He cited the pugnacious Newt Gingrich, who in 1994 broke a 40-year Democratic stranglehold on the House by shattering the ordered rules of engagement and urging acolytes to tar their opponents with words like "corrupt," "pathetic" and "traitor." (On Thursday, the former House speaker tweeted a link to Ryan's speech and the quote "an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.")