Thanks in part to the power of e-mail communications today, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich says he feels himself under no time constraints at the moment to formally declare himself a candidate for president in 2008.
According to this morning’s Washington Post:
The former House speaker from Georgia said it would not be too late for him to enter the race after Labor Day 2007, if he thinks that no candidate has a clear advantage. He cited Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani as the contenders to watch.
“If one of them seals it off by Labor Day, my announcing now wouldn’t make any difference anyway,” he said. “If none of the three, having from now till Labor Day, can seal it off, the first real vote is in 2008. And there’s plenty of time in the age of television and e-mail between Labor Day and 2008.”
Gingrich has been busy lately wooing the xenophobe vote — “Those six (Muslim clerics) should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists” — and Americans who believe that there’s nothing to the security concerns we have in this country that couldn’t be fixed by a clampdown on Internet freedom of speech.
All of which makes the “Gates for President” bandwagon seem downright plausible by comparison.
No, the Democrats should be so lucky as to face Newt in November 2008.
