Newt Gingrich mentioned Brent Bozell's recent column on the Newt vs. Nancy contrast in media coverage on the February 18 Fox News Sunday.
Chris Wallace asked about the 2008 presidential race: "We asked people who under no circumstances would they vote for, and you came in second on that dubious list at 64 percent, behind Ralph Nader, but far ahead of everyone else. And I should add 44 percent of Republicans said they would not vote for you. Why do you think that so many voters say Newt Gingrich, forget it?"
Gingrich answered: "Well, there was a column written by Brent Bozell recently about Nancy Pelosi becoming speaker and me becoming speaker. And he contrasted the initial media coverage of the two of us. And if you go back and look, you know, I had a — Time magazine savaged me as Scrooge who stole Tiny Tim's broken crutch — didn't just steal the crutch. I broke it, on the cover of Time. Newsweek had me as the Grinch that stole Christmas. I was a Dr. Seuss figure."
He added: "Then the Democrats — I think correctly, strategically — decided to run 121,000 ads in '95 and '96 attacking me. We adopted a totally different strategy. We thought that instead of defending me, we would defend the majority. And as a result, in 1996 we became the first reelected majority since 1928 for Republicans. In that process, I was badly damaged. I made some mistakes as speaker. And I think the combination of all of that left me, you know, with a fairly high negative."
