Gingrich surges to big win in South Carolina

By handing Newt Gingrich a victory in the South Carolina primary Saturday night, conservative GOP voters have flatly declared they are not yet satisfied with Mitt Romney as their nominee. They aren't sold, and want to hear and see more.
Republicans need to see Romney display the strength to defeat a serious candidate on neutral territory, unlike in New Hampshire. After all, if he can't win now, what does that portend for the fall?


Romney finished more than 10 percentage points behind the former House speaker Saturday, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul a distant third and fourth, respectively.


Gingrich, flashing just an occasional smile, marked his victory with a sober address to supporters in Columbia, praising each of his opponents and returning to a favorite tack — bashing the media and "the elites in Washington and New York [who] have no understanding, no care, no connection, no reliability" and fail to represent the American people.


"It's not that I am a good debater," he said, ignoring the boisterous chants of supporters and delivering his remarks in the tone of a college lecture. "It is that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people."


His only criticism was of President Obama — "A president so weak he makes Jimmy Carter look strong" — and the inspiration that Gingrich said the Democrat draws from the radical left.

How Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary

Newt Gingrich lacks the moral character to serve as President, his second ex-wife Marianne told ABC News, saying his campaign positions on the sanctity of marriage and the importance of family values do not square with what she saw during their 18 years of marriage.


In her first television interview since the 1999 divorce, to be broadcast tonight on Nightline, Marianne Gingrich, a self-described conservative Republican, said she is coming forward now so voters can know what she knows about Gingrich.


Newt Gingrich stormed to victory in the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday, coming from more than 10 points down in pre-election surveys taken just a week earlier. The CBS News exit poll of South Carolina Republican primary voters showed that his impressive debate performance during the last week of the campaign enabled him to assemble a coalition of tea partiers, evangelicals, and young white men. Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for much of the last month in South Carolina, was hurt by attacks on his role investment firm Bain Capital and his weak answers about why he does not want to release his tax returns.


Gingrich electrified debate audiences during the week with his confrontational exchanges and conservative rhetoric, and it showed at the polls. Nearly two-thirds of South Carolina Republican primary voters - 65 percent - said the recent debates were one of the most important factors in deciding whom to support, with 13 percent saying it was the single most important factor. Of those voters who said the debates were one of the most important factors in their decision, a whopping 50 percent cast a ballot for Gingrich, compared to 22 percent for Romney and 17 percent for Rick Santorum.

Newt Gingrich wins Anderson County

As soon as Newt Gingrich’s bus was visible was on the road from the window of the Chick-fil-A, the crowd gathered there inside burst into a cheer. Outside, camped on the sidewalk and in the parking lot, dozens more waited to catch a glimpse of the former speaker.


Weaving through the crowd, the Gingriches greeted supporters. Both seemed to be making an effort to say more than just hi at times. Noticing one woman’s Apple (iPhone or iPod) case, Callista Gingrich asked, “Is that Kate Spade?” (It was.) Newt, noticing one young man’s college sweatshirt, started talking to him about the school.


In his brief remarks, Gingrich looked beyond South Carolina. “After you get done making sure everybody you know votes, I want you to make a list of everybody you know in Florida,” he said. “Call them, send them an e-mail or put it on your Facebook.”


“This will be an extraordinary campaign,” he added later on in his remarks, “and if we win, it’ll be an extraordinary process of trying to get the country back on the right track..”


The former U.S. House Speaker handily won Anderson County, according to unofficial vote totals. He claimed 44 percent, or 11,924, of the 27,448 votes cast in the county in the state’s Republican Presidential Preference Primary. Mitt Romney finished second with 5,918 votes, or 22 percent. Ron Paul garnered 17 percent of the vote, or 4,691. Rick Santorum won 4,500 votes, or 16 percent. The elections office plans to certify the total Thursday.

