“Only one of the self-dubbed ‘Just Us Chickens’ gang of upstarts who wrote the original text — Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio — remains prominent in the House of Representatives. Others have gone down to resignation, scandal, defeat, ignominy, or, in the case of Texan Tom DeLay, all of the above. The legend of the Contract With America’s electoral power has faded as well. Exit polling at the time demonstrated that most Republican voters were not even aware of the contract’s existence. The landslide that returned the Democrats to control of both houses of Congress in 2006 demonstrated that you can win big without either style or a positive agenda. And Barack Obama’s presidential victory last year proved you can win with no agenda at all. And yet the contract still functions as a sort of Madeleine dipped in tea for political diehards. From a distance of nearly 15 years, Gingrich’s once-bold plan appears bland, humble, disappointing in its content, yet rendered beautiful by the waters of sorrow that have passed it by. It succeeds as a work of literature much the way it succeeded as a political tract: in spite of itself.” (01/06/09)