Appearing Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s TV show, Newt Gingrich brushed off the recent mass resignation of many of his top staffers. In response, Gingrich said that this occurred because his vision of an inclusive, grassroots campaign was too different from the traditional Republican model — and that he feels “liberated” now.
“Look, I think that was the key to it, Sean: My vision — the one that I learned with Goldwater in ‘64, learned with Reagan in ‘76 and ‘80, that you saw in ‘93, ‘94, with the Contract with America. My vision is of a people-oriented grassroots campaign where Newt.org becomes the center of new solutions, new ideas, new energy — a campaign that’s inclusive, that brings together everybody in America, of every ethnic background, who wants to change Washington.
“And I think that that was so different from the normal Republican model, that there just wasn’t a fit. I frankly feel liberated.
“With the exception of only one person, all of my original team is still with me. And in every single state where we lost some people, we’ve actually gained new people who are excited by the idea that we could have a genuinely different grassroots campaign to change Washington.”
As far as Gingrich’s claim that only one of his “original team” left, this could be a reference to his longtime aide Rick Tyler. But beyond just Tyler, Gingrich also lost his entire paid Iowa campaign staff, South Carolina campaign chairman and former state GOP chair Katon Dawson, and aides Rob Johnson and Dave Carney — the latter two having close ties to Rick Perry — and others.
The key moment occurs at the 2:00 mark below:
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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