Do you think that's enough against somebody like Obama?
If you mean three weeks from now, I'd say no. But over the next eight months, I hope so. I think it'll be a question of whether people think McCain has the better argument. I f the issue is who's the better performer, Obama will win. If the issue is who is right, McCain will win easily.

Do you really think people vote based on a deep analysis of who's right?
No, they vote based on summary judgment.

And you still think McCain beats Obama?
Look, I expected Senator Clinton to be the nominee. And I thought last August that McCain was gone. So getting my insight on the future isn't going to be very helpful.

Okay, back to the past. What happened to your party over the last eight years?
They went off the rails. That's it. They took a majority that took 16 years to build and they destroyed it.

How?
There was a fundamental misunderstanding about how to govern. The concept of red versus blue is a tactic, not a strategy. In the long run, in order to mobilize your base, you tend to become more intense and your positions become more vitriolic, and you drive away the independents. Then you are no longer a majority.

What does the party have to do to come back?
We have to remember that we are the party of reform. The Democrats should defend the bureaucracy because it's theirs. Republicans want the bureaucracy changed, not defended. Nothing we have seen on the border, nothing we have seen after Katrina, leads people to believe that this government can do anything effectively. People profoundly distrust this government. Republicans should remember that.

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