Gingrich’s long history on the national stage is an asset

NAPLES, FLA. — Among the hundreds of fans — and these days, there are always hundreds — who stood in line for hours to meet Newt Gingrich at a book signing, there was an older man gushing about watching the former House speaker on C-SPAN in 1980. Another fan brought a copy of the 1995 Time magazine Man of the Year cover for Gingrich to sign. Upon approaching him, a woman marveled at how little Gingrich had changed over the years and mused, “I always thought he’d make a good president.”

If there’s one thing that should be working against Gingrich at a time of anti-Washington fervor, it is his tumultuous decades in and out of power in the nation’s capital. Gingrich should be the has-been, the speaker who compromised, the career politician with a speckled past of ethical and personal transgressions.

Loading...

Comments

• Weigh In
• Corrections?

Personal Post

Video

At a campaign stop in Bluffton, S.C., on Tuesday, a voter asked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich if something will "surface" that will turn away voters. (Nov. 29)

Graphic

See how the primaries are unfolding: An interactive graphic that tracks which candidates are visiting the early states and where they focusing their energy.

More on this Story

• Opinion | Health-care changes signal much-needed shift
• Read more on PostPolitics.com
• Cain reassessing his 2012 campaign
• Who is Ginger White?

View all Items in this Story

• Despite earmark ban, lawmakers try to give money to hundreds of pet projects
• Pennsylvania becomes major battleground for Obama in 2012
• In the Loop: The airlines lobby changes its name
• Contenders’ campaigns gain a new urgency
• Democrats to attack Republicans for pusing Medicare cuts
• Why Mitt Romney needs Herman Cain
• Obama vs. Romney: It’s on
• Democrats to attack GOP over Medicare cuts
• Government settles suit in fatal anthrax attacks
• States that oppose health-care law receive funds to implement it
• Mitt namedrops Hillary
• Florida Latino lawmakers back Romney
• Toomey, McCaskill to call for permanent earmark ban
• GOP hopeful Rick Santorum campaigns with a seriously ill daughter at home
• Cain reassessing presidential candidacy
• Woman accuses Cain of having 13-year affair
• Romney’s very different campaign
• Gingrich’s long history on national stage is an asset
• Read more from Innovations

But somehow, among Republican primary voters, Gingrich’s long history on the national stage has become an asset — and one that could enable him to have more staying power than a string of other candidates who have also had a shot to be the alternative to Mitt Romney, the front-runner.

Those others — Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain — rose on their first impressions and fell at the first stumble. It’s not that Gingrich hasn’t dealt with many of the same problems they have confronted: a tainted personal life, positions out of step with the party, brash comments that angered other Republicans. It’s just that those things aren’t all that voters know about him.

Many Republican voters grew up with Gingrich. Wherever he travels, he is greeted by supporters who have followed him for decades. They have read his books, watched his documentaries, listened to his audio recordings. They are even comforted by the way he looks — same hair, unchanged face.

In a year when no one else seeking the GOP presidential nomination has won over the hearts of Republicans, voters at least have the sense that Gingrich has been right there with them, fighting the conservative cause all along.

“I equate Newt’s ability to turn things around to Ronald Reagan,” said Lyle Yoder, 80, a retired small-business owner who watched Gingrich on C-SPAN 30 years ago and remembers hearing him speak at his sister-in-law’s 1991 graduation from Liberty University. “His commencement speech, he gave it the same way he speaks now. He has no fear. He exudes confidence. And he did all those years ago, too.”

Many voters said they withheld their support for Gingrich until now because they weren’t sure that his campaign was viable after his staff quit in June and money dried up. But as the Romney challengers who preceded him struggled to demonstrate their knowledge and readiness for the job, there Gingrich stood, performing solidly in debates and delivering a well-honed story line.

“I always knew that Newt was the smartest man on the stage,” said Diane Harris, 50, who works in the travel industry and lives in Naples. “I just questioned whether he had the ‘it’ factor. But after listening to him answer questions, I wish the whole country could have been here today.”