Goldberg: Why Evangelicals Forgave Newt

Newt Gingrich's unpredictable rise to the top of the 2012 Republican field, including a major endorsement from a leading New Hampshire newspaper Sunday, has spawned endless discussions of how, exactly, he managed to live down his incredible amount of baggage. Newsweek's Michelle Goldberg takes on the most surprising comeback of all: the rehabilitation of Newt's reputation among evangelicals. "Gingrich benefits, of course, from the powerful Christian narrative of sin and deliverance," Goldberg writes. That doesn't mean he has the religious right locked up, but "anxious anti-Romney conservatives are eager to coalesce behind someone."