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Mahe: That is true. And instant brilliance is, I think, a problem that all bright people have to deal with. And it's very tough, I wouldn't be surprised if you suffer from the same problem. You're sitting in a discussion and you get some great idea and it's good because you're having it and you have great confidence in your own ideas. Well, that works well if you're not Speaker of the House. [Chuckles] If you're Speaker of the House, I told him once, a couple years ago, this was even before he was speaker, you really have to do away with instant brilliance behind the podium.

Q: Are you at all surprised by how well he has taken to this role?

Mahe: No. I can't think of a reason I would be surprised. He has spent a long time getting ready for it. He clearly has the capacity to do it. He has done and is doing an outstanding job. He is filling the role of speaker as it was traditionally filled for the first 200 years or so of this century. Those people who didn't expect him to succeed in the job just really did not know, I think, Newt Gingrich and what he was about. And the fact is, at this point in this nation's history, Newt Gingrich is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It is on his shoulders if you accept, as many of us do, that our government really is screwed up and is no longer fitting our people and our country very well. He alone, in my opinion, has had success in leading to change it.

Q: Can we suppose, given the pipe that y'all have laid through GOPAC and Newt's work in the last decade and a half, that there will be a continuing stream of many Newts coming up through the party?

Mahe: Oh, I think so. Yeah, I think so without a doubt. And I say this in no way demeaning everybody elected and/or running for public office. One of the biggest crises that Newt faces and we face as a country is that the best people in this country are not running for public office now. Because running for and/or sitting in public office has become too painful and so you're kind of getting, kind of the less than the best that are running. I mean you don't see many CEOs or heads of local organizations or big corporations. You just don't see a lot of those kinds of people running. We need to improve the political process enough and get a lot of this burden off of the process so that the best people in this country once again are prepared to consider civic duty.

Q: You have a good perspective on the whole Republican Party...where are things heading and, is this all really going to change?

Mahe: I would argue three points. One, the role model that we should follow in terms of turning this government around is what I call the Waxman-Metzenbaum Model. Every two years you just keep nibbling away. Waxman substantially destroyed the health care system in this country two years at a time by things he kept adding to the Medicare, Medicaid legislation. We can't change everything that needs to be changed in two years. If we attempted to, we'd bring the country down. We need more time. We need time to just slowly and methodically undue the damage that's been done. So, to that extent, I think the revolution is over, it is a matter of consolidating, of bringing in new people, of cleaning out. It's going to be a long, tough battle but last year I thought we maybe just had a beachhead. I think we're a little stronger than just a beachhead now. The willingness of the majority of both the House and the Senate to vote 'yes' for a lot of things that were making the left or the right within both bodies very uncomfortable. We are going to pass the reconciliation bill. Everybody understands, whatever their personal philosophy may be, how important it is for us to do that. We will do that. I think ultimately that will resonate with the American people and we will bring in more people, we will replenish this government over time. But it is going to be a slow, tough battle.

Q: You have no doubt at all about how once the general achieves the beachhead, about how he will govern? I know there's still this string to be played out in terms of the revolution being complete and all that.

Mahe: Well, I respond to that this way: changing our government has to be done at two levels. The first is at the government level itself. Laws, regulations, rules, bureaucrats. You have to clean out the underbrush before you can make real change in direction. Because you can't change in direction if your wheels are locked. Get that done quick. I think that's what Newt has to do for the next five years.

I would then argue, you have to change this culture, you have to change the thinking of the American people. That's when I think Newt would best serve the country, maybe running to President and using that massive podium to access the American people and not worry so much about the intricacies of government. Not like a Clinton and too many of our Presidents, kind of trying to tinker with the mechanics of government, but really trying to lead the American people back to the culture, again close to what we were, which is the culture of individual responsibility, a culture of caring for ones neighbors, a free enterprise kind of culture rather than this collective, regulatory climate that we've created over the past 30 years.

Q: Do you think that Newt similarly has a long-term view of it, in that same way? Covering what period of years?

Mahe: I don't know where it ends. I think he would not be adverse to the idea of running for President in five years, but I have not had that discussion with him.

Q: I'll give you his phone number, and we could --[Laughing]

Mahe: That would be an interesting call, wouldn't it? [Laughing]