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At the height of Newt Gingrich's political power as House Speaker, Republican congressmen began reporting back that their constituents were passing along a simple message: "Tell Newt to shut up!" The same advice is being given now, though this time the message is coming from a distinctly elite group of apparent ideological confreres and former associates. But there seems -- until recently, at least -- to have been a significant disconnect between their views and those of likely voters in charge of the Republican nominating process,canada goose outlet who have turned Gingrich into a top-tier candidate in early states. Said Robert Dallek, a prominent presidential historian, "There is a certain unprecedented quality to this which should give people pause." Back in 1995, after the Republicans' stunning, Clinton-era takeover of Congress, Gingrich was a pivotal figure who would be named Time's "Man of the Year." One is reminded of his strengths, weaknesses and grandiosity in "Tell Newt To Shut Up!", a fly-on-the-wall account of that tumultuous first year of leadership, including his critical budget negotiations with President Clinton and the federal government shutdown which boomeranged politically on Gingrich. "He spoke in sweeping sentences bursting with adjectives and adverbs that rendered his world oversized and absolute. Enormous. Classic. Grotesque. Tremendous. Totally. Frankly. Unequivocally. Extraordinarily. Explicitly. He wore these words as epaulets of power," wrote the authors, then Washington Post reporters David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf. Their Gingrich was in key ways a failure -- most notably, he made gross strategic miscalculations about his chief adversary, Bill Clinton -- but in no way one dimensional. Indeed, the Post reporters' detailing of his first critical year as Speaker is also the tale of a sometimes astute manager and compromise-seeking bargainer.canada goose cheap outlet He was very much an adherent of respected books on management and leadership and did his best to thoughtfully heed their lessons. Dallek does find Gingrich a "classic grandiose narcissist, full of himself but typical of narcissists' ability to get under your skin and create a measure of rapport or connection," and posits that "it's not the substance of what he's talking about--Medicare, debt, deficits, foreign policy--it really is something terribly superficial that is part of the whole television culture. His ability to have good zingers and a presence before the camera and to create a sense of connection to people is working for him." But even if a TV-loving and increasingly newspaper-averse public doesn't quite get the insider aversion to Gingrich, would their publicly-voiced doubts persist if, say, he were to win and thus face President Obama in the fall? Would partisan pragmatism trump the seeming moral convictions being voiced by so many who know him so well?canada goose "McCain was seen as a hot-headed crazy guy but, once he got the nomination, the Republicans were less inclined to trumpet that," said Dallek. It may be that the "extraordinary" tension between Gingrich's rank-and-file support and elite-Republican disdain is starting to break down. But it remains entirely possible that he'll hold on win the GOP primary, in which case the aim of upending President Obama might force even longtime Republican naysayers to swallow hard, shut up and get in line for Gingrich 2012.