Maybe he is just trying to sell some books.

 

Clinton v Gingrich in 08. The final battle. :lol

 

 

But the former House speaker mainly wants

to help frame debate on the nation's future.

 

By THOMAS BEAUMONT

REGISTER STAFF WRITER

May 12, 2005

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in Iowa on Wednesday that he would consider running for president in 2008 if enough people agreed with ideas outlined in his new book, including dramatically tougher border security and immigration policies.

 

"If you show up someplace and there's a big enough movement, we can talk about that," the Georgia Republican said in an interview with The Des Moines Register at the outset of a swing through the state that hosts the leadoff nominating caucuses.

 

But Gingrich said he was more interested in promoting a new book that lays out his ideas for how the United States can fight terrorism, cope with economic competition from China and India, educate its children, care for its elderly and deal with illegal immigration.

 

"My job is to define the kind of big decisions and big solutions that we need for my two grandchildren to have the kind of country my parents and grandparents gave me," he said. "My personal ambitions strike me as being dramatically less important."

 

Gingrich's three-day Iowa swing includes book signings in the Des Moines area, Sioux City and Cedar Rapids. But it also includes plenty of interviews with journalists, including an appearance on Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press."

 

After signing books at Barnes & Noble Booksellers on University Avenue in West Des Moines, Gingrich appeared live on "Hannity & Colmes," a political program on Fox News Channel.

 

The Iowa visit - right down to the live shot on Fox News - mirrors the one Gingrich made last month to New Hampshire, which hosts the first presidential nominating primary in 2008.

 

Gingrich, 61, did little to dispel the speculation that has followed him since he released his book and 2005 travel schedule. In fact, he said, his book tour stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, and the political buzz they create, have helped him get his message out.

 

"It helps sell books. It helps communicate ideas. It helps get attention," he said.

 

Although Gingrich plans to headline a party at former U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske's house in Des Moines today, key Iowa GOP activists said he had not yet talked to them about a possible 2008 bid.

 

Other potential candidates, including Gov. George Pataki of New York, have made contacts with influential Iowa Republicans about the caucuses.

 

Gingrich, who served 20 years in the House and was speaker from 1995 to 1999, has recently criticized Republicans for failing to be bolder with their majorities in the House and Senate and their occupancy of the White House.

 

Gingrich said President Bush has been right in his foreign policy and praised the president's effort to overhaul Social Security. But he said he would have approached the Social Security debate differently, namely by insisting that personal savings accounts be central to any plan Congress considers, rather than an option.

 

For months, Bush has warned that Social Security is on a path toward insolvency. But he has advocated letting younger workers invest a portion of their payroll taxes in investment accounts as an additional feature, not as part of the solution to insolvency.

 

"I'd have focused it entirely on the right of younger Americans to have a personal Social Security savings account," Gingrich said.

 

Gingrich criticized the Bush administration's response to terrorism, pointing to porous borders with Canada and Mexico and Wednesday's news that a private airplane had strayed into restricted airspace over Washington, D.C.

 

"We should not be in a situation where Americans are running down the street away from their own Capitol," he said.

 

 

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../505120414/1001

As much as I like Newt, I doubt he can make a successful candidate.

I really don't think he can get enough support.

Isn't he an analyst for Fox News now or something?

He'll never get the nomination. He has skeletons in his closet regarding character issues, especially involving divorcing his wife, who was undergoing cancer treatment at the time. Basically, as much as the right made a cause celebre out of Terri Schiavo, the left would make a cause celebre about the hypocrisy of the right on the matter, starting with this very instance.

 

But then I remembered that the Republican Party is the party of talking the talk, but not walking the walk. So who knows?

newt is the man, but he would never win an election.

*vomits*