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Goodbye Newt, hello Rick Perry! Newt Gingrich’s campaign has imploded, his staffers mutinied, but it all is good news to pro-life Republicans hoping that the current governor of Texas may just be waiting in the wings.

Two dozen Gingrich staffers resigned en masse earlier this week, citing a difference of direction they wanted the campaign to take. One direction they did not like was the Mediterranean course Newt had charted – a two-week cruise among Greece’s isles with his wife Callista. It appears the staff thought Newt taking a personal vacation – shortly after making an official announcement for the presidency – was a bad sign that they did not have a “winner” on their hands.

Two of the staffers, however, are Rick Perry loyalists. Perry is the pro-life, Christian three-term governor of Texas, which state has far more economic prosperity and business-friendliness than the rest of the United States. David Carney was Perry’s chief political advisor, and Rob Johnson managed Perry’s reelection campaign. Both “jumped ship” as the media has started reporting on rumors that the popular, well-spoken Texas governor might step into the race.

Newt contends that he wanted to run something other than the traditional campaign. While that is all fine and good, there’s no replacement for connecting with real voters and donors, who would like to meet and size up the man campaigning for their support. And in the greatest recession the United States has faced since the Great Depression, presidential candidates taking opulent sea cruises hardly appeal to the struggling voter. That and maintaining a $500,000 line-of-credit at Tiffany’s. 

The pro-life and former Speaker of the House has long been a champion of family values and conservative policies. But Democrat opponents were likely to tar and feather Newt as a hypocrite who carried on affairs and divorced his wives when they became severely sick (the first with stomach cancer, the second with MS). Newt married his third wife, Callista, after carrying on an almost decade long affair that was revealed in 1999 – after President Clinton was impeached for perjury over his sexual affair with D.C. intern Monica Lewinsky.

That whole past would inevitably have ended back in the news. Gov. Mitch Daniels has indicated that the very reason he is not in the race for the GOP is because his family does not wish to get involved in a presidential campaign, likely because the media would tear into his family life, and begin asking why his wife left him, and why they remarried. And they would not focus on the positive of that story. They would tear him apart as much as they did to Sarah Palin and Bristol for their own pro-life example under difficult circumstances.

Newt converted to the Catholic Faith two years ago. Although there are always second acts with God, rarely are there second acts in politics. Newt is determined to restart his campaign in Beverly Hills on Monday, but all signs indicate his candidacy capsized on his way back from his “Seabourne Odyssey.”

Now pro-life Republicans are waiting to see what connection Newt’s demise has with renewed talk about a potential Rick Perry run. The GOP still remains dissatisfied with its current crop of candidates (declared and undeclared). Both former governors Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have their partisans who are bitterly opposed to each other. Romney has a massive war chest amassed, but he’s pulled out of straw polls in Iowa, Florida, and Michigan. This will benefit Rep. Michelle Bachmann, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and former Sen. Rick Santorum, who are all aggressively courting social conservative voters in Iowa. For Romney it hardly indicates confidence that he has grassroots support to carry him to the top in the straw polls. Palin hasn’t declared a run yet, but the New York Times and Washington Post (hardly friendly to her) are wasting no time waiting for an announcement. Already they have asked hundreds of readers to do the job of their journalists and help them find any dirt in tens of thousands of newly-released emails from her time as governor.

The GOP’s anti-Romney and anti-Palin factions might find a home in Perry. A Perry run could dissuade Palin from running, but it would likely hurt the rising Herman Cain, a black businessman and former CEO. Cain has strong ties to the fiscal conservative Tea Party movement, and has benefited from GOP voters looking for candidates other than Palin and Romney.

Perry will have his own political baggage to deal with. Every GOP candidate does. But right now, a Perry entrance would shake things up in the GOP race for the presidential nomination. And for pro-life Republicans looking for a leader to emerge, Newt’s demise and Perry’s (possible) rise makes this race even more interesting. If Perry does intend on running, an announcement should come by the end of the Texas legislature’s special session in June, or even by the Fourth of July weekend – Independence Day.