Snow Thins Newt’s Audience House Speaker Gingrich Begins His 17-State Fund-Raising Tour

House Speaker Newt Gingrich began his 17-state national tour with a fund-raising speech to Republicans at a downtown hotel Monday night during a rare snowfall.

Organizers said 950 tickets were sold to the $100-a-plate dinner but at least 200 of those people decided not to attend because of slick streets and snarled traffic in the Puget Sound area.

Frank Bickford, executive director of the Washington State Republican Party, said the visit raised $428,000 or GOP congressional and state legislative candidates and voter turnout programs.

The two-day Western Washington stopover kicked off a 17-state trip to raise money - and lift spirits - for Republican candidates. Both parties are boosting their bank accounts with money for the fall campaign, when all 435 House seats are up for election.

He was also expected to test themes for a possible presidential bid in 2000.

Before addressing the dinner meeting, Gingrich met with 19 high school students in a youth council that advises Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash.

He told the group he would propose a program in which students who complete high school in three years rather than four would get 80 percent of the cost of the fourth year as a college scholarship. The remainder would be evenly divided between teachers and taxpayers, each getting 10 percent.

Gingrich’s agenda for Tuesday includes a morning speech to the state Legislature in Olympia, followed by a cancer briefing at the new headquarters of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and a tour of Microsoft Corp. headquarters in Redmond. Microsoft has been battling the Justice Department over antitrust issues.

Gingrich has begun the new year with his fund-raising prowess intact and a full calendar of invitations, despite a bumpy 1996. He was reprimanded by the House, paid a $300,000 ethics committee penalty, won a close re-election as speaker and overcame an attempt to topple him from power all in the same year.

“A lot of this is a process of endurance,” Gingrich told reporters just before Congress left for winter recess in November. “You get up off the mat and try again.”

Gingrich last visited Seattle on a fund-raising tour in January 1996.

State House Speaker Clyde Ballard said Gingrich has taken more interest in the West recently, initiating regular telephone conversations with legislative leaders from across the region. Over the summer, Gingrich dug for dinosaur bones and discussed land issues on a four-day tour of Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho.