(Newser)
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What drove the entire Gingrich 2012 senior staff to simultaneously resign in protest? Two words, says Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard: Callista Gingrich. Barnes doesn’t cite any sources—not even anonymous ones—but he says the aides were fed up with the amount of control Gingrich gave his wife, who essentially pushed for a part-time campaign. The final straw, apparently, was the Gingrichs’ just-concluded two-week Mediterranean cruise, which Callista insisted on despite the staff’s objections.
In a New York Times profile last month, Callista was described as lukewarm about the prospect of a White House run. But Barnes says she had nonetheless supplanted Newt's oldest allies—including aide-de-camp Rick Tyler and Sam Dawson, who's been with Gingrich for more than thirty years—to become Newt's foremost adviser. With fundraising down, the staff believed Gingrich could not win without a vigorous campaign, so while he was away at sea, they planned their mutiny.
