Why Newt Gingrich Doesn’t Need Super PAC Attack Ads

Former House Speaker has a knack for delivering seething, and often contradicting, attacks to his opponents.

It was inevitable that Newt Gingrich was going to kiss goodbye his insincere pledge to run a positive campaign, once attacks on him became relentless.

That’s Campaigning 101; it doesn’t matter what your opponent says. If he or she says it early and often, you can’t simply let it go unchallenged. Paradoxically, that’s what “running a positive campaign” means. So, Newt dropped all that “bull” last week:

“I’m Newt Gingrich and I approve this message.” No better way to bolster his criticism of super PAC attack ads than to tag his name at the end of his own. Not that his own super PAC isn’t prepared to do more of the same.

Related: “Newt Gingrich Attacks Romney in New Ad”

That’s right! You caught it, too; the almost immediate contradiction. Gingrich’s super PAC, “Winning Our Future” will wage the same sorts of attacks that Mitt Romney-backing “Restore Our Future” started weeks ago.

Gingrich doesn’t need it. Say what you like about his record, his hypocrisy, or his racially-tinged comments. In delivery and in-person, Newt can be as scolding and effective as any viral campaign ad upload to YouTube.

-- During the Sunday debate, we received a Gingrich gem. He told Romney to “drop the pious baloney,” referring to the reasons why Romney's tenure as an elected official was so brief. A punch landed to Mitt's face; no attack ad needed. Voters who long felt this about Romney were whooping from their Lay-Z-Boys.

-- Gingrich again called Romney a liar during the debate question on super PACs. He did so directly, almost facing chisel-faced Romney…and the former Massachusetts governor admitted his supporters run the super PAC. No attack ad can do that.

Oh, but poor Gingrich is his own foil. He can praise you out of one side of his mouth and then call for your impeachment out of the other. He can campaign for educational reforms around the country with Rev. Al Sharpton and then turn around advocate the creation of labor camps in public schools.

The “heighth” of hypocrisy, as Rick Perry once ineloquently put it. Such a flaw doesn’t diminish Gingrich’s skill at throwing punches in an almost professorial manner.

But this is all laboring under the illusion that Gingrich will come anywhere close to the Republican nomination for president. I still think he’d be great as Secretary of the Interior.