New Book Says Newt Gingrich 'Bought Off' His Wife To Stay In The Race
by Jon Ward
11/11/11
WASHINGTON -- A new e-book on the 2012 election released Friday says that Republican candidate Newt Gingrich went on an ill-timed cruise to Greece this year and spent over $1 million in jewelry at Tiffany's to "buy off" his reluctant wife, Callista, so that she would not object to his running for president.
The book does not cite named sources, and the Gingrich campaign immediately dismissed the sniping from former campaign officials. Several of Gingrich's former top campaign advisers now work for rival candidate Rick Perry. The book, from Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan and Carl Cannon, raises the question of whether Gingrich's former aides were talking to Perry before they left in June. The Perry aides deny the accusation.
"Election 2012: The Battle Begins," does not offer evidence that current Perry advisers Dave Carney and Rob Johnson left Gingrich because Perry had begun to express interest in running for president himself. But the question lingers.
The vitriol expressed for Callista Gingrich in the e-book is intense. The sentiments have been aired before. What is new is the lengths to which Gingrich's former aides -- who worked for Perry for years before taking on Gingrich as a candidate -- go to trash Callista Gingrich.
"She's the single worst influence on a candidate I've ever seen," one "campaign strategist" told Bevan and Cannon. This same source said that Gingrich bought "a necklace reportedly worth six figures ... to 'buy Callista off' so she'd acquiesce to a presidential run."
Gingrich's ex-aides said that the former House Speaker from Georgia ignored their advice not to go on a luxury cruise to the Greek islands in late May because he feared damage to, or even the loss of, his marriage to his third wife, a woman 22 years his junior, whom he wed after carrying on an extramarital affair for six years.
"In Newt's mind, it was the cruise or his marriage. And he didn't want to get married a fourth time," said a source identified by Cannon and Bevan as "a person with knowledge of the discussions."...
For the full article, go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/new-book-says-gingrich-bought-off-his-wife-for-candidacy_n_1089090.html
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