Gingrich Wins in South Carolina

Newt Gingrich won today’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary, derailing rival Mitt Romney’s bid to quickly seal the party’s nomination and throwing the race into turmoil as it heads to Florida.
Gingrich had 41 percent of the vote, followed by Romney with 27 percent, with 95 percent of the precincts reporting, according to the AP.
Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania had 17 percent and U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas had 13 percent.
Gingrich’s win means the Republican race has now produced a different first-place finisher in the first three nominating contests. Florida holds its primary Jan. 31.
Gingrich, in a message on the Twitter social networking site, said: “Thank you South Carolina! Help me deliver the knockout punch in Florida.”
In a speech to South Carolina supporters tonight, he thanked them for deciding “to be with us in changing Washington.”


Mr. Gingrich's win came just over a week after his back-of-the-pack finish in New Hampshire's primary, raising questions about his viability as a candidate. Now, he has scrambled the Republican nomination race and ended the prospects that the party would consolidate quickly around a nominee.


The win is a significant milestone for Mr. Gingrich, whose candidacy was severely damaged last summer when most of his top aides resigned en masse after they questioned whether he had the focus to be a viable candidate. He carried on with little staff or money afterward—and now has won in the state whose victor has been chosen the GOP nominee in every contest since 1980.


Speaking to a packed room of supporters in Columbia, the state's capital, Mr. Gingrich said his win was a rebuke to the "elites in Washington and New York." He also acknowledged that he was tilting against many of the elites within his own party.


"We want to run, not a Republican campaign, we want to run an American campaign," he said.


Foreshadowing the testy tenor of the race to come, Mr. Romney took aim at Mr. Gingrich after the polls closed, saying that "our party can't be lead to victory by someone who has never run a business and never run a state…That's a mistake for our party, for our nation.''


He also referred to Mr. Gingrich's attacks of Mr. Romney's work with Bain Capital, a private-equity firm. Those who "disparage" economic success "are not going to be fit to be our nominee," he said.


The nomination contest race now heads to Florida, a far larger and more expensive state for the candidates. Mr. Romney's rivals face a challenge in surmounting his superior organizational and financial edge in the Jan. 31 primary there.

Gingrich, Wives Always at Center of Career

“By definition, if you run for president, anything is on the table. Ask Grover Cleveland. Ask Andrew Jackson. Anything is on the table. I accept that, but I don’t have to participate in the conversation.”


That was  Newt Gingrich , in May, when I asked him about whether intrusion into candidates’ personal lives had gone too far. At the time, Gingrich’s biggest headache was his Tiffany shopping habit, but Gingrich obviously had issues of sexual misconduct on his mind as well: Cleveland was assailed for his out-of-wedlock child, Jackson over a possibly bigamous marriage.


And I thought Gingrich had it about right: When you run for president, you open yourself to the kind of searching scrutiny that a finger-pointing, voice-raised Gingrich condemned at Thursday night’s debate.


“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that,” Gingrich told CNN’s John King.


He sought her counsel during meetings; it made aides and colleagues uneasy, several said, because she seemed to feel awkward about it, and sometimes had little to say. When Speaker Gingrich flew aboard Air Force One to Israel for the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, Marianne was with him.


Now the second Mrs. Gingrich is making news with her allegation, denied by her former husband, that he asked for an “open marriage” while he and Callista Bisek, now his wife, were having an affair. Her remarks on ABC News have thrust Mr. Gingrich’s marital history — his pattern of replacing one wife with another, younger one — into the spotlight on the eve of the South Carolina primary, just as his bid for the Republican presidential nomination is appearing to surge.


But more than a jilted spouse, Marianne Gingrich serves as a window into the complicated psyche of a man who, those who know him say, seems to need a woman by his side. Friends and colleagues offer that for all his ego and bombast — “Grandiosity has never been a problem with Newt Gingrich,” one of his presidential rivals, Rick Santorum, declared at Thursday’s presidential debate — Mr. Gingrich has leaned on his wives to help project his vision of himself.

Newt Gingrich make another come back

Myrtle Beach, S.C. -- Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are reading from the same script as they vie to be the “not Romney” champion of the frightened right. Monday, both candidates roved around this city of deserted beach resorts warning conservative voters that the reelection of Barack Obama would bring an end to America as we have known it.


Among the alarmed were members of South Carolina’s tea party. They were gathered on the third floor of a conference center looking out over a sandy beach occupied by no one but four gray-haired Occupy Wall Street activists. The gray-haired conservative activists inside took no note of the protesters and their hand-made signs; two presidential candidates occupied their attention.


