Newt Gingrich claims that it was his first wife, not Gingrich himself, who wanted their divorce in 1980, but court documents obtained by CNN appear to show otherwise.
The Republican presidential candidate, now in his third marriage, has been peppered with attacks and questions about his divorce from Jackie Gingrich for the past three decades.
Questions about his past--and what that past tells voters about his personal behavior--have re-emerged as he has returned to the political scene 13 years after he resigned as speaker of the House.
A new defense that has arisen as Gingrich entered the presidential race this year is the insistence that she, not he, wanted the divorce.
How should the Gingrich campaign spin these latest revelations, which threaten to sink his bid for the White House? I have a suggestion: Shower the press with details about the Rollins v. Rollins divorce case--it has connections to Gingrich's home state of Georgia; that could be the hook. Newt will look like George Bailey, the famed Jimmy Stewart character from It's A Wonderful Life, compared to Ted Rollins.
Ted Rollins
How might the Gingrich campaign proceed? Well, it could compile a brief "scorecard of marital sleaze" and show how Newt stacks up against our guy, Ted. Here's how it might look:
* Jurisdiction--By all accounts that we've seen, the Gingrich divorce case was filed in the proper jurisdiction and never left there. In Rollins v. Rollins, Sherry Rollins filed for divorce in Greenville, S.C.--where the family lived--and the case was litigated there for roughly three years. Infidelity was one of the grounds cited in Ms. Rollins' divorce complaint. When judges in Greenville issued several unfavorable rulings for Ted Rollins, the case mysteriously got shifted to Alabama, contrary to volumes of law saying that can't happen.
Marital Sleaze Scorecard: Ted Rollins 1, Newt Gingrich 0
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