Following a major victory by Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina primary, the state of the Republican Presidential Nomination remains something of a toss-up, What isn’t unclear is the long path Gingrich has taken to arrive at his current position.
The 68-year old Newton Leroy Gingrich was born in 1943. Gingrich is an author, political consultant and was the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich was born in south central Pennsylvania. He received his masters and Ph.D. from Tulane University.
Gingrich taught history and geography at West Georgia College in the 70’s. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1999. In 1995, Time Magazine named him “Man of the Year.” The House of Representatives had to discipline Gingrich for an ethics violation in January 1997. However, in 1998, Gingrich passed a balanced U.S. budget – the first since 1969.
One interesting aspect of Gingrich’s website – newt.org is that where all the other candidates and even the President feature “issues” as a menu item, Gingrich has “solutions.” Job and economy, national security and an energy plan are the first three solutions on his
website. The other aspect that stands out on Gingrich’s website is “Callista’s Canvas” which is Gingrich’s third wife’s blog about the campaign trail and the issues she represents.
Gingrich has had some ups and downs both inside and outside of politics. He has been married three times and had affairs in two of the marriages. Most recently, his second wife was on ABC’s Dateline and talked about Gingrich’s feelings towards an open marriage. Herman Cain, who has his own sexual harassment issues, just endorsed Gingrich, which may not be as helpful as he might hope.
Gingrich has made a name for himself in a negative light because of recent offensive statements that he has made against minorities, most notably, “I’ll tell African-Americans that they should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.’ However, even after it was pointed out that this statement was offensive, Gingrich stood by his statement and didn’t back down from it, going so far as to say he didn’t understand why people found it offensive.
Gingrich has 1,429,899 followers on Twitter (@newtgingrich) and 266,159 “likes” on Facebook.

Published: Monday, February 6, 2012
Updated: Tuesday, February 7, 2012 02:02