SALON

Monday, Mar 7, 2011 3:30 PM UTC

Meet Callista Gingrich, America’s new Laura Bush

A profile of Mrs. Newt, who is reserved, religious and also his third wife

By

Topics: Newt Gingrich, War Room, 2012 Elections, Republican Party,

Meet Callista Gingrich, America's new Laura BushCallista and Newt Gingrich

Callista Gingrich is the third wife of Newt Gingrich. In Gingrich’s current public appearances — and there are lots of current public appearances, because Gingrich has various ventures to promote and is making one of his traditional exploratory presidential runs in order to enlist the press in the promotion — Callista is by his side. At his dozen CPAC book signings and presentations and film screenings, Callista was listed with him on the schedule. So Politico attempts to profile her, today. Everyone says she’s very nice. And she’s also something of a liability.

Because, you see, she is the woman he left his last wife for. She was, formerly, his mistress. And his last wife was not even his first wife. Callista has made Newt into a much more religious person, we’re told. Though unmentioned is the fact that part of Callista’s spiritual rehabilitation of Newt involved him having the Catholic Church annul his marriage to second wife Marianne — and Newt didn’t even finish converting to Catholicism for another couple of years.

All of this is especially problematic for someone attempting to win a Republican presidential primary, because Republicans are the supposedly moral ones. But Newt still has the forces of God on his side!

“I just reject the argument that she’ll be a liability, or that Newt’s past would be a liability,” said Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition chief. “I think as long as he’s prepared to confront those challenges and he can do so in an authentic way, people’s (inclination) will be to be forgiving. Who wants to be judged on their past? Everybody has had issues.”

Hah. “Everybody has issues.” Ralph Reed has become so … morally laissez faire. That’s the sort of permissive attitude that led to Sodom, Mr. Reed.

Callista does everything with her husband, so she has a fairly high profile, but the recurring theme of the Politico story is that people just don’t know much about what she’s like personally, because she is fairly reserved. Which could be a good thing, because Americans hate uppity political wives:

“She is much more in the model of a Laura Bush than a Hillary Clinton,” said David Bossie, the president of the conservative group Citizens United and a longtime Gingrich ally. “She just is a strong partner like Laura Bush was, but not out in front like Hillary Clinton was.”

She’s just like Laura Bush! She is a “strong partner” who will seldom offer evidence of an identity beyond being a “strong partner” to her politician husband.

Callista also has “an Iowa connection,” and she and her loving husband enjoy just wandering around the State Fair, being with Real Americans, and other things you big city folks wouldn’t understand.

For someone who seems quite introverted, a serious presidential campaign involving numerous questions about her husband’s serial infidelities and her own romantic conduct would probably be sheer hell, so let’s hope, for her sake, that Newt gives up on this ridiculous farce soon.

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 97 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations