PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

Several top people in the Gingrich for President effort have resigned their jobs. How many? The Washington Post reports “his entire senior staff resigning en masse” under the headline “Gingrich presidential campaign implodes”.

Campaign aides come and go all the time. Top aides are occasionally replaced, even in the middle of a presidential campaign. At no time does the entire senior staff walk out, unless they feel utter disgust, contempt or have concluded that the effort is hopeless. It might be all of those things in this case, but we won’t know until some of them start popping up on news shows to explain.

Gingrich nearly blew the campaign to dust on the first week when he denounced “right wing social engineering” on Meet the Press on NBC. In condemning the Ryan plan for Medicare, he had put himself outside the realm of current Republican ranks and cherished beliefs.

What else is behind this action? One factor that will have to be examined is whether the money funnel stopped cold following his gaff on television. Another is whether Gingrich’s personal life, involving three marriages, affairs and other lose sexual conduct, as reported on PBS/Frontline in the 1990s, might be a renewed issue now.

Where is Gingrich? Until yesterday, he was away on a two week, “pre-planned vacation” in the Greek isles. Going on vacation is not a good sign, any time, when you start a presidential effort, especially to the staff which is expected to work day and night for two years to win.  Coming after a disastrous first week on his campaign, the vacation might have been the trip that broke the will of the staff to stay on.

Let’s not fool around about this: right now, it looks like the Gingrich effort to win the presidential nomination is over, period. He is a guy who has been out of office for a very long time, who was forced to leave the House Speakership by a revolt among his colleagues and who stomped on his on foot, hard, when starting his campaign. The Republicans need a candidate who is squeeky clean in the marriage and social morality areas and that ain’t Gingrich. Unless something is revealed that puts a different light on these resignations, he looks finished. The key issue appears to be money, not enough of it. He might survive to fight on a little longer, but I doubt it.

Doug Terry, 6.9.11

Richard Cohen in the WashPost on Gingrich:

There is more than a little Richard Nixon in Gingrich, the same lack of place, the same keen intellect, the same petty fights and imaginary enemies, the same hallucinatory grievances, the same willingness to lie, exaggerate and smear. On a given day, Newt Gingrich could be a brilliant president. On any night, he could be a monster.

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