Gingrich to make his bid for US presidency

FORMER House speaker Newt Gingrich is running for president.

His spokesman Rick Tyler said that Gingrich will make it official tomorrow with announcements on Facebook and Twitter.

Gingrich is set to address the Georgia Republican Party Convention on Friday. “That will be his first speech as a presidential candidate,” Tyler said.

Gingrich has made no secret of his White House ambitions. He’s been raising money and assembling a campaign team for months.

Last week his camp quietly opened a campaign headquarters in Atlanta.

Getting into the race marks a comeback attempt by the former Georgia congressman who stepped down from the House after four tumultuous years as speaker.

He had led the GOP to its first majority in the House in 40 years, spearheading the Republican revolution.

A spending fight between Gingrich and former President Bill Clinton led to a shutdown of part of the federal government in 1995 and 1996. In recent months, the 67-year-old Gingrich has lambasted President Barack Obama’s federal health law and has criticised the Democrat’s foreign policy as “clueless.”

He’s travelled frequently to the early primary and caucus states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

The twice-divorced Gingrich has also been working to make inroads with social conservatives critical to the GOP primary base, highlighting his conversion to Catholicism after marrying his third wife, Callista.