Former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday edged toward becoming the first big-name Republican to challenge US President Barack Obama in next year’s election.
Gingrich, known for budget battles with then-US president Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s, said he would explore a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in the weeks ahead.
“We are excited about exploring whether there is sufficient support for my potential candidacy for president of this exceptional country,” Gingrich and his wife, Callista, said on newtexplore2012.com.
He stopped short of announcing a formal presidential exploratory committee. That gives him time to work out his extensive business affairs before becoming a formal candidate.
Gingrich’s tiptoe closer to a race reflected the slow pace of the Republican campaign to decide who will challenge Obama next year. No prominent Republican has yet made the plunge, although several are close to announcements in the weeks and months ahead.
While Republicans won big in November congressional elections, most agree that it will be difficult to unseat Obama, particularly if the US jobless rate shows improvement from its current 9 percent.
Gingrich, 67, should be considered a “long shot” because some evangelical voters are wary of the fact that he was twice divorced before his current marriage, said Merle Black, political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
“Gingrich has a lot of political talent. He can make succinct arguments and criticisms. But he has had a lot of problems in the past with indiscipline ... and in a presidential campaign that can be a big problem,” Black said.
Gingrich, who believes Obama has saddled the US with deeper debt and deficits, has flirted with a presidential race for years. He led the Republican “revolution” that took control of the House in 1994 elections and he was House speaker from 1995 to 1998.
Gingrich’s Republicans shut down the government in a standoff with Clinton. Republicans were seen as losing that fight because the Democratic president was re-elected in 1996, but Gingrich argues the standoff set the stage for a 1996 budget deal that led to a big drop in spending.
Government spending is again a major bone of contention with Republicans, and the budget deficit is set to reach a record US$1.65 trillion this year.
Gingrich is now chairman of American Solutions, a group that advances conservative causes, and has been traveling frequently to the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to test the waters.
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
RSS