HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH met with Horace Deets, the executive director of the American Association of Retired Persons, last spring to discuss Medicare reform. They got together again over the summer, and then talked about Medicare for an hour in Gingrich’s office on September 11. When Deets tried to reach Gingrich in August, the speaker’s staff tracked him down during his book tour in Tennessee and hooked the two up by phone. Meanwhile, AARP lobbyist Martin Corry has been chatting regularly with Ed Kutler, Gingrich’s Medicare expert. “We have a lot of fun kidding each other,” says Corry.