Gingrich autographed her book without pause, but a tiny smile creased his face. "I'm learning a little discipline," the speaker mumbled in reply.
And so another lesson is shared - perhaps another presidential voter impressed - on a nationwide book tour that Gingrich hopes will sell himself as much as his books.
"Lessons Learned the Hard Way, A Perl History" presents a lean, not-so-mean Newt Gingrich to the American public.
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| AP PHOTO Newt Gingrich takes a stop on a nationwide tour to promote his new book titled "Lessons Learned the Hard Way, A Perl
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Though the speaker says he's just concerned about book sales, his advisers think the tour could help shed his image as a firebrand. They want to raise Gingrich's basement-level poll ratings so he can have the option of running for president in 2000.
A year ago, such talk would have been nonsense.
"There is a certain evolutionary process that goes into this," said Rich Galen, a Gingrich strategist.
Gingrich wears the same red sweater and shirt - no tie - that he wore while posing for a homey picture on his book's cover. He's friendly and at ease with the paying customers.
"Thanks for stopping by," Gingrich tells one man, shaking his hand while not letting go of a felt-tipped pen. The man walks away, wiping blue ink from his right hand.
The book, too, is an exercise in humility, a breezy, chatty rendition of his ups and downs as speaker.
He even provides a Most Embarrassing Moment: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott advised the speaker how to sit during the 1997 State of the Union address "to minimize for the camera how overweight I had let myself become."
History." The autobiographical book is about Gingrich's tenure as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
04-09-98
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