Santorum was up first. He talked about American exceptionalism; about how, in an age of kings and emperors, the founding fathers created a Constitution that declared an individual’s rights were derived from God, not granted by government.


“Any rights a government gives you, they can --” Santorum paused and the tea partiers responded in unison -- “Take away!”


The right to pursue happiness, articulated in the Declaration of Independence, also had a particular meaning when Thomas Jefferson penned the words, Santorum claimed. According to the ex-senator in his ubiquitous sweater vest, pursuing happiness back then meant doing “not what you want to do, but what you ought to do.”


Through it all, Gingrich was cool, calm and collected, picking his spots and coming off as the clear onstage alternative to frontrunner Mitt Romney — just as the other candidate for that position, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, was largely an afterthought and struggled to get his voice heard.


That’s exactly what Gingrich needs. But even moreso than Santorum, it appears Gingrich has little room to grow.


“not enough to make newt electable,” GOP strategist Alex Castellanos tweeted after Gingrich tussled with debate moderator Juan Williams. “nothing can do that. but he gets a bump.”


Recent polling shows Gingrich is among the most disliked Republicans in the country, even when it comes to Republican-leaning voters.


So even if he shows some resilience in the GOP presidential race, the universe of voters that Gingrich can add from this point on might actually not be enough to help him win many votes — or at least, enough to come close to victory.


A recent Fox News poll showed Gingrich’s favorable and unfavorable ratings at 49 percent and 39 percent among registered Republicans. Needless to say, having nearly four in 10 Republicans against you is extremely rare for a Republican politician, no less one who is trying to win his party’s nomination.


In fact, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), whose ceiling in the GOP presidential race is supposed by many (including The Fix) to be not far above where he is now, has essentially the same unfavorable rating among Republicans as Gingrich — 41 percent.


Gingrich probably has a higher ceiling than Paul, especially given that he is seen as more of a traditional Republican. But the fact that Gingrich engenders nearly as much opposition in the GOP as a libertarian-leaning foreign policy non-interventionist like Paul is significant.


Over the weekend, leaders of a group of conservatives that met in Texas to pick their candidate settled on Santorum (though some insist it wasn’t very clear-cut) as their choice against the prohibitive frontrunner Romney. And Tuesday’s debate showed Santorum and Gingrich jockeying for that position.

Film about Mitt Romney to be removed

WASHINGTON – Newt Gingrich is deservedly getting booed in South Carolina for his Super PACS’ “The King of Bain.” Meanwhile, South Carolina remains a state where political ethics and honesty got to die.


The New York Times has a unintentionally humorous story about one of the towns targeted by Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC, which depicts a place that didn’t know they were so much trouble.


Glen Kessler has bestowed on “King of Bain” the dreaded 4 Pinocchios. The CNN Money article below dissects “When Romney Came to Town.”


On Friday, Gingrich asked the group to either edit out any inaccuracies or take down the ad entirely.


Campaigns and PACs are prohibited from directly coordinating.


Winning Our Future produced the 28-minute Web video "When Mitt Romney Came to Town." It features people who say they lost their jobs because of Bain Capital.


"Mitt Romney and them guys," says one man featured in a much shorter TV ad culled from the film, "they don't care who I am."


The ad has been roundly criticized by Romney and the Washington Post for being inaccurate and misleading.


A Bloomberg News review of the film found it lacks a complete picture of Bain's record and takes some matters out of context.


Gingrich, who had pledged in Iowa to run a "positive" campaign after he was roughed up by ads bought by Romney's Super PAC, said he was living up to his previous promises.


"It's important why my campaign is different than some other people's campaigns," he said, adding, "I think ... somebody who wants to be president ought to have the courage to stand up for the truth, and ought to be prepared to say if something is false.


"I'm calling on them to either edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film, but to not run the film if it has errors in it," Gingrich said Friday as he campaigned in Florida for the primary Jan. 31.


The pro-Gingrich committee has run only a 30-second ad in South Carolina that excerpts the film, according to New York-based Kantar Media's CMAG, a company that tracks advertising. The South Carolina primary is Saturday.


