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Karl Rove's famously worked to turn his opponent's positives into negatives. Newt Gingrich, who will officially announce his 2012 candidacy Wednesday, appears to hope to be turn his negatives into positives. Will voters buy it? Let's consider two stories leading headlines about the former Speaker of the House on the eve of his big day. Back when Gingrich was impeaching President Clinton for his infidelity, he was sleeping with a 20-something congressional aide who was not his wife. Newt's not sorry about that seeming contradiction. He blamed the affair on being too patriotic. He's since married her, and, as The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports, is using Callista Gingrich as a central selling point for his candidacy in 2012.
Gingrich is also not sorry about pushing for appearing alongside Nancy Pelosi in a video advocating measures to curb climate change, Politico's Darren Samuelsohn reports. Unlike Tim Pawlenty, who calls his support of green legislation one of the great "clunkers" of his career, Gingrich is proud of the Pelosi spot and insists, "our country must take action to address climate change." The Associated Press writes that Gingrich "has been criticized as a glib political figure who is not long on consistency in public statements. ...[H]e was widely mocked recently for an about-face on Libya policy." Republican primary voters might be even more annoyed by his evolving position on the environment: "I'd do a commercial with Al Gore," Gingrich told Human Events a year ago. He's also referred to himself as a "green conservative," though when he was speaker of the House, he fought with then-President Clinton over not-so-green riders attached to spending bills, Samuelsohn notes. Now he wants to replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an "Environmental Solutions Agency."