http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/5151.htmlFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) came a step closer to suggesting he will not run for president as he praised other Republicans on "Fox News Sunday.”
He confirmed he recently had dinner with Fred Thompson, adding that the former Tennessee senator would be a “very formidable candidate.”
Gingrich didn’t sound like a candidate looking to enter the political fray as he complimented Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.
“These three are serious people. They’re working very hard, and if they can fill the vacuum, I don’t feel any great need to run,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich also didn’t sound too eager to join the debates – a necessary precondition if he entered the presidential fray.
“I believe that the [presidential nominating] process is fundamentally broken,” he said.
“We have reduced our political dialogue to a point where potential would-be leaders of the most powerful government in the world stand meekly in line waiting for somebody to pick a question, and the question could be anything.”
The former speaker also sounded a warning note about the state of the country and the state of today’s political process.
He accused both parties of failing to respond to the challenges facing the country, which he compared to pre-Civil War America.
“The Republicans don’t recognize the scale of the performance failure of government as a system, and the Democrats are living in a fantasy land in terms of their policy approach.
“So you have two parties, each of them disqualifying themselves in different ways,” said Gingrich, a sometime historian who has written books about the Civil War period.-------------------------
disappointing since I sorta like him and think he'd be entertaining, but it also means some money can be had by shorting the "Gingrich to run for President" stock on Intrade.
