Believing in the truth of it had, however, immense consequences for the Gingrich-led conservative movement. In trying to upend the congressional Democrats through procedural victories in Congress, Gingrich directed the reforming zeal of conservatives toward the procedures of Congress. The logical culmination of this way of thinking was the Contract With America, which spent the energies of the biggest Republican congressional swing since 1894 on six months of votes on the internal governance of the House of Representatives. But in the procedural politics that Gingrich sold to conservatives, ideas had only a weak independent existence. Gingrich's indifference to the grand themes of a Ronald Reagan followed naturally from his approach to politics.
Grand themes appeal to national electorates.
Congressmen, obviously, don t have national electorates. Their electorates are particular and local. A leader who seeks to attain national power by building a congressional majority is naturally going to be inclined to shun the grand themes of a presidential candidate and instead try to identify issues that could move particular and local blocs of voters out of his opponent's coalition and into his own. This made considerable tactical sense, but it left Republicans speechless and defenseless in their 1995-1996 battles with Bill Clinton. To this day, conservatives have not recovered from Gingrich's downgrading of thematics.