Newt Gingrich threw his hat into the 2012 race this afternoon, making the announcement via Twitter and YouTube:
As was the case with Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, anyone who has been keeping an eye on the former Speaker of the House will not be surprised by this announcement. Fox News, which employed him as a paid commentator, was pressuring him to make up his mind about getting in the race or not. He and fellow 2012er Rick Santorum were initially suspended from their contracts with Fox for 60 days, with a May 1 deadline to make up their mind whether they were running or not. May 1 came and went, so Fox terminated both their contracts.
Unlike Pawlenty, Gingrich was honest enough to himself and the public to openly admit that he was running for president, rather than hiding behind the semantics of an exploratory committee.
I suppose this is as good an occasion as any to tell my Gingrich story. I randomly ran into him inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome two years ago while I was working on a story for another organization. He was traveling with his wife, who at the time was a member of an American church choir (don’t know if she still is) that was performing in the basilica. Small world…
Icepicks and Nukes 