This GOP bird is cooked

In what one POLITICO source said was a "team decision," Newt Gingrich’s entire senior staff quit en masse today. But Newt -- who's just back from a TWO WEEK Mediterranean cruise with Tiffany-bejeweled wife Callista -- announced on Facebook that "I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring." Right. I wonder how that works without a staff. Anyway, top strategist Dave Carney, who also linked arms and jumped with those abandoning the burning ship, said the professional team's vision for the campaign was "incompatible" with Newt's. To use a Star Trek metaphor, the staff wanted Newt to seriously campaign at maximum Warp speed, 24/7. Callista wanted hubby to cruise leisurely on Impulse power with frequent stopovers for brunch, preferably in tropical climes. (After all, electioneering is so bourgeois, darling.) Callista won. Hence the long vacation 3 weeks after the campaign started. So the staff walked. To be sure, Gingrich will linger in the race, zombie-like, as dead men walking always do. But as for the GOP nomination (and any hope of becoming president), stick a fork in him. He's done.