When Robert Linlithgow Livingston was first appointed to head the powerful Appropriations Committee in Congress, he brandished an alligator-skinning knife and a machete to show how he intended to cut spending.
But that was four years ago, when the lanky Livingston from New Orleans, usually called Bob, liked theatrical gestures and Churchillian oratory. Now that he is poised to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, he is promising a less flamboyant approach in a post where his performance will help decide if the Republicans can halt the decline of the past four years.
Livingston has gone out of his way to assure fellow Republicans and the American public that his approach to the third-highest-ranking political office will be more down to earth than that of Newt Gingrich, who led the famous Republican "revolution" which took over Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years.
As the revolution petered out in this month's mid-term election which cut the Republican majority in the House to a mere 12 seats out of 435, Livingston offered a more "managerial" approach as Speaker which would "make the trains run on time".
But the Livingston coup against Gingrich was not the way things were supposed to happen. Earlier this year, Livingston was disillusioned with four years of being the Mack the Knife of Congress, cutting the pet projects of Republicans as well as Democrats. He was getting ready to announce that he was quitting politics for a more lucrative lobbying job.
Then Gingrich, who had promoted Livingston to chair the powerful committee over the heads of more senior Republicans, persuaded his protege to set his sights on the Speaker post in 2000 when Gingrich hoped to be running for the Presidency. But as the disappointing results of the elections came in last week, Gingrich's head was suddenly on the block for a bungled campaign when a President compromised by scandal should have assured the Republicans of substantial gains.
As Gingrich from his home in Atlanta tried to stave off the simmering revolt in Republican ranks, Livingston struck. He announced outside the Capitol, with his wife and daughter at his side, that he would be challenging the Speaker, whom he praised, at the Republican caucus meeting on November 19th.
Within hours, Gingrich announced he was not only giving up the Speaker post but was also leaving Congress. The two friends had earlier had an angry exchange on the phone but last Monday they were pictured embracing at Gingrich's farewell address to his political organisation.
The 6 ft 4 in Livingston towers over most of his colleagues and is known for occasional outbursts of temper which could match that of Moses breaking the tablets of stone. But patriarchal he is not.
He can whip out his harmonica at moments of stress such as when he played Amazing Grace on a bumpy ride in his campaign plane. He had to give up practising the trumpet in traffic jams as he drove to Capitol Hill.
He also holds a Black Belt in Taekwondo and once had to be separated from a colleague after a stormy meeting which Livingston began by shouting: "Some son of a bitch on your staff has been saying bad stuff about my staff in the press and I'm tired of it."
Livingston, like Gingrich, has mixed Scottish and Irish blood. An ancestor, Robert Livingston, swore-in George Washington as first president. Another signed the Declaration of Independence. Robert helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase whereby the US doubled its territory by paying France $15 million for an enormous tract stretching along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Canada.
Some of the Livingston family then moved to New Orleans but by the time the present Robert was born in 1943, the family had hit hard times. The family fortune was wiped out during the Great Depression and Robert's father was an alcoholic who divorced his mother when he was seven.
As his mother supported the family, Robert worked in the local shipyard to which he later channelled massive contracts as a Congressman. He has said that he started work at 14 at "every tough job imaginable".
This included chopping weeds, picking up paper and "cleaning up after the elephants, my party's symbol, in a zoo down in New Orleans". After a stint in the Navy, he studied in Tulane University for a law degree.
After building up a prosperous law practice, Livingston won a Congressional seat representing affluent New Orleans suburbs in 1977 after a Democrat who had defeated him the year before was disqualified.
In Congress, Livingston became noted for oratory modelled on Churchill and influenced by novelist Ayn Rand, who is something of a guru for young conservatives. One Churchillian moment which did him and the party damage was when Gingrich and his Young Turks shut down the federal government in 1995 over a budget row with President Clinton, who refused to sign their Bill.
As Americans worried about the shut-down of government services, Livingston waved his arms and bellowed on the floor of the House "we will never, never, never give in . . . We will stay here until Doomsday".
The spectacle on TV screens around the nation did not impress viewers and helped the White House to portray the Republicans as out of control ideologues. Gingrich never really recovered from this.
He has written to Father Sean McManus of the Irish National Caucus promising to maintain the tradition of a Speaker's breakfast on Capitol Hill on St Patrick's Day for President Clinton and the Taoiseach and Northern Irish politicians. "After all, with a great-grandfather named Dennis Sheedy, what else could I do? Besides that, a great proportion of my constituents are Irish-Americans."