He'll be the savior of the conservative movement, I tell ya.

Please Newt, don't do it. Sure, you may get the Conservative Christian vote, but that's not even the majority of the GOP vote and you'll get exactly zero of the Independent and Democrat vote unless some little old ladies have trouble with their butterfly ballots again. Keep you day job as commentator on various news shows as your time has passed and to be honest, you're not all that appealing. Here's the scoop:

Matt Towery, a former senior aide to Newt Gingrich, had dinner with the former House Speaker and notes "it is clear that the presidency is now very much" on his mind "and that he remains convinced that none of the candidates in the current field has captured the imagination of the party."

And Newt will? This is an excuse for Newt, he sees a traffic jam and he's going to ride in and steal votes from Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. All that will happen is he'll take some of the social conservative vote from Rudy, some of the Southern vote from Fred and plod along in the 8-11% range where Romney's currently residing and get crushed in the primaries.

You know what Newt? On second thought, run and take some of the heat off the candidates that really matter. It will be like a two-week vacation for Giuliani and Thompson so throw your hat in.

Rapper Kanye West famously declared it during the telethon to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

An article in today's Washington Post asks whether the same might be said about the current Republican field for president. This comes as a result of their refusal to participate in a debate moderated by Tavis Smiley at Morgan State University that is to be aired on PBS. It's the second such snub in a month. The same candidates (save John McCain) also took a pass on appearing at a debate on Spanish-language channel Univision.

Well, more than a few people inside the party are not happy. Here's former candidate Jack Kemp, who enjoyed huge support in the African American community:

"We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do--meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote."

Newt Gingrich has dabbled in Spanish, and doesn't like what he's seeing, either:

"For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error. I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse--this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It's just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer is disingenuous. That's baloney."

Ouch. President Bush took 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004. Anybody want to lay odds on the percentage a Republican will garner from African Americans or Latinos this time around?

In a recent interview with Linda Douglas of the National Journal, Newt Gingrich has become the odds maker. He believes that the Democrats have an 80% chance of winning. Of course, he hasn't factored into the formula who will be counting the votes.

It seems that the best Republican candidate, is the one not running. Fred Thompson was going to run away with it once he declared. Well, he declared and he is not running away with it.

Gingrich is sitting back, hoping the others will fail. He is waiting on the sidelines waiting to be invited into a race in which the Republicans are going to lose. Newt saved them before and he should not be underestimated. When you consider all the skeletons that have come out of Giuliani's closet, Gingrich must be pretty confident that his skeletons are not half as bad as Rudy's.

If Rudy Giuliani can be a front runner, so can Newt.

Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain and ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich both attended a recent gala event for Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

"Speaking of Iraq, (McCain) said, 'The temptation is to wash our hands of a messy situation. To follow this impulse, however, portends catastrophe, for Iraq, Israel, and the United States,'" The American Conservative reported.

Gingrich, meanwhile, awaited the proceedings "with a somewhat bored expression on his face," and didn't exactly impress in his speech, according to TAC.

What role will the Mideast, and the Bible prophecies that inspire some Christian Zionists, play in the 2008 presidential election? TAC did note that the CUFI event attracted 4,500 people, and that the gathering included many powerful televangelists. Is this the support that McCain and Gingrich have been praying for?

According to the latest Gallup, Barack Obama is now only 1 point ahead of a guy who isn't even running, and John Edwards is sinking toward singled digits.

Democrats
Clinton 42 (+5 vs. 7/6 - 7/8 poll)
Obama 19 (-2)
Gore 18 (+2)
Edwards 10 (-3)
Richardson 3 (+1)

Oh, but Bill Richardson has picked up another point. This is one of the first polls since Obama made a probably-deadly series of gaffes on visiting foreign leaders and invading Pakistan. On one hand, I'm sure Team Clinton appreciates the support, but again, they like having Obama around. He sucks up a lot of energy and he is no serious threat whatsoever. Not that Edwards is, but the field right now is nice and clear and the Hillary path to the Democratic nomination looks smooth.

