The phone call came from Al to Newt.
Al Gore, the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2000, wanted to know whether Newt Gingrich, the former Republican U.S. House speaker, would appear in a 2008 television ad calling for action to address climate change.
Gingrich, who was promoting his latest book “Contract With the Earth” and urging “green conservatism,” agreed. In an e- mail obtained by Bloomberg News that he wrote to the former vice president, Gingrich thanked Gore “for the opportunity to participate in the Protect Climate ad campaign.” He signed the March 2008 note, “Your friend, Newt.”
Those exchanges led Gingrich, now a Republican presidential candidate, to a chilly, rainy commercial set in April 2008, sitting side-by-side, knee-to-knee on a love seat with then- Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the cameras rolling. ...
While the climate-change ad is the highest-profile bipartisan event Gingrich engaged in between his 1999 retirement from Congress and his presidential campaign, it isn’t the only one. He’s also appeared with marquee Democrats, such as then- Senator Hillary Clinton, in gatherings highlighting health care, global warming and education.
The former speaker’s willingness to become the Republican headliner at such events helped keep him in the news and at the center of national debates as he was also building his post- political brand and a multi-million dollar consulting and publishing business.
Gingrich was warned by his aides at the time that participating in Gore’s “We Can Solve It” ad campaign could have dire political consequences. ...
Today, most of Gingrich’s primary competitors deny climate change is happening or that humans have a role in it. Gingrich now says he’s “agnostic” on the issue. ...
A poll released Sept. 22 by the Public Religion Research Institute found that while almost 7 in 10 Americans overall say there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming and two-thirds believe it is due to human activity, less than half of Republicans and only 41 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party believe in climate change, and only 18 percent of both groups attribute it to human activity. ...
Gingrich’s opponents will have other bipartisan appearances to use as weapons.
In 2005, he appeared with then-Senator Hillary Clinton at an event called “Cease-fire on Health Care” at American University in Washington, where he called for “100 percent coverage,” and a system that involves a “transfer of finances” to help low-income people afford medical insurance. ...
“There’s no doubt Gingrich has got more of a track record of policy sins in the minds of conservatives than the other candidates” for the Republican nomination, said Greg Mueller, a party strategist who served as a senior aide on Steve Forbes’s 2000 presidential campaign. If his rivals decide to try to exploit them, he added, “those could be a liability.”