Marianne, Gingrich’s second wife, is happy to let her husband handle Washington and the press. A small-town Midwesterner by birth and temperament, she prefers to spend time decorating the Gin-griches’ new house in suburban Atlanta and working as a consultant to American companies wanting to do business in Israel. But she and her husband talk on the phone at least once a day, and friends insist that Marianne – who would not agree to be interviewed for this article – is Gingrich’s surest gauge of sentiment beyond the Beltway. Says family confidant Rep. Steve Gunderson: “She is the one who tells him how things sell outside this town.”
Marianne, 43, grew up in Leetonia, Ohio (population: 2,000), where she was an A student and active in her Lutheran youth group. She attended Kent State University and was there when the National Guard shot four of her fellow students in 1970. She did not graduate. Instead, she got a job designing houses and then worked for the local Trumble County planning commission. Marianne’s congressman introduced her to Gingrich at an Ohio fund-raising event in 1980. Gingrich’s long-troubled marriage soon ended in divorce; he and Marianne were married a few months later. She still visits Leetonia at least every six weeks, and her family believes its Middle American views have some sway with the GOP’s first couple. “When Newt talks about renewing America,” says Marianne’s sister, Marilyn Heddleston, “this is what he means. This town and people like us.”
Gingrich brags that his wife’s small-town common sense has served him well. He credits her with encouraging him to oppose Bush’s 1990 tax increase and with helping talk out strategy for the GOP take-over of the House. But Marianne’s judgment is far from infallible. In 1989, Gingrich drove speaker Jim Wright from office by publicizing his questionable book deal. Reporters quickly discovered, however, that the Gingriches had coauthored their own book – a blueprint for a GOP electoral victory – and that Marianne had solicited wealthy constituents to pay to promote the project. She held a press conference to defend herself, but when journalists pressed her about possible conflicts of interest, she fled in tears.
Tough odds: Despite Newt’s public praise of his wife, their private life has been rocky. In a candid 1989 interview with The Washington Post, the couple admitted to serious marital problems. The two had been living almost entirely separate lives; he was in Washington and she was in Georgia pursuing a business degree. With characteristic indelicacy, Newt gave their marriage “53-47” odds of surviving. Nevertheless, they are still together, and these days Marianne spends more time in the capital, attending official functions. But being Mrs. Speaker does not mean she shares the speaker’s revolutionary zeal. “You marry to get married,” Marianne once said, “not because you want to change the world.”
