He is the new flavour of the moment in the race for the Republicans' presidential nomination, but former Speaker Newt Gingrich is discovering what many of his rivals know well already. No sooner do you bob to the top of the popularity polls than a tempest of media scrutiny and investigation threatens to push you back under again.
But then Mr Gingrich, who was Speaker of the House for much of Bill Clinton's span in the White House, is – as he likes to remind all of us often – wiser than any of the other runners for the nomination, and is a historian. He therefore cannot be too surprised. "Everything is legitimate," he told reporters this week. "This is the presidency."
As Herman Cain, the former pizza tycoon, has faded after allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women, so Mr Gingrich has risen, and he is now in high orbit alongside Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts. A new Fox television poll released yesterday put him at 23 per cent, against 22 per cent for Mr Romney and 15 per cent for Mr Cain.
His is a space ship heavily stacked with baggage, however, some of which Republican voters, who begin choosing their nominee in Iowa in just 45 days, may have trouble overlooking. The latest has to do with the very lucrative relationship he struck after retiring from Congress in 1999 with Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage lending agency that conservatives have long excoriated for helping create the housing bubble and its collapse. » | David Usborne | Friday, November 18, 2011
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