Although it's the age of the Internet and interested South Carolinians could surf a hundred political websites -- including the one showing the 28-minute film about Romney's time at Bain -- TV is still the best way to reach the undecided voter, said Ken Goldstein, who tracks campaign media spending for CMAG.

Newt Gingrich says he won't back down

Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, could all but quash his rivals' presidential aspirations with a victory in South Carolina on January 21 after winning the first state-by-state nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.


Voters in South Carolina - who have favored Republicans in nine of the last 10 presidential elections - appear to have shrugged off attacks on Romney by rivals who accuse him of killing jobs as a private equity executive for Bain Capital in the 1990s.


The poll showed 37 percent of South Carolina Republican voters back Romney. Congressman Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum tied for second place with 16 percent support.


Newt Gingrich and another Republican presidential hopeful, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have been highlighting Bain deals that resulted in job losses in South Carolina, including some at a Georgetown steel plant on the Intracoastal Waterway.


“We’re going to go to Georgetown,” Gingrich said. “Georgetown has a steel mill which was closed. Capital wasn’t put at risk. Capital was drained out of that company. Gov. Romney ran saying he created 100,000 jobs in the private sector.”


Audience members groaned.


“Mr. Speaker,” moderator Mike Huckabee interrupted, “we’ve said we will not allow any comment on the other candidates.”


“I’m just trying to answer his question,” said Gingrich, one of five GOP presidential candidates who made separate appearances at the forum.


To raise questions about a company “is not the same as attacking capitalism,” Gingrich continued. If Republicans avoid challenging the former Massachusetts governor’s record at Bain, he said, President Obama’s reelection team will not be so kind in the fall. “Every single candidate has to be prepared to answer the questions before the nomination so that we know that whoever we nominate is capable of surviving the fall campaign.”


With South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary a week away, Romney’s campaign has pushed back hard at Gingrich and Perry for casting his private equity career in a dark light. Since Friday, Romney has been running a TV ad in South Carolina saying, “We expected the Obama administration to put free markets on trial, but as the Wall Street Journal said, ‘Mr. Romney’s GOP opponents are embarrassing themselves by taking the Obama line.

Newt Gingrich Says Insider Trading Scandal

When Newt Gingrich stepped down as Speaker of the House and resigned from Congress amid an ethics scandal over a book deal and revelations that he was once again dumping a wife because of an affair with a younger woman, Republicans on Capitol Hill breathed a sign of relief.


Gingrich may have left elected office but he did not disappear into the shadows as so many in the GOP hoped.


“Newt Gingrich is a political vampire,” one former aide tells Capitol Hill Blue. “It would take a wooden stake to kill his ego, his ambition and his bloodlust for power.”


Even as his Presidential campaigns plummets into the depths of also-rans, Republicans once again shake their heads and wonder what it will take to rid their party of the cancer called Newt Gingrich.


Mr. Gingrich said it is wrong for lawmakers to be able to buy and sell stocks based on information they learn in their government jobs. He laid part of the blame on campaign finance rules that favor wealthier candidates for Congress who can afford to pay for their own elections. As a result of those rules, a larger share of lawmakers in both parties come to Congress with extensive financial portfolios.
Mr. Gingrich’s recent statements echo those he made in November when he declared his support for applying the same insider trading laws that apply to private citizens to members of Congress.
Mr. Gingrich’s comments Wednesday in South Carolina come on the heels of an op-ed published last week by Gov. Rick Perry declaring his intention to “stop insider trading dead in its tracks.” And last Thursday, Gov. Mitt Romney sharpened his attack on “crony capitalism.”
Some political analysts have suggested that the congressional insider trading issue represents a prime opportunity to coalesce Tea Party support around a unifying message against crony capitalism. Gauging from the GOP presidential candidates’ comments on the issue heading into the all-important South Carolina primary, they appear to agree.

