The finance team  for the Newt Gingrich Republican presidential campaign has walked out, just two weeks after sixteen campaign aides, including top-level staffers, quit en masse while the former Speaker was on a yacht in the Greek isles. Gingrich is an openly-anti-gay Republican candidate for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.
READ: Gingrich Says “Campaign Begins Anew” Amid Mass Exodus Of 11 Aides
“Fundraising director Jody Thomas and fundraising consultant Mary Heitman have both abandoned the campaign, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond confirmed Tuesday,” the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reports.
“The campaign will continue to reorganize,†said Hammond. “We are as committed as we ever were to running our solutions oriented, substance first campaign.â€
Hammond added that the campaign still has “over a dozen staffers†and that the finance director job would be filled internally by a longtime Gingrich loyalist.
The latest departures come just a week before the fundraising deadline for the second quarter — an early test of strength for the Republican field.
They also come on the heels of reports that Gingrich is struggling to raise money — his former advisers said he didn’t have the $25,000 to pay the filing fee to enter the Ames Straw Poll or the $30,000 needed to buy the list of previous Iowa caucus attendees — and spending heavily on luxuries like chartered jets.
Given those fundraising realities, Gingrich will likely be left with a campaign that centers on appearances at candidate forums and debates and making speeches on a variety of policy topics.
“Newt’s strength is his ability to put forward bold and new ideas,†said Hammond; “We are going to duct-tape together one coalition of Americans after another that believe in his large, bold vision of change,†he added.
Change you can make in your pocket?
Can anyone imagine a President Gingrich? His cabinet, if he could get any takers, one day would walk out en masse. Is it any wonder Gingrich shut down the government when he was Speaker? Did anyone ever investigate if he shut it down, or if they all just quit?