[Al Jazeera] Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, appears set to join the race for the Republican presidential nomination to challenge Barack B.O.Obama in 2012.
The deeply conservative Gingrich ranks among the best-known Republicans in the still-forming group of candidates for next year's contest for the White House.
"I have been humbled by all the encouragement you have given me to run," Gingrich wrote on Monday in his official announcement on Facebook and Twitter. He said he would talk more about his bid on Wednesday on Fox News.
Gingrich also brings considerable negative political baggage: three marriages, a resignation under an ethics cloud while leader of the House, and a tendency to shoot from the hip when speaking.
In 1994, Gingrich led the Republican Party to its first House majority in 40 years. But any Republican candidate could face insurmountable difficulties in defeating the incumbent Obama, who remains personally popular with Americans and has seen his job approval rating rise notably since last week's killing of al-Qaeda chief the late Osama bin Laden.
... who abandoned all hope when he entered there...
Obama is expected to raise as much as $1bn to finance his bid for re-election, and has proven himself a highly effective campaigner.
History would suggest a difficult path for Gingrich. While many former presidents and candidates for that office have served in the House, the last president to have served as House Speaker was James K Polk, a Tennessee Democrat, in 1844.
Successful presidential candidates more often move into the job from the vice presidency, the Senate or the governorship of one of the 50 states.
Gingrich has made no secret of his White House ambitions. He has been raising money and assembling a campaign team for months and has travelled frequently to states that hold early presidential primary elections or caucuses.
