Gingrich

Newt Gingrich says he’s not running for president and he gives as a reason that he didn’t want to be subject to a legal bar against communicating with the new group called American Solutions he has been promoting. If he ran for president, he has suddenly discovered, he would be unable to communicate with this group because of the laws governing 527s.

I’m not buying it. Newt’s explanation is phony. He could have checked out the implications of his candidacy for his group any time in the last year. Instead he dropped hint after hint and kept us guessing. My bet is that he never planned to run but used speculation about his candidacy to sell books, attract donations to his group, and stay current.

In the meantime, speculation about his candidacy set back Republican conservatives seeking to get the nomination. Guys like Mike Huckabee couldn’t get untracked because everyone was waiting for Newt. So I’m not buying his reasons for not running. I wasn’t born yesterday.