Former US House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday became the first major Republican candidate to formally throw his hat into the ring for next year’s White House race, aiming to oust US President Barack Obama.
About 18 months before the next elections, Obama is enjoying a new rush of support — despite the nation’s slow economic recovery — after ordering the raid which took out the US’ No. 1 enemy, Osama bin Laden.
In 2008, when Obama made history and defeated Republican John McCain to be elected the US’ first black president, both the Democratic and Republican fields were already crowded with contenders at this stage of the race.
Photo: AFP
However, this time round, the Republican camp has been slow to form with some of the top possible candidates such as McCain’s vice-presidential candidate and darling of the conservative right, Sarah Palin, still to declare.
Jumping into the ring, Gingrich took to the Internet to declare the race for the Republican presidential nomination officially open.
“Today I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” he said in a message on the social network Twitter.
Seizing on the voters’ top concern, the stuttering economy, he said on a video posted on YouTube that he was running “because I believe we can return America to hope and opportunity, to full employment, to real security, to an American energy program, to balanced budget.”
Obama, who succeeded former US president George W. Bush, launched his own election bid last month, seeking a second four-year term in the White House. He is unlikely to face any serious challengers for the Democratic Party nomination.
In his message, Gingrich tried to hook his political career to the legacy of a Republican icon, late president Ronald Reagan, whose presidency many conservatives see as a golden era for the US.
“I worked with president Ronald Reagan in a very difficult period. We got jobs created again, Americans proud of America, and the Soviet Union disappeared,” he said in the video message.
And he tried to gloss over the role he played in the bitter US political wars of the 1990s, when as speaker he triggered a government shutdown in 1995 during a standoff with then-president Bill Clinton over spending.
“As speaker of the House I worked to reform welfare, to balance the budget, to control spending, to cut taxes to create economic growth, employment came down from 5.6 percent under 4 percent,” he said. “For four years we balanced the budget and paid our US$405 billion of debt. We’ve done it before we can do it again.”
Gingrich, 67, is widely regarded as the architect of the Republican rout of Democrats in the 1994 elections, when they retook the House of Representatives for the first time in four decades.
However, the Republicans were then widely blamed for the government shutdown, after which Clinton coasted to victory and a rare Democratic presidential second term in 1996.
Gingrich is at least a well known figure on the US political scene. A Gallup poll released on Tuesday gave him a name recognition score of 84 percent.
However, other Republicans including former governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota have left little doubt they also plan to run.
Former Utah governor and US ambassador to Beijing Jon Huntsman and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels are also expected to announce formally within weeks whether they will seek the White House.
And party insiders are watching Palin, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee — who was the last one in the pack to be defeated for the Republican nomination by McCain in 2008 — for signs whether they will run.
Apart from sometimes being seen as a divisive figure, Gingrich was also the first US speaker to face a formal ethics rebuke for making inaccurate statements to lawmakers looking into Democratic allegations of misconduct tied to misuse of tax-exempt donations.
His personal life could also draw fire — he has admitted to cheating on his first wife with the woman who became his second wife, and then having an affair with the woman who is now his third wife, Callista Gingrich.
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