In Trump’s
World, Newt Gingrich Is King — and Maybe VP, by Eliana Johnson, 5/23/16
The two men are
kindred spirits in more ways than one. He has an uncanny ability to dominate
the media and shape a narrative, and he harnessed the anger and anxiety of
lower-middle-class whites to reshape the Republican Party. If the description
fits Donald Trump in 2016, it applied equally to Newt Gingrich in 1994, and it
helps to explain the relationship the two have developed during Trump’s ascent
to the top of Republican politics — one that many close to both men say could
eventually result in the announcement of a Trump-Gingrich GOP ticket.
Gingrich has,
in effect, launched his own campaign to secure the nomination. “I think Newt is
lobbying to be the vice president, and I think their people are paying a lot of
attention to him,” says Ed Rollins, a Republican operative and former Gingrich
staffer now working for a super PAC supporting Trump’s candidacy. “It’d be a
ticket with six former wives, kind of like a Henry VIII thing,” Rollins says.
“They certainly understand women.” (Between them, Trump and Gingrich have four
former wives; both are currently married to their third wives.)
Trump’s search
for a vice-presidential nominee is underway. The campaign confirmed last week
that it had tapped veteran Washington lawyer A. B. Culvahouse to vet potential
nominees, and Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Gingrich is among
a handful of people Trump is considering. Both the Trump campaign and a
spokesman for Gingrich did not respond to requests for comment. Gingrich’s
influence within Trump World is widespread. Inside Trump’s newly established
campaign offices in Washington, D.C., his fingerprints are everywhere. Among
the similarities between the two men, they share a genius for exploiting mass
media.
In his 1990s
heyday, Gingrich was able to dominate the news cycle by harnessing the newfound
power of talk radio, much as Trump has done with television and social media
this year. “I don’t know two other people who can command more media attention
than Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump,” says Rick Tyler, who served as Gingrich’s
campaign spokesman in 2012. For Trump, Tyler says, naming Gingrich vice
president would simply be “doubling down on an already successful strategy:
keeping your enemies constantly on defense, constantly off balance, constantly
explaining themselves. Newt knows how to do that.”
Gingrich has a
reputation for insinuating himself into campaigns by firing off dozens of
e-mails brimming with ideas that range from brilliant to insane. While it’s a
quality that has irritated previous presidential candidates such as John McCain
and Mitt Romney, sources say that Trump has come to value the former speaker’s
opinions.
“They talk
every day,” says a source familiar with the relationship, who claims that
Gingrich e-mails Trump, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and campaign manager
Corey Lewandowski “countless times a day.” On Friday, the source says Gingrich
sent five messages after lunch, musing on everything from Fox host Megyn
Kelly’s interview with Trump to Trump’s recently announced list of potential
Supreme Court nominees to ideas for targeting Bernie Sanders’s voters. “I think
he’s viewed as a very valuable ally to have,” Rollins says.
Comments
This ticket makes a lot of sense and they are the most
effective Conservative Republican leaders on the planet.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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