Things really are going bad for Newt Gingrich, in the wake of the mass resignation of his staff: Even one of his honorary co-chairmen is jumping ship.
The campaign of Tim Pawlenty has announced that former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has joined Team Pawlenty. “Tim Pawlenty is a great man, he was a phenomenal governor, and he is the person I now believe stands the greatest chance of defeating President Obama,” Perdue said in a Pawlenty campaign press release. “He is the only candidate who has laid out a real plan to grow the American economy, and his track record in Minnesota is proof he’s the right man for the job.”
Perdue had previously been announced as a co-chair of the Gingrich campaign — just over two weeks ago. Ouch. Still no word on whether Gingrich can still hold on to his other co-chairman: Former Sen. Zell Miller.
A key link between Pawlenty and Perdue is that Pawlenty’s campaign manager is none other than Nick Ayers, who managed Perdue’s 2006 re-election campaign when he was only in his early 20s. Perdue then became head of the Republican Governor’s Association, and he tapped Ayers to become its executive director, a position that Ayers held through January 2011 under multiple chairmen (Perdue, Mark Sanford, and Haley Barbour.)