Newt Gingrich

Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich , born Newton Leroy McPherson; June 17, 1943 is an American politician who served as the 58th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He represented Georgia's 6th congressional district as a Republican member from 1979 to 1999. He is a Republican candidate in 2012 for President of the United States.
Gingrich was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but raised in Hummelstown, a small nearby borough. A college professor, historian, and author, Gingrich twice ran unsuccessfully for the House before winning a seat in the election of November 1978. He was re-elected ten times, and his activism as a member of the House's Republican minority eventually enabled him to succeed Dick Cheney as House Minority Whip in 1989.
As a co-author of the 1994 Contract with America, Gingrich was in the forefront of the Republican Party's dramatic success in that year's Congressional elections and subsequently was elected Speaker of the House. In 1995, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year" for his role in leading the Republican Revolution in the House, ending 40 years of the Democratic Party being in the majority. During his tenure as Speaker, he represented the public face of the Republican opposition to President Bill Clinton. Under his Speakership, Congress passed and Clinton signed the 1996 reform of welfare, a capital gains tax cut and the first balanced budget since 1969.
Following Republican losses in the 1998 mid-term elections, Gingrich resigned both his Speakership and his congressional seat. Since resigning his seat, Gingrich has maintained a career as a political analyst and consultant. He continues to write works related to government and other subjects, such as historical fiction, and is the author of twenty-three books. He is the founder and/or chair of several organizations and companies, including American Solutions for Winning the Future, Center for Health Transformation, Gingrich Productions and Renewing American Leadership. In May 2011, he announced he will seek the Republican nomination to run in the 2012 presidential election.


Gingrich was born Newton Leroy McPherson, at the Harrisburg Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on June 17, 1943. His mother, Kathleen "Kit" (née Daugherty; 1925–2003), and father, Newton Searles McPherson, had married the previous September, but the marriage reportedly fell apart within days. In 1946, his mother married Army officer Robert Gingrich (1925–1996), who adopted Newt. Gingrich has three younger half-sisters, Candace Gingrich, Susan Gingrich, and Roberta Brown. Gingrich is of German, English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, and was raised a Lutheran.
The family settled in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, a small borough outside of Harrisburg (located between Harrisburg and Hershey). Gingrich was the child of a career military family, moving a number of times while growing up and attending school at various military installations. He ultimately graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia, in 1961. Gingrich has credited the beginning of his interest in seeking public life to his time living in Orléans, France, as a teenager, where he visited and learned about extreme sacrifices in the Battle of Verdun, and the importance of political leadership necessary to see it through.
He received a B.A. in history from Emory University in Atlanta in 1965. He received an M.A. in 1968, and then a PhD in modern European history from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1971. His dissertation was entitled "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945–1960". While at Tulane, Gingrich, who at the time belonged to no religious group, began attending the St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church to pursue an interest in the effect of religion on political theory; he was soon baptized by Rev. G. Avery Lee. In 1970, Gingrich was appointed an Assistant Professor in the history department at West Georgia College (now the University of West Georgia) in Carrollton. 


In 1974 and 1976, Gingrich made two unsuccessful runs for Congress in Georgia's sixth congressional district, which stretched from the southern Atlanta suburbs to the Alabama state line. Prior to running for office, Gingrich had been Southern regional director for Nelson Rockefeller in 1968. In both campaigns, Gingrich lost to incumbent Democrat Jack Flynt. Flynt had served in Congress since 1955 and never faced a serious challenge prior to Gingrich's two runs against him. Gingrich nearly defeated Flynt in 1974, a year that was otherwise very bad for Republicans due to Watergate. A 1976 rematch was similarly close, despite the presence of Jimmy Carter, the governor of Georgia until 1975, on the presidential ballot.
Flynt chose not to run for re-election in 1978. Gingrich ran for the seat a third time, and defeated Democratic State Senator Virginia Shapard by almost 9 points. Gingrich was re-elected six times from this district, facing only one close race. In the House elections of 1990, he defeated Democrat David Worley by 978 votes.


