To hear Newt Gingrich tell it, the dramatic conservative change he promises will begin even before he is sworn in as president in 2013.

“My goal would be by the end of that first day, about the time that President Obama arrives back in Chicago, that we will have dismantled about 40 percent of his government,” he tells audiences.

Obama’s health care bill? Repealed.

Legislation that toughened regulations on Wall Street after the economic collapse of 2008? History.

White House czars? Gone.

All this, and more, he pledges to get done before his head hits the presidential pillow for the first time.

It’s characteristic Gingrich — bold and rich with details that lend credibility and evoke applause from supporters, yet sometimes based on assumptions that strain the imagination. It’s all designed to make the case to Republican primary voters that he, not GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney, is capable of envisioning and then ushering in a new conservative age.