Newt Gingrich

This article on the Washington Post website,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/09/AR2009110903302.html, discusses how Republican Newt Gingrich is becoming more open about his religion, especially after his speech about the Berlin Wall, which was heavily influenced by religion. The article suggests that Gingrich is becoming more religious to help himself politically.

Before this article, I did not know who Gingrich was. But I think it is possible that he has always been religious privately, because if he would have been more open about his religion, he may have been attacked as a hypocrite for trying to impeach Clinton when he himself has cheated on his wife. The article mentions that he converted to Catholicism, but it doesn’t say when and why. According to Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich), he converted to Catholicism because of his wife. This conversion doesn’t seem like it was intended for political reasons, but he was a Baptist before and I think people just generally wants the politicians to believe in God. But he could’ve converted to get more Catholic votes; there are a lot of Catholics and maybe he can get some of the more conservative Catholics’ votes. It does seem like he is using religion to become more favorable, because in his speech, he specifically mentions “our creator.” But it is also possible that he is trying to help the Republican party by reminding people of Ronald Reagan.