With Converts Like Newt
If the extramarital affairs, House ethics violations, shifting positions, and lobbying didn't force you to reconsider your support for Newt Gingrich, perhaps his meeting with Donald Trump will.
Perhaps not. According to a recent CBS/New York Times poll of Iowa caucus-goers, such a meeting helped to excite the Tea Party enough to boost Gingrich ahead of longtime front-runner Mitt Romney. Welcome back to the spotlight, Newt.
Not a Tea Party favorite himself, Romney is taking notice. A recent ad from the Romney campaign hits Gingrich and hits him hard.
Its title, "With Friends Like Newt," is borrowed from what Congressman Paul Ryan said, after learning Gingrich labeled his Medicare reform plan "right-wing social engineering," "With allies like that, who needs the Left?"
As more of Gingrich's record of abrasive governance comes to light, Congressman Ryan's pithy response seems to wrap up the former Speaker's lifetime of a career in Washington quite well.
While Congressman Ryan can be a powerful influence, if Romney wants to shatter Gingrich's Iowa rise, his campaign should make an ad starring the Iowa voter. One in particular confronted Gingrich in May, shook his hand and said, "You're an embarrassment to our Party. Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself?"
Newt Gingrich isn't just an embarrassment to the Republican Party. He's also making fools out of Catholics.
In 1962, Gingrich was "Hot for Teacher" when at the age of 19 he married his former high school teacher, Jackie Battley. But in 1980, Gingrich left Battley for another woman, Marianne Ginther. He wasn't satisfied with Ginther either and in 1993 began an affair with his current wife, Callista Bisek.
Have no fear, Callista! Newt recently promised Iowa's Family Leader that he will "uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others."
When explaining his past infidelity to two previous women, Gingrich told Christian Broadcast Network's David Brody that he "worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."
Gee, had Gingrich not worked as hard as he did, he may never have gotten the final push into the Roman Catholic Church!
With converts like Newt, who needs apostates?
In attacking Mitt Romney for his flip-flopping on various issues, Gingrich warned, "it's wrong to go around and adopt radically different positions, because then people have to ask themselves, 'What will you tell me next time?'" The question people will also ask is, "What has Newt been telling God?"
Back in Iowa, the New York Post's Michael Goodwin argues that Newt's surge is precisely because of his sins. Some Iowa voters, Goodwin suggests, "clearly like a Bad Boy."
Didn't we already try that with Slick Willie? Iowans should think long and hard before they decide to put another Clinton in the White House.
Instead of a Bad Boy Catholic, Iowans could consider a lifelong Catholic in Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich's only other opponent in the upcoming Newsmax debate moderated by Donald Trump. If they don't want a Catholic, Iowans could swallow the Mormon pill and caucus for Mitt Romney.
Yet, that could be another embarrassment in and of itself.
