Gingrich unofficially concedes: Did he harm the party by waiting so long?

After vowing to fight to the convention, Newt reportedly decides to bow out and acknowledge that Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee

Newt Gingrich will reportedly drop out of the GOP presidential race on May 1, after winning just two states: Georgia and South Carolina.
(Image credit: John W. Adkisson/Getty Images)

Newt Gingrich plans to drop out of the Republican presidential nomination race on May 1, campaign aides have told Fox News — and endorse the GOP's presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, at the same time. The decision, which came after Romney's five-primary sweep on Tuesday, is a major reversal for Gingrich, who'd vowed to fight all the way to the convention in August. Did Newt damage the GOP by waiting so long to bow out?

Yes. He should have been gone well before this: Gingrich certainly "didn't help his party or the conservative movement" with his needlessly drawn out campaign, says Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post. He added nothing to the debate, short of his plan to colonize the moon. If anything, he weakened his party's chances in the fall. "His attack on [fellow Republican] Paul Ryan's Medicare plan may reverberate in the November election. His attack on Mitt Romney's Bain experience lent credence to the Left's class warfare."

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