Yet the interesting thing about the Contract, when you actually read it, is how much of a mixed bag it is when it comes to size-of-government issues. To be sure, it does call for a balanced budget amendment, a line-item veto, welfare reform, and tax cuts. However, it also includes calls for more federal funds for law enforcement, more military spending, more Social Security spending (by removing of a recently-enacted tax on benefits), even the expansion of sexual harassment law (to cover Congress; and sayonara Senator Packwood).

True, the Contract promised to bring significant legislation to a vote in the first hundred days of a Republican House. Before it got to that, however, it promised to make eight procedural reforms on the first day. These including term limits for committee chairs, and an end to proxy voting and most closed hearings. Republicans pledged to do this “To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.”

So while the document purported to put forward a positive agenda for Republicans, it was at least as much about highlighting and capitalizing on Democratic scandals.