Republican Newt Gingrich, the former house speaker who has suddenly found himself in the spotlight again, warned this week that a third party could change the nation’s political game come 2012. Addressing students at the College of the Ozarks, Mr. Gingrich insisted the Republican Party’s right-wing status could pave the way for a new party’s ascension: "If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right-wing party of government, then I think you would see a third-party movement in 2012." The government’s so "sick," he said, that voters may launch an electoral revolution in the polls.

Gingrich later admitted that the GOP must take some of the blame for the nation’s current crisis, including an inflation in government spending, according to CNN: "If you’re going to talk about big spending, the mistakes of the Bush administration last year are fully as bad as the mistakes of Obama’s first two, three months.”

The 65-year-old also said that he’ll decide in a few years whether or not he wants to run for the White House. And, we’re sure, he’s waiting to see how viable his party will be after the 2010 senatorial and gubernatorial elections. Gingrich himself seems to be doing well among his party peers: He replaced former darling Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker at a GOP fund-raiser dinner