A 1980 memo from then-freshman House member Gingrich may be the original inspiration for Ronald Reagan's "are you better off than you were four years ago?" line from a presidential debate the same year.
In 1981, Gingrich co-founded the Congressional Military Reform Caucus (MRC) as well as the Congressional Aviation and Space Caucus. During the 1983 congressional page sex scandal, Gingrich was among those calling for the expulsion of representatives Dan Crane and Gerry Studds. Other notable early House activities by Gingrich include supporting a proposal to ban loans from the International Monetary Fund to Communist countries and endorsing a bill to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.
in 1983, he founded the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS), a group that included young conservative House Republicans. Early COS members were handpicked by Gingrich and included Robert Smith Walker, Judd Gregg, Dan Coats and Connie Mack III. The group expanded over time to comprise several dozen representatives who met each week to exchange and develop ideas. Gingrich's analysis of polls and public opinion identified the original issues that the group focused on. Ronald Reagan adopted the "opportunity society" ideas for his 1984 re-election campaign, supporting the group's conservative goals on economic growth, education, crime, space exploration and social issues, which he had not emphasized during his first term. Reagan also referenced an "opportunity" society in the first State of the Union address of his second term.
In May 1988, Gingrich (along with 77 other House members and Common Cause) brought ethics charges against Democratic Speaker Jim Wright, who was alleged to have used a book deal to circumvent campaign-finance laws and House ethics rules. During the investigation, it was noted Gingrich had his own unusual book deal, for Window of Opportunity, part of whose publicity expenses were covered by a limited partnership, which raised $105,000 from Republican political supporters around the country to promote sales of the book. Wright eventually resigned as a result of the inquiry. Gingrich's success in forcing the resignation was in part responsible for his rising influence in the Republican caucus.


Congress fulfilled Gingrich's Contract promise to bring all ten of the Contract's issues to a vote within the first 100 days of the session, even though most legislation was initially held up in the Senate. Over the objection of liberal/progressive interest groups and President Clinton, who called it the "Contract on America",many aspects of the proposal were implemented in subsequent legislation.
Legislation proposed by the 104th United States Congress included term limits for Congressional Representatives, tax cuts, welfare reform, and a balanced budget amendment, as well as independent auditing of the finances of the House of Representatives and elimination of non-essential services such as the House barbershop and shoe-shine concessions. Following Gingrich's first two years as House Speaker, the Republican majority was re-elected in the 1996 election, the first time Republicans had done so in 68 years, and the first simultaneous with a Democratic president winning re-election.


In late 2008 several political commentators, including Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic and Robert Novak in the Washington Post, identified Gingrich as a top presidential contender in the 2012 election, with Ambinder reporting that Gingrich was "already planting some seeds in Iowa, New Hampshire". A July 2010 poll conducted by Public Policy Polling indicated that Gingrich was the leading GOP contender for the Republican nomination with 23% of likely Republican voters saying they would vote for him.
Describing his views as a possible candidate during an appearance on On the Record with Greta Van Susteren in March 2009, Gingrich said, "I am very sad that a number of Republicans do not understand that this country is sick of earmarks. Americans are sick of politicians taking care of themselves. They are sick of their money being spent in a way that is absolutely indefensible ... I think you're going to see a steady increase in the number of incumbents who have opponents because the American taxpayers are increasingly fed up.
On March 3, 2011, Gingrich officially announced a website entitled "Newt Exploratory 2012" in lieu of a formal exploratory committee for exploration of a potential presidential run. On May 11, 2011, Gingrich officially announced his intention to seek the GOP nomination in 2012.
On June 9, 2011, a group of Gingrich's senior campaign aides left the campaign en masse, leading to doubts about the viability of his presidential run. On June 21, 2011, two more senior aides left. In response, Gingrich stated that he had not quit the race for the Republican nomination, and pointed to his experience running for 5 years to win his seat in Congress, spending 16 years helping to build a Republican majority in the house and working for decades to build a Republican majority in Georgia. Some commentators noted Gingrich's resilience throughout his career, in particular with regards to his presidential campaign.




