While Newt Gingrich and his wife are off on a two-week Greek cruise to recuperate from three exhausting weeks of campaigning, his political operation is imploding. The AP and Politico are currently reporting that six senior campaign staffers–including campaign manager Rob Johnson and spokesman Rick Tyler–are quitting en masse.
The campaign has never really been on steady footing, from the bungled initial announcement to his brazen flip-flop on intervention in Libya to a second brazen flip-flop on the Paul Ryan Medicare plan to questions about extravagant spending at Tiffany’s to skipping the Ralph Reed gathering for social conservatives last week. The two-week luxury cruise around the Mediterranean–can we please hear no more of John Kerry’s windsurfing?–was reportedly the final straw for some of Gingrich’s most loyal staffers.
The biggest worry from Gingrich skeptics in the GOP had been whether the famously undisciplined former Speaker could engage in the hard, tedious work of campaigning for the nomination. A mere month into the campaign, Gingrich’s key aides already have enough evidence to conclude that the answer is: No, he cannot.
