Potential Gingrich run delights Democrats

GOP primary candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich doesn't just have support from many Republicans. Many Democrats would like to see him run, too. 

Nancy Pelosi has maintained a strategic near-silence on the possibility of Gingrich clinching the GOP nomination, but told Talking Points Memo that she agreed with soon-to-be former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank when he said "I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party."  

“That quote I think spoke for a lot of us," Pelosi said in an exclusive interview with TPM on Friday.

Gingrich, who has become the front-runner in the GOP primary race, has long traded barbs with Frank: The Washington Post traced the politicians' feud back to 1989, when a Gingrich aide spread rumors about the sex life of former Speaker of the House Thomas Foley and was then allegedly forbidden to talk to reporters. 

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Pelosi also has had a long history with Gingrich. As Talking Points memo reported, 

Pelosi knows more about Gingrich than perhaps any other major national political figure. She was a senior Democrat when Gingrich was House Speaker, served on the ethics committee that investigated Gingrich for tax cheating and campaign finance violations, and even cut a 2008 ad with him on the importance of addressing global climate change.

"One of these days we'll have a talk about Newt Gingrich," Pelosi told TPM. 

Meanwhile, a Gallup poll released Monday showed that many rank-and-file conservatives view Gingrich as the most acceptable of the Republican presidential candidates, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A new Gallup poll, the first of its kind in the 2012 cycle, found that six in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saw the former House speaker as an acceptable nominee.

Just over half said Mitt Romney would be an acceptable nominee. The two current front-runners were the only GOP contenders deemed acceptable by more than half of Republicans polled.

Gingrich's lead comes on the heels of Herman Cain's suspension of his campaign, and there is speculation that Cain, the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, might endorse Gingrich, The Washington Post reported. 

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