Why Some Evangelicals Back Thrice-Wed Gingrich

[rug]

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
December 8, 2011

One of the puzzles of the Republican presidential campaign is Newt Gingrich's appeal to religious conservatives. The irony is that Gingrich, a Catholic convert who has had three marriages, is outperforming Romney, a lifelong Mormon and family man. In fact, less than a month before the Iowa caucuses, the former speaker of the House has three times the support of evangelicals in that state that Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, does.

Now Romney is trying to mix it up. In an ad airing across Iowa, the former governor of Massachusetts describes himself as a man of "steadiness and constancy."

"I don't think you're going to find somebody who has more of those attributes than I do," Romney says in a clip from one of his debates. "I've been married to the same woman for 25 — excuse me, I'll get in trouble — for 42 years. I've been in the same church my entire life."

Romney's ad is meant to remind viewers of a sharp contrast with his rival. Gingrich has been married three times. He cheated on his first two wives. He's been a Lutheran, a Southern Baptist, and is now a Catholic. Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, says Romney is trying to highlight Gingrich's Achilles' heel.

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/08/143361304/why-some-evangelicals-back-thrice-wed-gingrich

[Lint Head]

1. Newt has admitted his so-called sins. He Newtered them.

Admitting your sins is what Christians are mandated to do so the evangelicals, who have probably committed even more sins, .i.e Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, are accepting when "The Lost" are found.


Newt is a narcissistic liar and con artist.

[musette_sf]

2. Changes religions like he changes wives

"How conVEENient!"

[baldguy]

3. Because they're bigoted hypocrites.