In 1995, Newt Gingrich’s team circulated a memo, containing a list of words to be used for Republican messaging. These included terms like “common sense, family, pride, and freedom.” Gingrich later described his goal as nothing less than “reshaping the entire nation through the news media.”¹ Historians agree these terms had an impact. But to what extent and how? To answer that question, we propose to treat the memo as a natural experiment in “keyword injection.” We then analyze the congressional record to capture the dynamics of term diffusion, revealing a pattern of influence over time.

¹ The New York Times, 12/14/94.