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Newt Gingrich aims to win the GOP nomination with animal photos

By Holly Bailey | The Ticket – Thu, Dec 22, 2011

Gingrich with a bearcat in 1995 (Joe Marquette/AP)

With less than two weeks to go before Iowa's Republican presidential caucus, Newt Gingrich is set to unveil what could be a game-changing secret weapon in his bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

His campaign announced it will launch a website featuring photos of Gingrich with animals. ABC's Elicia Dover reports:

The campaign said today that it will soon launch a "Pets With Newt" site aimed at Gingrich's love for animals, intended to show a "lighter side" of the candidate. "As speaker I made it possible for people in public housing to keep their pets in 1988. I love pets so we're going to have an entire project," Gingrich said.

Gingrich doesn't have any pets at this time, but he told ABC News today he and his wife Callista want a dog in the White House, and it's a friendly disagreement between the couple over what kind and size of dog. Callista wants a small dog and Newt wants a large dog, though he says dogs like a Great Dane are a little too large.

"When I was a child I had a cocker spaniel and Doberman pincher and German Sheppard. But we have not yet had a family conference on this topic," Gingrich said.

Gingrich has slyly dropped hints at his love of animals throughout his GOP nomination bid. Last summer, he even campaigned at a zoo in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he was identified in a local news report as an "expert" on endangered tigers.

In October, Gingrich told CNN that he didn't expect to go into politics, but had actually dreamed about being a zoo director or a paleontologist. And in a November interview with ABC News and Yahoo, Gingrich said the happiest moment of his life was "either looking for dinosaurs with Jack Horner in Montana, or being with my wife Callista on the Serengeti Plain, taking pictures of animals."

Will "Pets With Newt" put Gingrich over the top? Who knows? But it will likely give him a good excuse to mingle with cool animals—which is probably a lot more fun than taunting Mitt Romney all day.

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