Newt Gingrich declares bid for US presidency

In a post on Twitter Wednesday, the former House of Representatives speaker made official what has been an open secret for months: "Today I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States."

Gingrich joins the race amid a shifting political landscape, altered 10 days ago when President Barack Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan.

Obama's approval rating hit its highest point in two years, 60 percent, and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday.

In 1994 Gingrich led Republicans to their first majority in the House in four decades and then served four turbulent years as speaker, as the House leader is known.

Gingrich later acknowledged having carried on an affair with a congressional aide, now his third wife, at the same time he was criticizing President Bill Clinton for his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Gingrich's marital history could mean trouble with conservative Christians who turn out in big numbers for the party's nominating primaries.

As speaker of a Republican-controlled House more than a decade ago, he made the sort of deals that current conservative activists say they disdain: creation of a new health care benefit program as part of a balanced budget agreement with President Bill Clinton, for example.

The former Georgia congressman will be among the oldest candidates - if not the oldest - in a still-forming Republican field of politicians with far more recent political experience. Among those considering bids are Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, two darlings of the ultraconservative tea party movement.

In a YouTube video, Gingrich assures viewers, "There's a much better American future ahead with more jobs more prosperity, a better health system, longer lives, greater independent living and a country that is decentralized under the 10th Amendment with power once again back with the American people and away from the Washington bureaucracy." He cites his work with President Ronald Reagan and his time as speaker of the House when he says he led the fight to balance the budget, cut spending and reform welfare; Kazinform cites Arab News.

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