My gaggle report from Newt Gingrich’s Election Night party in Washington:
REPORTER: Do you think this is equal to or bigger than 1994?
GINGRICH: Bigger, this is bigger than 1994. It’s a more decisive repudiation, the total number of seats will be bigger, I think the governorships are bigger, I think the state-legislature things, like [the Democrats’] losing North Carolina for the first time since 1898, is bigger.
NRO: How should President Obama respond to tonight?
GINGRICH: He has got to make a major decision. Does he want to listen to the American people, who have now had a chance to vote and to send a pretty clear signal? Or does he want to fight to defend his radical policies, even after the American people have repudiated them? I think that’s probably the biggest decision of his presidency: Which way does he go now that he sees the real results?
REPORTER: What can this class do to be more respected and impacting than the class of 1995?
GINGRICH: Well, the 1995 class, they balanced the federal budget for four years in a row, paid off more than $5 billion in debt, passed the first tax cut in 16 years, and passed welfare reform — sending two out of every three people on welfare either to work or to school. So I don’t know if this Congress is going to have more of an impact than we did, but I think that it can have a significant impact.