Gingrich has been married three times. In 1962, he married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old and she was 26. In the spring of 1980, Gingrich left Battley after having an affair with Marianne Ginther. In 1984, Battley told the Washington Post that the divorce was a "complete surprise" to her. According to Battley, in September 1980, Gingrich and their children visited her while she was in the hospital, recovering from surgery, and Gingrich wanted to discuss the terms of their divorce.Gingrich has disputed that account. In 2011, their daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, said that it was her mother who requested the divorce, that it happened prior to the hospital stay (which was for the removal of a benign tumor, not cancer), and that Gingrich's visit was for the purpose of bringing the couple's children to see their mother, not to discuss the divorce. Gingrich has two daughters from his first marriage. Kathy Gingrich Lubbers is president of Gingrich Communications, and Jackie Gingrich Cushman is an author, conservative columnist, and political commentator whose books include 5 Principles for a Successful Life, co-authored with Newt Gingrich.
Six months after the divorce from Battley was final, Gingrich wed Marianne Ginther in 1981. In the mid-1990s, Gingrich began an affair with House of Representatives staffer Callista Bisek, who is 23 years his junior. They continued their affair during the Lewinsky scandal, when Gingrich became a leader of the Republican investigation of President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with his alleged affairs. In 2000, Gingrich married Bisek shortly after his divorce from second wife Ginther. He and Callista currently live in McLean, Virginia. In a 2011 interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network Gingrich addressed his past infidelities by saying, "There's no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.
A Southern Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich converted to Catholicism, 
Gingrich has been a prolific amateur reviewer of books, especially of military histories and spy novels, for Amazon.com. As of 2004, Gingrich held the #488 spot among Amazon's top reviewers. Although an author himself, Gingrich does not review his own works. According to Katherine Mangu-Ward at The Weekly Standard, it is "clear that Newt is fascinated by tipping points—moments where new technology or new ideas cause revolutionary change in the way the world works".


Newt Gingrich has declared his position on many political issues through his public comments and legislative record, including as Speaker of the House. The political initiative with which he is most widely identified was the Contract With America. His engagement of public issues has continued through to the present, in particular as the founder of American Solutions for Winning the Future. More recently, Gingrich has advocated replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with a proposed "Environmental Solutions Agency".
Gingrich's policy reach covers everything from national security to personal responsibility, but Gingrich has been known to take stances that are different from the traditional Republican line. For instance, on immigration, he favors a strong border policy but also favors a guest worker program and a flex-fuel mandate for cars sold in the U.S.
As a nonfiction author, Gingrich's later books have taken a large scale policy focus, including Winning the Future, and the most recent, To Save America. In recent years, Gingrich has identified education as "the number one factor in our future prosperity", and received national attention for partnering with the Al Sharpton and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to promote the issue.


Gingrich has authored or co-authored 17 non-fiction books since 1982.
The Government's Role in Solving Societal Problems, Associated Faculty Press, Incorporated. January 1982 ISBN 978-0-86733-026-7
Window of Opportunity. Tom Doherty Associates, December 1985. ISBN 978-0-312-93923-6
Contract with America (co-editor). Times Books, December 1994. ISBN 978-0-8129-2586-9
Restoring the Dream. Times Books, May 1995. ISBN 978-0-8129-2666-8
Quotations from Speaker Newt. Workman Publishing Company, Inc., July 1995. ISBN 978-0-7611-0092-8
To Renew America. Farrar Straus & Giroux, July 1996. ISBN 978-0-06-109539-9
Lessons Learned The Hard Way. HarperCollins Publishers, May 1998 ISBN 978-0-06-019106-1
Presidential Determination Regarding Certification of the Thirty-Two Major Illicit Narcotics Producing and Transit Countries. DIANE Publishing Company, September 1999. ISBN 978-0-7881-3186-8
Saving Lives and Saving Money. Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, April 2003. ISBN 978-0-9705485-4-2
Winning the Future. Regnery Publishing, January 2005. ISBN 978-0-89526-042-0
Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future, Integrity Publishers, October 2006. ISBN 978-1-59145-482-3
The Art of Transformation, with Nancy Desmond. CHT Press, November 29, 2006, ISBN 978-1-933966-00-7
A Contract with the Earth, with Terry L. Maple. Johns Hopkins University Press, October 1, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8018-8780-2
Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works, Regnery Publishing, January 2008. ISBN 978-1-59698-053-2
Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis, with Vince Haley. Regnery Publishing, September 2008 ISBN 978-1-59698-576-6
5 Principles for a Successful Life: From Our Family to Yours, with Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Crown Publishing Group, May 2009 ISBN 978-0-307-46232-9
To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, with Joe DeSantis. Regnery Publishing, May 2010 ISBN 978-1-59698-596-4


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