Candidate Gingrich Faces Commentator Gingrich

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

NYT

Newt Gingrich spoke at an invitation-only luncheon at Liberty University as part of The Awakening conference in Lynchburg, Va., on April 8.Jill Nance/The News & Advance, via Associated PressNewt Gingrich spoke at an invitation-only luncheon at Liberty University as part of the Awakening conference in Lynchburg, Va., on April 8.

As Newt Gingrich officially enters the 2012 presidential contest on Wednesday, the former Republican House speaker is betting on his image as an intellectual heavyweight who can confront the nation’s thorniest challenges.

But the man who inspired the 1994 Contract With America has spent the better part of more than a decade musing in public about those challenges, often in ways that may prove problematic in a presidential campaign.

As an outspoken cable TV commentator, book author and prolific op-ed writer, Mr. Gingrich has often come across with a devil-may-care attitude, following one controversial statement with another.

That often worked to keep Mr. Gingrich, who has been out of public office since the beginning of 1999, in the spotlight. But now, those comments are being scrutinized, republished and distributed digitally by his potential rivals in the Republican Party. And the Democratic opposition research machine is scooping them up too, just in case.

(More here.)