The Democrat most noticeably excited about the prospects of a Gingrich nomination is Nancy Pelosi, who worked with Gingrich for many years. Talking Points Memo (TPM) explains,
[Pelosi] was a senior Democrat when Gingrich was House Speaker, served on the ethics committee that investigated Gingrich for tax cheating and campaign finance violations, and even cut a 2008 ad with him on the importance of addressing global climate change.
During an interview with TPM, Pelosi was asked how she felt about the potential for a Gingrich nomination. She replied coyly,
I like Barney Frank’s quote the best, where he said, "I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican Party." That quote I think spoke for a lot of us.
Several days ago, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) remarked that a Gingrich nomination “would be the best thing to happen to Democrats since Barry Goldwater. If Newt Gingrich is the nominee, then … wow.”
Pelosi was careful to avoid making any definite assertions regarding Gingrich's personal indiscretions, seemingly waiting to see if he secures the Republican nomination. She responded, “One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
When the interviewer asked for more details, Pelosi remained silent, then assured the reporter, “Not right here. When the time’s right.”
Upon hearing of the interview, Gingrich thanked Pelosi for “the early Christmas gift.”
As noted by TPM’s Brian Beutler, Pelosi's words are foreboding for Gingrich. “If Gingrich somehow clinches the nomination, there’s one hell of an oppo dump coming.”
Also, The Hill reported that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) stated that Newt Gingrich would be a “heaven-sent” nominee for President Obama’s reelection campaign and that there was “silent cheering” from the Obama camp regarding Gingrich’s rise in the polls. Harkin explained,
I was in the House with Newt, as a matter of fact, years ago. I can remember him being a bomb-thrower at that time — one of those people always lobbing things around. I thought at that time, in his early career in the House, he was irresponsible at that time.
If you’re going to be president, you have to have some discipline in how you approach things and how you assess situations. Newt has never been one to engage mind before opening mouth. He engages mouth before engaging his mind sometimes — most of the time. That doesn’t bode well for him at all.
Someone once described the prospect of Newt getting the nomination, saying that, "Imagine that you’re standing in front of a door and behind that door all these suitcases are piled and you open the door and all the suitcases come tumbling out." Of course, I didn’t know what they were talking about. He said, "Baggage — he has a lot of baggage, and once he gets up there all that baggage comes tumbling out."
Democrats appear to have good reason to hope for a Gingrich nomination, as Gingrich’s personal life has already provided significant ammunition, not to mention his political doublespeak.
Gingrich has been married three times, mostly because he was admittedly unable to remain faithful to any of his wives. He has often seemed callous toward his marriage partners, even delivering divorce papers to one wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. According to Gingrich, his reason for leaving her was that “she isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.” Gingrich was also involved in an affair while working on President Clinton's impeachment hearings. Further, he was once forced to go to court and pay utility bills to keep the electricity on for his children.
And any thoughts that Gingrich is a fiscal conservative have been undermined by his own personal finance issues. During his time in the House, he was involved in a banking scandal, bouncing some 22 checks — including a $9,000 check to the Internal Revenue Service.
For those who claim that Gingrich's private life is of no consequence, there is his political life to consider. While he has attempted to paint himself as a true conservative during this election cycle, his record indicates that he has strayed far from core conservative beliefs.
For example, Gingrich has in the past publicly supported healthcare mandates; however, since becoming a presidential candidate, he has been an adamant critic of Obama’s healthcare mandate.
Likewise, Gingrich has led the drive against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blaming them for the economic meltdown in 2008. He also called for the imprisonment of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for their affiliations with the mortgage companies. As it turns out, however, Gingrich was a strategic advisor for Freddie Mac during the housing bubble, allegedly making over a million dollars. According to Bloomberg News, he was paid anywhere from $1.6 to $1.8 million in consulting fees from two contracts. The first — with Freddie Mac’s government relations department — lasted from 1999 to 2002. The second — from 2006 to 2008 — involved Gingrich providing strategic advice to Freddie Mac.
Politico reports:
One former Freddie Mac official said that the mortgage giant hoped, “but it never came to fruition that Newt might be convinced to publish something, somewhere that would argue the benefits of the GSE [Government-Sponsored Enterprise] model.”
Another source confirmed that Gingrich was hired to help defuse Republican critiques of the GSE model.
Unsurprisingly, Gingrich has done his best to downplay his relationship with the mortgage company, asserting he cannot remember the specifics from 12 years ago, even though he was purported to have a relationship with Freddie Mac as recently as three years ago.
Another cause for concern is Gingrich’s role in the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization that directs much of U.S. interventionist foreign policy through its members and advocates for regional and world government. Rear Adm. Chester Ward, himself a former member of the CFR, warned, “The most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common — they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty of the national independence of the United States.” Also belonging to the CFR, either currently or in the past, are John McCain, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, and dozens of other prominent political figures.
The John Birch Society has produced a DVD entitled “The Real Newt Gingrich,” which analyzes Gingrich’s voting record and ultimately determines that he is significantly less conservative than he purports to be.
Also disconcerting for some voters is what appears to be Gingrich’s grand sense of self-importance. At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, all the speakers, including the keynote speaker, humbly approached the podium from backstage — except for Newt Gingrich. He and his entourage entered in grandiose style from the main floor where attendees were sitting, parading through the crowd to raucous rock music before he finally climbed onstage and took his spot at the podium.
Gingrich is also adept at self-flattery. When once asked to describe himself, he was quoted as saying, “I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real power.” He has also described himself as an “advocate of civilization, definer of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, leader of the civilizing sources.”
Photo of Newt Gingrich: AP Images
