So, the big story out of Iowa today: Newt Cries!

Reminiscent of the moment that our Traditional Media claimed to see Hillary Clinton snatch victory from surging Barack Obama post-Iowa 2008, when she [hadn’t actually] cried when speaking about the effort to run a presidential campaign, Newt cried. About his dead mom.

In response to a question no voter would ask in a roomful of Iowa moms.

So Frank Luntz, death-tax message man to the GOP stars, had to ask it.

Newt Gingrich teared up during a campaign stop on Friday, speaking about his late mother in front of a group of mothers in Des Moines.

Gingrich displayed emotion in response to a question from GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who asked the former House speaker to recall special memories of his own mom.

On cue, Newtie turned on the waterworks, something no one in Iowa wanted to see or ask about.

“First of all, you’ll get me all teary eyed,” Gingrich warned at the outset of his response.

Predictably, NBC made the connection to Clinton’s reaction to personal attacks. One wonders if Luntz fed them that angle, too:

Those attacks may have worn on Gingrich, whose outburst Friday is almost reminiscent of 2008, when Hillary Clinton broke into tears at a campaign stop in New Hampshire when reflecting on the difficulties of the campaign trail. That moment was interpreted to have helped Clinton politically.

Newtie kind of gave away the game elsewhere in his answer, though, when he provided the clue that maybe his campaign got Luntz into that situation in order to provide some needed humanization:

At another point during his answer, Gingrich quipped: “I do policy a lot better than I do personal.”

I don’t know about you, but one thing I always manage to do when crying about a dead parent is quip.

Bonus Link: Here’s the Gingrich’s master bath, scene of the children’s tale by Elphaba the Elephant, “Too Many Callistas!”