Newt Gingrich has done little to be considered a viable candidate, mostly because he spends his time being a punchline for his campaign schedule, staff exodus and self-promotion machine. But, apparently, Gingrich is very serious about becoming a top-tier candidate once again (good luck), and so he'll be making a big, bold new statement in Iowa next week that resurrects the Contract with America pledge he helped usher in a lifetime ago. As The Des-Moines Register reports, he sounds like he's hyping a Hollywood sequel:

It "will be 10 times deeper and more comprehensive than 1994," he told an audience of about 40 people Monday night in Council Bluffs. "Because the truth is, while we changed the system some… we didn’t fundamentally change the underlying system."

And, in the political equivalent of saying his new album will be the best thing since The Beatles, he added:

Gingrich said his ideas, which he will unveil Sept. 29 in Des Moines, are "very big, and they're exactly what Abraham Lincoln would have campaigned on."

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Erik Hayden