Several top aides to Newt Gingrich in his campaign for the Republican nomination for President have resignedincluding Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler, campaign manager Rob Johnson, senior strategists Dave Carney and Katon Dawson, and media consultant Sam Dawson, the WaPo reports:
Several sources said the mass resignation came at a meeting Thursday in Gingrich's Washington office.
Among the issues was the two week vacation that Gingrich and his wife, Callista, insisted upon taking against the advice of his top political staff. Coming as it did after one of the most diastrous campaign launches in recent memory, it raised questions as to whether Gingrich would be willing to “commit time to the grassroots,” said Tyler.
The sources said Gingrich was staying in the race.
The mass resignation was, one source said, “a team decision.”
“We just had a different direction in which we wanted to take the campaign,” said a second source.
Gingrich was intent on using technology and standing out at debates to get traction while his advisers believed he needed to run a campaign that incorporated both traditional, grassroots techniques as well as new ideas.
The mass resignation follows several rocky weeks for Gingrich's campaign which included a glitter attack from a gay protester and fallout from within the GOP over remarks he made on Meet the Press calling Paul Ryan's GOP budget radical and "right-wing social engineering". One Iowa Republican voter told Gingrich: "You're an embarrassment to our party…Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself."
