Gingrich Gets Religion

Why does Newt Gingrich keep pushing the increasingly emphatic religious messaging? Why does he imagine that it will work?

John Richardson extracts some damning quotes from Newt Gingrich's ex-wife for an Esquire profile. You can read them here, if you haven't seen them already.

The story drives home a question that's perplexed me about Gingrich: why the increasingly emphatic religious messaging? Sorry that sounded stupid. I know why. I mean: why does he imagine that it will work? By repositioning himself as a man of faith - the husband-and-wife narrated movies about "rediscovering God" and Pope John Paul II; the attacks on the Democrats' "secular socialist machine" - does not Gingrich invite Democrats to re-open his personal life?

In this day and age, you cannot safely attack a candidate for an imperfect personal life. But you can safely attack a candidate if a gulf opens between his public words and his personal life. So why open the gulf in the first place? It's not as if Gingrich lacks a message on national security, the economy, healthcare, education - or for that matter, on abortion and right to life. Why invite trouble? Why challenge your opponents to impugn your testimony?