Wertheimer: I'll read you a quote and you won't be able to tell whether it's me or someone else from Common Cause or Newt Gingrich:

'The first duty of our generation is to reestablish integrity and a bond of honesty in the political process. We should punish wrong-doers in politics and government and pass reform laws to clean up the election and lobbying system. We must insure that citizens politics defeats money politics. This is the only way our system can retain its integrity. Every action should be measured against that goal. Every American should be challenged to register and vote to achieve that goal.'

I'm sorry I didn't write that. It's a wonderful statement. It just doesn't match up with what the speaker does. And of course that's a fundamental problem here. Let me read you one more statement: 'Congress is a broken system. It is increasingly a system of corruption in which money politics is defeating and driving out citizen politics. Corruption, special favors, dishonesty and deception corrode the very process of freedom and alienate citizens from their country.'

Wonderful stuff.....I mean, those words, very similar to the words of what the speaker would say is 'Socialist Common Cause.' We start to part company when we start looking at solutions and more importantly when we start looking at actions. Let me give you a couple of examples: Speaker Gingrich: 'PACs are a grotesque, grotesque distortion of the popular will.' He said that in 1993 --'PACs are a grotesque distortion of the popular will.'

Speaker Gingrich, in the fall of 1994, talking in a private meeting, which got published, to the business PAC community. Fall of 1994. Elections hadn't take place. On the verge of taking over the House of Representatives: 'For anybody who's not on board now, it's going to be the two coldest years in Washington.'

Now that is, of course, the equivalent of political extortion. That is telling the PACs, 'If you don't pay now, you're gonna get no access and influence when we take over.' So which is it? Are these PACs a grotesque distortion, the place that the speaker goes and basically offers a deal: pay, we'll take care of you. Don't pay, you're on the street. Words, Actions. You look at the speaker and he says, 'Congress is a broken system, it's increasingly a system of corruption in which money politics is defeating and driving out citizen politics.' What does he do? He builds a financial empire based on money politics. GOPAC, his foundation, his campaign, they are based on large sums, huge sums of money from people who want influence. That is money politics driving out citizen politics. What does he do about the battle? He fights all the efforts to reform the system.

Let's look at one more. 'We should punish wrong-doers in politics and government and pass reform laws to clean up the election and lobby system.' That sounds pretty good. That sounds right. What happens with GOPAC? His PAC that he heads. They failed to comply with the campaign finance laws, according to the Federal Election Commission. The Federal Election Commission brings an action on them, that is still pending right now, and Speaker Gingrich doesn't go out and correct the problem. He doesn't disclose all the contributions. No, he starts a campaign against the Federal Election Commission, which he attacks now every chance he can get. Now he said we should punish wrong-doers in politics and government. He didn't say we should punish wrong-doers, except for Newt Gingrich and my PAC.

Then he says we should pass reform laws to clean up the election and lobbying system. So in the last Congress, when there's an effort to pass a comprehensive lobby reform bill -- a bill that would ban gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress--what does he do? He opens up a disinformation campaign against it. He says, publicly, people might go to jail if this law passes.

When the words come out, they sound good. Sometimes they sound wonderful. If you follow the patterns of actions, they are on the other side of the street, including major efforts over the years to make sure that the laws that would clean up this system did not pass.

Q: Back in January you, in a more hopeful mood it seems, wrote an open letter to the new Speaker of the House, and said, basically, will the real Newt Gingrich please stand up? And you seemed to be rooting for the Newt Gingrich who, in his statement, said he was gonna clean up Congress. Do you have any hope that this man may come around to his revolutionary words?

Wertheimer: Well, I'm always hopeful. Absolutely. I think Speaker Gingrich is a very smart, skillful, talented leader. He is extraordinarily skillful with the use of words. He's a very effective leader. And I remain hopeful that he will see the light here. It is in his own best interest. He is gonna wind up being looked at and seen just the way he saw the Democratic speakers of the House if he doesn't finally see the light and decide to clean up this system. His revolution is not going to make it long-term, short-term, medium-term, if he does not clean up this system. So, when I said, 'Would the real Speaker Gingrich stand-up,' I knew what we were dealing with here. That wasn't just hopeful, that was realistic. I knew we were dealing with a man who had one course of action with his words and another course of action with his actions. To date, we're still dealing with that same person.

It's not too late. Not at all. Speaker Gingrich could be a true revolutionary here, if he cleaned up and took the lead in changing a corrupt system which is at the heart of American cynicism. Speaker Gingrich objects to all the cynicism in the country. He very much objects to it and he's right. We should not have to be as cynical as we are. He tends to blame it on the media, on his opponents, on partisan terms, when he should understand that his corrupt system is central to the cynicism in this country. We're not gonna get through this period of cynicism without cleaning up the political system in this country. And he now sits as one of the few people at the top. He will either clean it up or he'll pay the price in history.