Escaped Frontierland animatronic cowboy Rick Perry is dropping out of the Republican primary at an 11 AM press conference today, reports Politico. He'll be endorsing Newt Gingrich. Last chance to get your Perry gaffe jokes in!

On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen took a little time to delve into Mitt Romney and his evasive answers to questions about releasing his tax returns. The guy made nearly $375,000 from speaking engagements last year which is almost as shocking to Stephen as Romney getting speaking engagements at all. As usual, Stephen gets the last laugh as he appears to be leading the Republican field with a 36% approval rating, one percentage point ahead of Romney.

Out of nowhere, the Miami Herald has dusted off and expanded upon one of Washington's oldest and juiciest political rumors: The one about a rising young beltway journalist and his gay affair with a powerful GOP congressman, and how the journalist shot himself in the head when his lover's political rival threatened to out them. According to the Herald, that rival may have been Newt Gingrich.

Check out Newt Gingrich on Saturday, gabbing with some nice old ladies after a most uncomfortable church service. Who are these women — church elders, pillars of the community, something along those lines? Let's check the AP photo caption: "Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, accompanied by his wife Callista, meets with prisoners during an event at the Jones Memorial AME Zion Church, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012, in Columbia, S.C." Hmm. What gives the AP the impression that these elderly ladies have run afoul of the law?

Last week, Jon Stewart took over Stephen Colbert's Super PAC and now he has to find ways to spend all that money. But, since they can't coordinate with each other, Colbert must give Stewart coded messages while being interviewed on television, exactly like Newt Gingrich must do. Apparently the answer was having Mario Batali feed him an egg frittata.

America's aging class of socially conservative evangelical leaders finally gathered this weekend to pick a presidential candidate to rally around, and, crucially, to make each other feel important again. The 150 or so big-time fundies, including representatives from the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and Focus on the Family, ultimately chose Rick Santorum but came nowhere near a unanimous decision. Let's all congratulate these once-important gatekeepers: For the second straight presidential election, they've swooped in just in time to render themselves useless.

Newt Gingrich is running yet another attack ad on Mitt Romney in South Carolina, this time simply throwing spaghetti at the wall: He's donated to Democrats, voted for a Democrat once, loves abortion, yadda yadda yadda. Also, Mitt Romney is John Kerry, in that they are both from Massachusetts, where the official language is French. Watch Mitt Romney speak French in 2002, like a fool.

On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took a look at Newt Gingrich's last month, wherein he went from leading the field to coming in a distant fourth at the New Hampshire primary. Part of Gingrich's decline has had to do with some choice quotes about African-Americans being on welfare but Gingrich doesn't see it that way. In his mind, he's being magnanimous and generous which is actually pretty predictable.

The Republican presidential nominating contest is blowing wide open, as candidates move from the boring grassroots-organizing lowlands of Iowa and New Hampshire to the broader markets of South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, and everywhere else. So we've compiled a list of collectibles that you — the resident, reporter, operative, thief, cad, provocateur, etc. — can procure for your beloved Gawker Political Desk in return for fair compensation. What are we looking for?

Newt Gingrich already has ads running in South Carolina attacking Mitt Romney as "pro-abortion," and his Super PAC is planning to drop a socialist neutron bomb on Romney's career at Bain Capital, thanks to a large donation from a viciously anti-labor casino magnate billionaire. And here's yet another, lighter attack: A compliation of Mitt Romney saying ludicrous things. (Newt Gingrich, see, has never said anything ludicrous in his life.) Who can resist? Especially since it includes the "Who Let the Dogs Out" MLK Day moment of 2008, the pinnacle of Romney's career.

On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took a look at some of the GOP infighting and realized there's only two things that the field can agree on: that class warfare is bad and that Mitt Romney is too rich. The funny part is that Mitt symbolizes all the free market, no regulations, breaks for job creators stuff that they all spout continually. Did I say "funny?" I actually meant "typical of a group of people willing to say and do anything to get what they want."

Can Newt Gingrich be president for just one day, so we can all watch this on pay-per-view? "I will go to the NAACP convention, and tell the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps."

On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart had his chance to address the results of the Iowa Caucuses. He paid special attention to the candidates' speeches, making sure to highlight Marcus Bachmann's doggie sunglasses shopping spree and Ron Paul's obscure reference to a couple of Austrian economists. Stewart also had some choice words for winner Mitt Romney and his public persona which he purchased along with his victory.

Newt Gingrich never got to complete his political career. He only lasted as Speaker of the House, a job he'd successfully wrangled after plotting his path for a psychotic 14 years, for a couple of terms, the latter half of which he spent as an incompetent figurehead. He was reprimanded and fined for ethics violations and forced out of power by the House Republican majority he'd brought to power for the first time in half a century.

We've got two options here: (1) A person sobs remembering times with his mother, who struggled with bipolar disorder and depression and died of cancer in 2003, or (2) Newt Gingrich does a very Newt Gingrich thing in trying to save his campaign by crying a couple of days before voting starts. Or (3), some sort of comibination. We've got three options here! You decide.

It's hard to imagine that Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum were hoping to be days away from the Iowa caucuses and spending most of their time attacking Ron Paul, who just so happens to be crushing them all. But here they are, and boy howdy are they spitting hot fire at this crabby old doctor-paleolibertarian! Here are some highlights.

Yes, they do ruin Christmas in this web video... for most of you! But as another fat person who enjoys doing the Charleston, I'm partial to this.

Just last week, as Iowans were re-suspecting that he was only in this thing to hawk his dumb Ronald DVDs and alternate histories, Newt Gingrich announced that he would launch a 44-stop(!) bus tour ahead of the caucuses. SEE GUYS? EFFORT.

Considering that Newt Gingrich's typical campaign stop is a book signing or a movie premiere, and that he's Newt Gingrich, one of our nation's more shameless specimens, many have wondered whether, perhaps, this odd 2012 presidential run was merely a promotional stunt for the Gingriches to sell more of their dime-store wingnut porn. This latest outside-group ad that's running in Iowa goes a long way towards confirming that.

Blabbering corpuscle Newt Gingrich told a gay man in Iowa yesterday that he'd rather have gay people just vote for Barack Obama than show the gay community any support. Don't worry, Newt, no one is going to vote for you anyway.