No Newt in White House run

I really appreciate a would-be candidate who steps back, looks at reality, realizes he has a snowball's chance in Barstow of winning, and decides not to run.

"Just last week, (Newt) Gingrich said he had given himself a deadline of Oct. 21 to raise $30 million in pledges for a possible White House bid, acknowledging the task was difficult but not impossible.

He abruptly dropped the idea Saturday, apparently unwilling to give up the chairmanship of American Solutions, the political arm of a Gingrich's lucrative empire as an author, pundit and consultant.

American Solutions, a tax-exempt committee he started last October, has paid for Gingrich's travel and has a pollster and fundraiser on staff. The outfit has raised more than $3 million, mostly from two benefactors who each gave $1 million: Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and North Carolina real estate developer Fred Godley."

There was probably the little voice in his head, too, that said, "People aren't getting that excited about my pre-exploratory talk-show appearances..." It isn't that Gingrich is not a smart or capable guy, it's just that his name is attached to too much, well, history.