Though evidently there are a few still out there in the blogosphere. In fact, Chris Wallace, and Fox News Sunday put out a call to Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to come forth and defend the embattled Attorney General, and guess what? In what may be a first in political history, the microphones were silent. It seems that the only GOP guy up to the task was the ever-reticent presidential candidate, New Gingrich, who laid it on the line without much prodding. Watch:

Yes, it seems that everyone except the aforementioned bloggers knows a bogus story-line when one hears it. After watching his outlandish performances before congress, those who would continue to defend Alberto Gonzales show themselves to be the most die-hard partisans.

According to the latest Rasmussen Poll, it is a horse race between Fred Thompson (24%) and Rudy Giuliani (23%). However, unlike the Democratic race, it seems like the two candidates at the top in July, may not be the Republican nominee when the convention votes are finally casts.

On June 19th, Thompson was receiving 28% of the support of likely voters. Each of the succeeding weeks saw some slippage: 27%, 27%, 25% and now 24%. It seems that Fred's support is not growing as people get to know him.

On May 1, Giuliani was at 30% and his support has slowing slipped away. For the last four weeks, he has polled either 24% or 23%.

Romney and McCain are tied for third with 12%. However, it seems that John McCain is dropping and Mitt Romney is waiting for an event that will pull him to the top.

If I were Newt Gingrich and I saw these polls, I would be convinced that Republican voters haven't found the candidate that they want to represent them in the battle against Hillary Clinton. What do you think?

Robert Novak is reporting that Newt Gingrich is waiting to see how Fred Thompson does in the next couple of months. If it appears that the campaign of Fred is dead, Newt will jump in and save the party. The story goes on to report that Gingrich was very much involved in the defeat of the "immigration bill" which was strongly supported by President Bush. There is no question that Gingrich is going to make President Bush the target of his campaign. He will not be saddled by the Bush failures.

Once Fred Thompson hits the campaign trail, his weakness will become obvious. He will drop in the polls and Gingrich will announce. Look for a September announcement.

In a pretty amazing rise for an "exploratory" presidential campaign, Fred Thompson has caught up with Rudy Giuliani in the latest nationwide Rasmussen poll:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has to share his spot atop the field of Republican Presidential hopefuls this week. The newest face in the race, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, is now tied with Giuliani. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds each man earning support from 24% of likely Republican Primary voters. A week ago, Giuliani had a six percentage point lead over Thompson, 23% to 17%.

The remaining main GOP contenders rank as follows: John McCain and Mitt Romney at 11%, with Newt Gingrich at 7%. With Newt now saying that it is unlikely that he will enter the race, from here on in Rasmussen won't be polling him. Unless Gingrich changes his mind.

McCain's dropping like a stone. Even his approval rating in his own state of Arizona is now at 47%. That's remarkable, since he's usually been overwhelmingly popular at home.

It's looking as if the Republican presidential primary race is going to soon be going forward with only four participants -- Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Romney, and McCain. The rest simply won't be able to raise any money to be competitive. By the fall, there will probably only be three.

HT to fellow Ohio blogger BizzyBlog.

Newt Gingrich has a column out today where he takes mainly his fellow Republican and President George W. Bush to task. In it he makes the explicit accusation that Bush is threatening to not enforce the law if he doesn't get the comprehensive immigration reform passed into law:

The Attempt to Blackmail the American People by Threatening to Refuse to Enforce the Law Without a New Bill Is Disgraceful: A number of powerful figures in the Bush Administration and in the Senate have been saying that if we do not agree to pass this destructive bill, they will never enforce the law. Tell your senator that this is an extraordinary effort to blackmail the American people by having officials state that they will fail to perform their sworn duty, and we won't stand for it.

It's nothing that hasn't been said before, but it's strongly worded and it's said by someone (Newt) who has a lot of credibility with conservatives. At this point within Republican circles, the fight with the Democrats is almost a sideshow. The main event is between GWB and the rank-and-file. He wants immigration reform, they want the current laws enforced. This threat to hold the enforcement hostage to amnesty is doing nothing but increasing the intensity level and anger of the base.

Regardless of your political persuasion, you have to respect Newt Gingrich as a political genius. After the most recent French election, Newt pointed out that the conservative candidate ran a smart campaign. He was succeeding Jacques Chirac who was no longer popular and faced a variety of scandals. Nicolas Sarkozy ran .... away from Chirac and won. The liberal candidate lost.

