Yeah, I wouldn't touch any ticket with Newt Gingrich's name with a twelve-foot pole.
He's radical, but he's also very intelligent, an intellectual. Rare in politics today. I've seen some of his recent speeches and lectures, they're excellent.
Maybe you haven't been seeing the same speeches I have, because he attacked judicial and scholastic independence, and then counted every No vote in this year's California special election as a "Republican vote". Never mind that the Republican Governor supported it...