Newt Gingrich’s 2012 Campaign Implodes

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/5438140228/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Gage Skidmore</a>

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The latest news out of Newt Gingrich’s faltering presidential campaign spells disaster for the former House speaker: Gingrich’s campaign manager, spokesman, and other key aides have all resigned en masse, the Associated Press reports. That includes Dave Carney, Gingrich’s top aide in New Hampshire, a critical state in presidential primary season, as well as paid staffers in Iowa and South Carolina.

The mass resignation comes as Gingrich faced mounting attacks from all sides for his recent vacation in the Greek Isles with wife Callista, a trip he embarked on only weeks after officially rolling out his presidential campaign. In addition, Gingrich has been dogged by his characterization of Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan as “right-wing social engineering,” a claim he made on national TV, and by the revelation that he enjoyed a $500,000 line of credit at luxury jewelry company Tiffany.

According to Politico, the Gingrich staffers quit over what they called a “different vision” for the campaign, and said their resignation was “a team decision.” Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s long-time spokesman who resigned today, told the Huffington Post that “the expectation of what a candidate is was a little different, and the expectation of the time commitments.”

Soon after the resignations were first reported, Gingrich’s campaign blasted out an email to supporters titled “Newt is Committed to Running a Solutions-Orientated Campaign.” In the email Gingrich writes, “I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring. The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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