Newt Gingrich Urges Gays Not to Vote for Him

At a campaign stop in Iowa yesterday, Professional Republican Stereotype Newt Gingrich informed a gay Iowan that if he wants his homo-needs met, he’d be better off voting for President Obama in 2012. That’s right: a candidate for President used time on a campaign stop to explicitly tell someone not to vote for him. And the ongoing game of GOP Nomination Hot Potato continues.

Newt’s latest WTF moment happened during an encounter with Scott Arnold, an associate professor of writing at William Penn University. Arnold asked the former House Speaker how, as President, he’d support the rights of gay and lesbian Americans. Gingrich smirked (to be fair, his face has been stuck in a smirk since an unfortunate 1997 smirking contest incident involving Dick Armey) and told Adams that if he wants rights and recognition, he’d better just vote for President Obama.

Seriously, does Newt Gingrich even want to be President?

In a crowded field of idiots who would fail most high school level standardized tests, Newt’s knowledge or pretend-knowledge sets him apart from the likes of Bachmann, Romney, Santorum, and Perry. His numbers in Iowa have been slipping recently, but he’s still got a shot to win. Why in the Hail to the Chief would Gingrich tell somebody— anybody— to vote for someone else?

Maybe he’s worried that if his ideas were put to the test, people would discover that they’re actually bad. Newt Gingrich has built his career of being Monday Morning Quarterback-in-chief, specializing in appearing on various television programs underneath a hair helmet and proclaiming that if he were in charge, everything would be awesome. He’s the Michael Jordan of know-it-all-ism, and, like most career know-it-alls, his strength comes from the “if.” If “if” became “is,” then he’s opening himself up to the possibility of being proven wrong. Over the long run, being possibly right is much more lucrative than being certifiably misguided, and if we’ve learned anything from this primary season characterized by almost every candidate selling a recently published book, it’s that it doesn’t matter if you win, just that you can continue to demand high speaking fees after the dust settles.

But maybe I don’t see the big picture. Maybe Gingrich does want to win, and he’s banking hard on the idea that defensively straight people who want to act in the straightest way possible at all times will see that the straightest thing to do, voting-wise, is to vote for the guy the gays don’t vote for. Ergo, Netwon Leroy Gingrich. It’s a risky move to assume that the votes of the anti-gay will drown out the pro-gay, sure; about as risky as that time Newt implied that this whole gay marriage thing is just a phase that will “dissipate,” that America’s just at college and is going through an experimental time is all, and that soon it will come to its senses and marry a nice girl from Kansas named Becky and have a couple of America Juniors.

Either way, he’s made an aggressive play for the homophobe vote with that brilliant piece of third grade logic.