Gingrich is carving up President Bush, portraying him as an incompetent president. Once again, Gingrich is placing himself in the position of saving the Republican party. There is none more conservative. He can master mind an upset. He is warning Republicans that they will lose it all if the Republican nominee is considered to be a continuation of the Bush presidency. To be more specific, here is an extract from that article:

"He has roundly criticized the Bush administration in recent interviews, describing the White House as dysfunctional and saying the president has driven the party into collapse. While he refrained from direct criticism Friday, he cited failures in Iraq, border security and the response to Hurricane Katrina as signs of a broken government." And this is just the beginning of a long list of Bush failures.

With all due respect to my fellow AOL Blogger, John Mullaney, don't worry about Newt in the GOP race. Oh he's likely to run, but he's not going to win -- not a chance. In one sense, that's a shame because he's the purest ideological conservative that's likely to run this season. But he's also got insurmountable problems.

Problem #1: The Affair

While carrying the water for the Clinton impeachment, it turns out that Gingrich carried on an affair with a 33 year old women while married to his second wife. I can't imagine any Republican who wants to defend this level of hypocrisy in 2008.

Problem #2: The high negatives

I have my doubts as to whether, even without the affair, Newt could win a national election. For four years, from 1994 - 1998 he had nothing but personal attacks and demonization from his political enemies. His caustic nature didn't help. That part didn't bother me, I like a fighter, but a president takes something more than being a warrior, it takes being a happy warrior. Newt has the first part in spades, but not the second.

It appears as though Fred Thompson is pleased with the response to his potential candidacy:

"It's pretty clear that Fred is going to be leaving the cast of the show no matter what," Reilly said at a news conference on NBC's fall schedule.

He later left the door slightly ajar by saying it was "highly unlikely" Thompson would be back. Thompson certainly wouldn't return to prime-time network television if he chooses to run, he said.

I can't think of any reason short of running for president that Thompson would leave the show.

I would expect him to hold out for a while longer while he continues his work at ABC Radio and other media outlets. Once he joins the race, he'll have to resign those jobs to avoid the screaming of equal time from the other candidates.

Oh, John McCain, just when I think you've gone off the rails, you come back and say something that makes me like you all over again. Today's bit of straight talk comes on the subject of global warming. It's no secret that McCain, like Newt Gingrich, thinks this is a major problem. But unlike Gingrich, McCain has vowed to set caps on greenhouse gas emissions if he is elected president. Here are a couple of leaked excerpts from the speech McCain will deliver on the matter:

"The problem isn't a Hollywood invention nor is doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra-like hysterics. It is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge."

"The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God's creation."

Be careful, Senator, some in your party won't like this talk. Karl Rove, for instance, seems a bit sensitive on the subject, as evidenced by his testy run-in with Sheryl Crow and Laurie David at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. And there are the legions of doubters who say "fiddle-faddle" to the concept that human beings should, or can do anything to curb the rise of greenhouse gasses. McCain ties cutting emissions to coming up with alternative fuels which will also lead to energy independence from enemy states like Venezuela and Iran. It's that kind of big-picture thinking that makes him sound, well, Presidential again. No doubt to some, however, it will simply make him seem like more of a Democrat.

A couple of interesting polls released today, and the one I want to focus on is the CNN one where they are trying to gauge the effect of Gingrich and Thompson on the overall field. The actual poll is a pdf, but I'll pull out the interesting part here:

With Gingrich:
Giuliani - 27%
McCain - 24%
Thompson - 10%
Gingrich - 8%

Without Gingrich
Giuliani - 30%
McCain - 24%
Thompson - 12%

So the Gingrich voters went to either Giuliani, Thompson, or the misc "others" category.

Now for the "without Thompson" look:
Giuliani - 31%
McCain - 25%
Gingrich - 10%

In all of this Romney's numbers never really moved much, around 10-12%. He's not a player and they didn't test the field in "without Romney" scenario.

Two interesting things here, one is that yes, Thompson and Gingrich are both cutting into Giuliani's potential voter pool. The good thing for Giuliani is that he is pulling conservative voters. The bad thing is that Fred Thompson is a real threat to him.

As for McCain what can we say. his 25% of the vote didn't budge an inch. He can only hope that Fred Thompson gets in the race and he can hang on to that 25%, but it's more than worth noting that for the Thompson and Gingrich voters didn't move to McCain when they had no other choice.