Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a pro-life advocate, says he is more inclined than not to consider a presidential bid in 2012 seeking the GOP nomination against pro-abortion President Barack Obama.
Gingrich says he will probably not make a decision until late February or early March of next year but he says talking to friends and colleagues about a presidential bid is making him lean towards running.
In his comments, in an interview with Fox news Sunday, Gingrich says he sees the potential for winning the nomination and a general election contest against Obama is “doable” but he believes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the nomination bid to John McCain in 2008, is “probably the front-runner.”
“We’re much more inclined to run than not run,” Gingrich said. “Everything we’ve done over the last year, talking to friends, thinking things through, has made us more inclined to believe that it’s doable.”
He also said he believes pro-life former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is probably the most popular Republican of those named as possible GOP presidential candidates, but he told the television station he believes the polls put him high up in the field and in a place to launch a competitive campaign.
He called former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin “a phenomenon in her own right.”
Meanwhile, Huckabee told Politico he doesn’t understand why the mainstream media is mostly paying attention to pro-life former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin when he is leading many polls and other candidates are faring well in potential matchups.
“She’s brought an enormous amount of energy to the party. As to why she seemingly draws 10 times the attention, I don’t know,” Huckabee said .
Palin has received considerable attention for her book tours, but Huckabee says his own tour was drawing crowds of up to 1,400 people and he told Politico media outlets largely ignored that.
“You’re never going to read that. I’m never going to be breaking news because I made a comment on Twitter and Facebook. Why is that? I don’t know,” he said, referring to Palin’s penchant for getting major media attention when she comments on issues of the day via popular social networking web sites.
Ultimately, Huckabee says the media should be focusing more on him because numerous polls show him either leading the potential Republican primary election campaign or potential matchups against Obama.
“I just don’t understand how it is that a person can read these polls day after day and the narrative is constantly everybody but me,” Huckabee said. “Whether I do it or not, the fact is that if one looks at the overall body of information that’s available, nobody would be in a better position to take it all the way to November.”
