Edwards interviews Newt Gingrich about the Republican Party in the Twentieth Century. While Edwards was centering his interviews and book around a "big four" of Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich. Gingrich counters that one cannot study the Republican Party in the twentieth century without analyzing Richard Nixon. Nixon was more influential for Gingrich than Taft. He goes on to explain why he favored both Reagan and Rockefeller over Nixon in 1968 and why he thought Nixon's approach was defeatist. Stating that he is standing on the shoulders of Reagan and Thatcher, they were not changing their party like he is changing the Republican Party to a less elitist organization. Gingrich comments on how he balances several roles (Speaker, leader of the Party, etc.), in the process explaining how Pete duPont was important to how Gingrich now works.