Gingrich will not jump in race
Newt Gingrich
(CNN) - Two days after hinting he would make a run for the White House, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich decided Saturday he would not run for president, his spokesman told CNN.
Rick Tyler said Gingrich realized he couldn't run a political action committee - his American Solutions group - and form an exploratory committee to run for president at the same time.
"He will continue to bring the American people solutions to the challenges America faces through American Solutions, not as a candidate for president," Tyler said in a phone interview.
Thursday, Gingrich told supporters in Marietta, Ga., that if they pledge at least $30 million to his campaign over a three-week period starting Monday and ending Oct. 21, he will compete for the nomination.
Tyler said the assessment of whether or not Gingrich supporters could raise the money never began.
Gingrich chose Thursday, the 13th anniversary of the signing of his "Contract With America," to launch his "Solutions Day" campaign, which he said is a search for bi-partisan answers to the country's major challenges.
While never mentioning the 2008 race in his speech Thursday night, Gingrich outlined what sounded like a campaign message when he called for "real change, not the same old stuff."
He said "very bold" proposals are needed to bring the United States government into the 21st century.
"I think, as a general rule, that levees should not break, that bridges should not fall, that students should actually learn," Gingrich said.
The Solutions Day events also serve as a vehicle for Gingrich to build support for a presidential candidacy, which he said he would be "perfectly happy" not to launch.
"I'm not going to be on the phone and I'm not begging," Gingrich told conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, who attended the event. Instead, Gingrich's lawyer, J. Randolph Evans, was supposed to chair an Internet-based fund-raising effort that was scheduled to go live Monday.
Gingrich, 64, had hinted for months that he would join the GOP presidential race if he determined there was no other candidate who appeared able to take on the Democrats in 2008. His hinting became louder in recent weeks, with Gingrich suggesting that Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York is destined to be the Democratic nominee and that he would be the best Republican to debate her.
The former college history professor said Thursday that if he decided to run for president, he would make the formal announcement in Cobb County on Nov. 13, 32 years to the day after Ronald Reagan launched his first run for the White House.
Gingrich, first elected to Congress in 1978, became the first Republican speaker of the House since 1954 when he led his party to victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He resigned suddenly from Congress four years after his party lost five House seats in the 1998 elections.
In the nine years since, Gingrich has not sought public office, but he has remained vocal as an author and speaker-for-hire.
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Newt obviously made the right decision and should be applauded for doing so.
http://www.newyorkforhuckabee.blogspot.com
Thompson and Romney are probably very relieved here, as they would have been hurt the most by a Newt run.
Probably realized that there is no way in hell he'd raise 30 million in 3 weeks.
So the conservatives don't think you have a shot in hell at the Presidency either. Guess they didn't want to cough up the 30 million USD on a loosing horse. Glad we agree on something.
He was a dreamer asking for $30 million for him to run.
He is a hyprocrite like Giuliani while holding self righteousness and family values. They both married 3 times, and had affairs with another women while married.
His drop out of the race is the dem loss.
Newt is a smart man, don't count him out. I predict he will support Hillary.
Hmm. No big surprise. I had a feeling Gingrich was just doing this for the attention, anyway. Whether or not he intended, or intends, to direct it anywhere remains to be seen. He's definitely in the spotlight again because of all of this. His endorsement would matter now more than ever. Gingrich may be awful nutty, but he's politically savvy.
Perhaps his intention was merely to play kingmaker, all along?
I predict he will too. For some reasons his obsessed with the Clintons
In actually, they put out that he was considering running, found the public's reaction to overwhelmingly negative to the idea and decided they had no chance.
Well, at least he came to his senses before he made a fool out of himself.
Actually, he made a fool of himself before before he came to his senses.
Give me $30 mil and give me a call? Nobody's buyin' that scam...............
Gingrich's sudden commitment to run if his supporters sent money and equally sudden cancellation of his offer illustrates why he'd be a terrible president, brilliant guy though he is: he doesn't like to work through the details of things. As a member of Congress, he never crafted a single bill, disdained negotitating the details of legislation, and shunned the scutwork of governance. Unfortunately, that kind of detail work is a lot of what presidents do. Gingrich is great as a big-idea guy but lacks the skills and temperament to do the day-in, day-out work of actually governing. That's why being a great candidate and a great president are two entirely different things. Some people have both sets of skills. Gingrich doesn't. And that means he's not presidential material.
I wish he would run. It would make Ron Paul's nomination much easier.
Talk about a non-story. I was going to run but I couldn't raise thirty million. Never was, was never meant to be, never existed. A waste of time.
While I don't really like the man, its nice to see some politicians realize that they can't win; if only Duncan Hunter would drop out now.
Too bad he isn't running.
At least he wouldn't have been pretending as much as Guiliani and Mitt Romney have to do. There are too many phonies running on the republican side. It's better to have someone like Tancredo or Duncan Hunter, who shows his true colors more.
thank goodness the field is already full of bloodlusting, lying, jabberjaws who I will not vote for. Newt amounted just another looser.
He made a fool of himself a loooong time ago.
The decision of "the Newt" not to run is one of the only real tangible proofs that I have seen that there is a God.
Somebody must have reminded the deadbeat dad, draft-dodging hypocrit of that famous "Contract With America" that he and the rest of the enlightened right-wingers foisted on the public.
OOOPS!!! He figured most Americans wouldn't remember – and, if stopped with the trailer trash crowd, he'd have been right!!!
THANK YOU DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I wish every Republican would come on out and announce they aren't running for President. Americans would love to hear the truth for once. Go Democrats!
Thank God. We sure didn't need this guy to run.
I certainly agree. He is obsessed with the Clintons. The Clintons in the past two decades have revolutionized politics, making things that were impossible to possible.
Gingrich knew he could not go up against the Clinton machine, the largest political machine ever created in US History.
Newt Run!!
youtube.com/damienspeaks
Conservative of the future.
Perhaps he was startled to see just how many Americans remember being sickened by his cold-souled divorce of ONE of his wives as she lie stricken with cancer in her hospital room as he all the while lectured all of America with his "Family Values" infomercial.