WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- The Republican party has three serious contenders to be its standard-bearer in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, former House speaker Newt Gingrich says.
Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee who has yet to enter the race, would be "formidable," Gingrich said on "Fox News Sunday." The GOP also has strong candidates in former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Gingrich didn't eliminate tossing his hat into the ring.
After running an American Solutions workshop addressing issues facing the United States in September, he said "if there's a real need for someone to be prepared to debate (Democratic hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.), then I would consider running. I think we'll know that in October."
Arizona Sen. John McCain "has taken positions so deeply at odds with his party's base that I don't see how he can get the nomination," Gingrich said. But Thompson, Romney or Giuliani "would be a very formidable opponent" for the Democratic 2008 ticket, which he said could be Clinton and Sen. Barrack Obama, D-Ill., the party's front-runners so far.
Neither party, he said, recognizes "the scale of the performance failure of government as a system."
