Newt #7 -- How long can he stretch it out?

Newt's efforts to summon up a parade that he can jump in front of and call it a mandate must not be doing well. How do I know?

Because he's getting vaguer and vaguer about whether he'll run -- spouting gibberish like this:

"If we find enough volunteer support and enough financial support, we'll almost certainly run. . . . I am contemplating the possibility of thinking about under some circumstances exploring the potential."

In addition, Newt has had a couple of bad weeks. First, he tried to gain some credibility with the Christian base by publically (yet again) confessing his sins of marital infidelity. And it really bombed. Instead of redemption from the right, he got jokes from the late-night comedians.

Second, he loudly accused Obama of dithering on Libya and passively waiting for our European allies to take the lead. Poor, Newt. The timing was bad.

In the same news cycle came news that Obama's cautious, behind the scenes tactics had paid off. With Britain and France taking the lead, with strong behind the scenes U. S. backing, we now have U. N. Security Council authorization for the no-fly zone, plus military air strikes on Gaddafi's military forces. This approach avoided a veto from Russia and China (they abstained instead) and it avoided provoking even more anti-American furor on the Arab Street. In fact the Arab League had earlier asked the UN to authorize a no-fly zone, which helped get that 10-0-5 vote.

So, instead of Newt painting Obama as weak, Obama's maturity and wisdom make Newt look brash and uninformed.

The parade isn't forming, of course. The only question is when will the money dry up and convince Newt's magic mirror that he's not, after all, the fairest/smartest of all?

Once you've backtracked from: "I'm leaning toward running' but won't announce my decision yet; to: "contemplating the possibility of thinking about under some circumstances exploring the potential," you're running on fumes and there's no place to go but "I've decided not to run."

Ralph