The Twitter candidate: Newt Gingrich TWEETS official announcement of 2012 presidential bid
Newt Gingrich has formally declared that he is running for President with an announcement on Twitter.
The former House Speaker is now the third official Republican candidate, joining Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty for the honour of taking on Barack Obama in 2012.
He had made earlier statements on both Twitter and Facebook announcing that he would be discussing a potential bid on Fox News tonight.
But apparently he could not wait.
Bid: Newt Gingrich will formally announce that he his running for president on Fox News on Wednesday
'Today I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States,' he tweeted at approximately 4.20 pm.
He included a link to an election video, and updated his Twitter profile to include 'candidate for president'.
The Republican hopeful has been publicly laying the groundwork for a presidential bid for months.
Mr Gingrich, 67, will make his first speech as a presidential candidate when he addresses the Georgia Republican Party Convention on Friday.
Twitter announcement: Newt Gingrich tweeted the news of his bid
SERIAL HUSBAND: NEWT GINGRICH
The 67-year-old former Speaker of the House has been married three times and divorced twice.
The presidential hopeful reportedly served divorce papers on his first wife Jackie while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer.
Then when married to his second wife, Ginther, he embarked on an affair in the mid-90s with blonde Castilla Bisek, who is 23 years his junior.
Mr Gingrich was at the time an outspoken critic of President Bill Clinton’s affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Mr Gingrich married his former congressional aide Callista in 2000 and says they have a great marriage.
In an interview earlier this year he said he had sought God's forgiveness for mistakes in his past.
'There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,' he said.
On Saturday, he will speak at Ronald Reagan’s alma mater, Eureka College in Illinois.
Mr Gingrich has spent months raising money, assembling a campaign team and visiting early primary states. He also quietly opened a campaign headquarters in Atlanta.
But the biggest challenge for three-times married and twice divorced Mr Gingrich could be his colourful personal life.
Gingrich served divorce papers on his first wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer.
The former U.S. House speaker then had an affair with Callista, a former congressional aide and now his third wife, while married to his second wife.
He is only the third Republican contender to announce that he will run.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty have both taken the initial steps toward a White House run in 2012 by setting up an exploratory committee.
Mr Gingrich's entry into the race marks a comeback attempt by the former Georgia congressman who stepped down from the House after four tumultuous years as speaker in the 1990s.
He led the GOP to its first majority in the House in 40 years, spearheading the Republican revolution in the 1994 elections.
But a spending fight between Gingrich and President Bill Clinton led to federal government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996.
He faced ethics questions during part of his tenure and left Congress in 1999.
Mr Gingrich has lambasted Obama's federal health law and has criticised the Democrat's foreign policy as ‘clueless’.
