Why Newt should step down

Another week has passed, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) is still in the race for the GOP nomination. Why that is the case is beyond me.

Let’s face it, the only one who believes Newt has a chance is Newt himself, and as time and history have both proven, that’s not enough. In fact, that’s a sure sign the guy needs to drop out of the presidential race.

The entire Republican field has lapped him. They’re pushing hard in Iowa, New Hampshire, even in South Carolina and Florida. They’re making the nation’s former top lawmaker look sort of silly in his views on policies he once knew like the back of his hand (can someone say Medicare?).

C’mon, when you’ve lost your policy compass, your entire fundraising team, and you’d rather go on a two-week cruise in the middle of the presidential season, then it’s time to hang up your spurs and go back to running a healthcare think tank.

But Newt said over the weekend he’s raring to go. In fact, the loss of his staff was not a setback, but rather a situation that now allows him to feel “liberated.” What many would see as a string of bad luck and a reflection of a weak candidate, Gingrich instead sees as an opportunity to “focus on big solutions” as he told Fox News over the weekend.

Give me a break. Why is everything with the Speaker a major shift in the forces of the universe — all working together for his good? The fact that his entire team disintegrated in front of him is not a plus. It’s a minus. Only Al Gore or John Edwards would view such twists and abandonment as “liberating.”

OK, so he wants to put a good spin on the fact that his campaign is unraveling. But therein lies a good lesson in life for Newt to learn — when it’s time to throw in the towel. There are still plenty of good money-making years left in his life, as a consultant.

Give up the quixotic White House pursuit, Mr. Speaker. You are better off, and the country as well, if you return to espousing big, Republican, conservative ideas and letting the pros of this generation run the White House’s current occupant out of a job next year.