Matt Towery: Poll shows Newt shoots to top spot when voters are reminded of his accomplishments as Speaker

In his article a week ago, Matt Towery -- who served as chairman of Newt's political organization for much of the 90s and who has known the former Speaker for years -- wrote an article about Newt's chances.

The strengths of a Gingrich campaign, according to Towery:

The upside is the polling data he is armed with. It shows that once the public is reminded of his accomplishments when he was speaker of the House, Gingrich soars from either second or third to first among the choices of Republican voters nationwide for the GOP nomination.

These voters are impressed when they are reminded that Speaker Gingrich forced Bill Clinton into consecutive balanced budgets, passed welfare reform and left office with the nation's entire deficit at under $30 billion dollars.

The Wall Street Journal got it right earlier this week. It said that Gingrich's real campaign, when it begins later this spring, will emphasize these signal accomplishments.

Another upside for Gingrich is that he has a huge list of names and devotees in data created through years of presence on the Web. His campaign likely will be the only one among leading Republican presidential hopefuls that will rival Barrack Obama's for its expertise and accomplishments in high-tech social networking and fundraising.

On one of the frequent attacks on Gingrich:

The story is simply not true that Newt Gingrich served his first wife with divorce papers, or had a heated argument about a divorce, while she was ill and in a hospital.

How do I know? Because the day that alleged event happened -- and every other day during that time -- I was riding in a car with him. On that day, we were working on debate preparation. Besides, polling suggests that most voters don't care about Gingrich's alleged past transgressions.

Newt's daughter from that marriage, Jackie, "considered them [the hospital bed allegations and other attacks] bogus and unfair." She appeared in a 1992 television advertisement to refute the charges.