One Less Shiny Object--The Newt Implosion

Yes, it is true that both Ronald Reagan and John McCain had shake-ups of their top advisers and staff during their presidential campaign. But neither man had their entire campaign staff resign en masse. To be snarky, Newt wanted to counter the Ron Paul "Love Revolution" with his own Newt "Implosion."

Rachel Maddow has been on Newt and his Newt,Inc. from the beginning and last night reviewed Newt's many entrepeneurial efforts. The presidential campaign seemed to be another version of his lucrative enterprises.

But this time it was a little different. To signal his seriousness, he hired a high-price and high-caliber team for both the national campaign and state efforts in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He told the conservative media that his campaign was unprecedented in the annals of presidential politics.

His idea was to perform in set speeches about his ideas,work through Facebook,Tweeter and the Social Networks and then shine in the series of Republican debates. His aides disagreed saying he needed to press real flesh and be seen by the voters in the early primary states. In Iowa , for example, instead of doing the road travel he hired a private jet to wing him from spot to spot. The last time he was seen in New Hampshire his campaign thought he was there to actually campaign. Instead, he and Callista were promoting their DVD documentary on Pope John Paul II.

With other campaigns underway, his campaign staff started seeing the possibility that they would miss out on the whole election cycle and might face the prospect of not getting paid. His top aides met with him in Washington to try and persuade him to change his direction and focus but failed.

Newt had one of the roughest rollouts of any Presidential campaign, delaying the official announcement after many false starts and then when he did, he booked his own appearance on Face The Nation. There he basically told the truth about the Paul Ryan budget as an example of "radical right-wing social engineering". He was forced to pull back from that in interviews with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. But the damage was done. Not a dime came into the coffers after that statement and no major Republican donor signed up for Newt's campaign.

Then we had the flap over Callista's Tiffany account, which at least did not have the right optics. And the straw that broke the staff's back was the sudden decision to take a break and cruise the Greek Islands after only three weeks on the campaign trail. At first, the campaign said that it had been planned in advance but today admitted it was a spur of the moment whim by Newt, who has many such spur of the moment whims.

Remember how Newt had been blessed by both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal as a formidable candidate with loads of ideas and a virtual money-machine. Who can forget his entrance at CPAC to the song "Eye of the Tiger"?

His campaign staff concluded that Newt wanted to run a Potemkin campaign for purposes totally unknown and as a consequence they quit. The Iowa staff was forthcoming in saying they examined the calender for fund-raising opportunities but found their candidate would be nowhere to be found.

Beltway Republicans have seen it all before. Newt is absolutely undisciplined when it comes to politics but not to making money for himself. It was the lack of discipline that provoked the GOP mutiny against him while he was speaker, not the ethics charges. And old hands are saying ,"Now you know what we meant."

But Newt, who claims he is the real "Comeback Kid", says the campaign starts anew in Los Angeles where he will be addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is still scheduled to appear in the debate in New Hampshire and says on his Facebook he will soldier on.

Howard Dean has said that he thought Newt had alot of interesting policy ideas. Newt has been at war with the Wall Street Journal because they trashed his economic plan, which may deserve a new look with Pawlenty's recipe for national destruction. If Newt can stay around for a few debates, he may liven things up a bit. But as for making a serious run for the nomination, he's toast. When your co-chair Gov. Perdue doesn't even blink and endorse Pawlenty, you know you are in deep political trouble.

You know this is a strange election year when you have more sympathy for those not running and who are dropping out than those who remain.