Newt's Divulgence

Newt Gingrich’s announcement that he was having an affair while pursuing President Clinton for the Lewinsky affair certainly comes at an interesting time. Why now? What purpose is there in announcing? Does this have any presidential impact? Hotair’s Allahpundit has this take:

If anyone benefits from this announcement, I’d say it’s Romney. The more the public finds out about Giuliani’s and Gingrich’s peccadilloes, the more comparatively attractive Mitt becomes. If his camp’s willing to play dirty, I’d expect them to go after McCain’s indiscretions and make the case even clearer to morals voters that there’s only one choice for them among the major candidates.

Do personal indiscretions disqualify someone from representing morals voters? That probably is the question for republican voters in 2008. All three candidates ahead of Romney (I’m lumping in Gingrich even though he hasn’t announced) have had their problems with personal morality. Personally, at this point, I’m not sure how much these types of stories will help Romney. Most notably for Giuliani, voters polled have been willing to overlook the personal lives of candidates. Plus, focusing on the personal past of other candidates opens the door for other candidates to more closely scrutinize Romney’s political past, something that has not been a strong point for him so far.