In November 1994 the Republicans won control of both Houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years in a victory they immediately dubbed the Republican Revolution. Swept into office in that election were 73 Republican freshmen, the storm troopers in Newt Gingrich’s army. The Freshmen is the inside story of those men and women and of the tumultuous 104th Congress, one of the most historic and eventful congresses in recent history.The freshmen were at the heart of the Republican revolution. Journalist Linda Killian presents a revealing portrait of their maneuvering and intrigues, their successes and failures. Were they committed idealists or wild-eyed zealots?Killian reveals how Congress really works through amazingly candid conversations with the freshmen. She offers a probing and intimate character study of the colorful and always unpredictable freshmen who shared their private thoughts with her.In early 1995 the Republicans were riding high but they were sent crashing by the government shutdown. Killian explains how they rebounded from that disastrous political maneuver to maintain control of Congress despite Bill Clinton’s re-election to the presidency, and also explains how the Republican revolution never really existed.Despite being labeled Gingrich clones when they arrived in Washington, in 1997 the freshmen attempted to overthrow Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House. Killian tells the real story of that failed coup.This book is the first detailed, behind the scenes account of the entire 104th Congress and is based on two years of extensive reporting and hundreds of interviews. Killian goes beyond the headlines to show us the power struggles through the eyes of the freshmen.She takes us to the House floor, the committee rooms and private offices of Congress and follows the freshmen back to their districts in small town America in places like Crossville, Tennessee; Wamego, Kansas and Janesville, Wisconsin. We meet class everyman Van Hilleary of Tennessee; firebrand and troublemaker Mark Neumann; former entertainer Sonny Bono; Enid Greene Waldholtz who is forced to leave Congress in disgrace and Sam Brownback who uses his freshman notoriety to win Bob Dole’s seat in the U.S. Senate.The Freshmen is a fascinating look at who the freshmen are and why they are different from other politicians. What did they actually accomplish and how did they change American politics? Much more than just the story of the Republican freshmen, this is the story of power and democracy, a vivid portrait of our times and of the issues facing our nation as we head into the 21st century.
Linda Killian is a Washington journalist and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
You can visit her website to see info about upcoming events and media appearances at www.lindajkillian.com
Her new book, "THE SWING VOTE: The Untapped Power of Independents", will be published in January 2012 by St. Martin's Press. Linda Killian talked with hundreds of citizens, activists and public officials around the country and paints a vivid portrait of the swing voters. She focuses on four key swing demographic groups and states - Colorado, Ohio, New Hampshire and Virginia - that will be critical in the 2012 election. Killian presents a new model of the swing voters and reveals who they are and what they want from their government. She describes the intense disappointment and frustration these voters have with the political system and the two parties. She also examines the heightened polarization of Democratic and Republican elected officials and their inability to deal with our nation's most important problems.
In "THE SWING VOTE" Killian offers solutions for fixing our broken political system and ways for the Independent voters to make their voices heard. This is not only a timely shot across the bows of both parties but an impassioned call to Independents to bring America back into balance.
Linda Killian has been a columnist and national political writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Politics Daily, U.S. News & World Report.com and Politico and is also the author of "The Freshmen: What Happened to the Republican Revolution?" praised by The New York Review of Books and other reviewers as a colorful, well-written and insightful analysis of what happened to the congressional Republicans of 1994. Killian spent two years of extensive reporting and conducted hundreds of interviews to write "The Freshmen" which reveals the maneuvering and intrigues, the successes and failures of the Republican Congress.
She has also written for "The Washington Post", "The Los Angeles Times", "The New Republic", "The Weekly Standard", "The American Spectator", "The Christian Science Monitor", "The Boston Globe", "Redbook", "Washingtonian" and "People" magazines.
Her television appearances include CNN, "Hardball with Chris Matthews", C-SPAN, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel.
She is the creator and former director of the Boston University Washington Journalism Center and a former Boston University professor of journalism.
She was also the senior editor of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" where she was responsible for the editorial content of NPR's national evening news program. Prior to that, she was a reporter at Forbes magazine in New York and for several major daily newspapers including The Oregonian and for United Press International.
She has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
