Newt Gingrich’s Glory Days - NYTimes.com“The months of June and July were the hardest in my career,” he told me. “You had people you thought you knew and you liked, at places like Fox News, asserting enthusiastically that you were dead. Not sadly — enthusiastically, happily.” He sipped his coffee but looked as if it tasted bitter. “One of the things that actually saved us,” Gingrich told me, “in addition to Callista’s stubbornness, was Ellis the elephant.”
I checked to make sure I heard this right. Ellis the elephant is the main character in Callista’s new children’s book, “Sweet Land of Liberty,” a New York Times best seller. In what way had a fictional elephant salvaged his presidential campaign?
“Happy, positive,” Gingrich replied, searching for the right words. “Interesting. Creative. It gave you an oasis psychologically. Literally, Ellis was sort of a ray of light.”
