A warmer, fuzzier Gingrich? Don't count on it
After showing off his righteous indignation over the course of a dozen presidential debates this year, Newt Gingrich has the routine down pat.
When a moderator asks a question that Gingrich deems to be intellectually second rate, or intended to trigger infighting among the Republican candidates, the former House speaker replies in a manner designed to capitalize on his outrage and the easy accolades that come with lambasting the referee.
"I wish you would put aside the gotcha questions," Gingrich reprimanded Fox News' Chris Wallace during a debate in Iowa back in August, one of his earliest such moments.
In another debate the following month, he pointed an accusatory finger at Politico's John Harris after the moderator asked him a question he didn't like. "I'm frankly not interested in your effort to get Republicans fighting each other," Gingrich said.
Harris laughed collegially, but the former congressman never broke from his disapproving glare as he pounded the lectern and lambasted what he described as the media's collective effort to "protect Barack Obama."
Gingrich's finger-wagging, anti-media harangues have been unqualified hits with debate audiences, which have consistently rewarded him with sustained cheers.
The tactic has also resonated with rank-and-file Republicans watching at home: Gingrich has surged into the top tier of the GOP field, based largely on his performances in the debates that thus far have played an unusually significant role in this primary fight.
And as anyone who has attended Gingrich's campaign events can attest, his professorial demeanor and stern tone are not confined to the debate stage. His speeches on the trail have a tenor more befitting a Government 101 lecture than the usual sound bite-heavy pep rallies more typical of presidential candidates.
But now that Gingrich has climbed out of the ranks of the nearly irrelevant, he might be tempted to put on a sunnier demeanor, lest his severity begin to wear thin among those looking for a positive force around which to rally.
This assumption that Gingrich's inability to mask his disdain for those he deems wrongheaded or intellectually inferior will lead to his eventual downfall has begun to take hold in the national press -- the same group, of course, that he holds in such contempt.
New York Magazine perhaps best captured this sentiment on Tuesday when it published an online photo essay titled "Newt Gingrich Looking at People Condescendingly."
But anyone expecting Newt the Underdog Scold to morph suddenly into a meeker kind of front-runner almost certainly will be disappointed.
"We're going to let Newt be Newt because you can't change somebody," said Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond. "Newt's not looking to pick fights with a reporter, but he's certainly not willing to cede a question to a reporter who's coming from a far left-wing ideology."
Gingrich has in recent days done little to mute his self-satisfaction with rising to the top of the GOP heap after having been written off for dead by the national media when his campaign appeared to implode last spring.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Gingrich lamented that he had once felt the need for advice from high-priced consultants who ended up bolting his campaign for Rick Perry's, and casually compared himself to two of the most heralded conservative icons of the modern era.
"I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher," Gingrich said. "I'm such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a unique campaign that fits the way I operate and what I'm trying to do."
Gingrich's campaign makes the case that this is not mere bluster.
While the former speaker plans to be in the nation's first voting state for at least 30 of the final 50 days until the Iowa caucuses, he will purposely avoid conventional campaigning and instead continue to rely on his unique brand of history lessons, storytelling and multimedia experimentation.
"The one thing you can count on is we won't do 30-second spots that look like everyone else's 30-second spots," Hammond said of Gingrich's advertising campaign, which is still in the planning stages. "Nothing Newt does is traditional."
Gingrich sees no need to tinker with the gruff style that has led to his steady rise in the polls. Still, his team says that their candidate in fact possesses an affable side and a personal touch for which he is not typically credited.
Iowa House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, who endorsed Gingrich back in February, said that while Gingrich's primary appeal may be his substance and seriousness, he has become more comfortable with showing off his endearing side.
"When he is out touring plants, visiting a school -- doing any of those things, he's extremely engaging. He's very approachable, he responds to people's questions. I don't see any impatience or that kind of thing," Upmeyer said. "I've seen Newt sit down and have a beer with the guys at the county fair in the cattle barn, so he's OK at that, too."
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