Will Newt Gingrich's statements about a "broken" criminal justice system get attention as he launches a run for President?

As reported in this new AP article, "Newt Gingrich is running for president." Here are the basics:

The former House speaker disclosed his bid on Twitter and Facebook on Monday and urged followers to tune into Fox News on Wednesday.  "I will be on to talk about my run for president of the United States," Gingrich wrote after spending a year or more publicly laying the groundwork for a GOP presidential candidacy.  "I have been humbled by all the encouragement you have given me to run."

The move was hardly a surprise; Gingrich has spent months raising money, assembling a campaign team and visiting early primary states.  He also quietly opened a campaign headquarters in Atlanta, and had long been scheduled to address the Georgia Republican Party Convention on Friday in Macon, Ga.  Aides say that will be his first speech as a full-fledged candidate.

Gingrich, 67, enters a Republican field that's far from fully formed; no less than a dozen Republicans are weighing bids and only a few have taken steps toward candidacies.  It's a crop of candidates that has many in the Republican Party yearning for more options as they seek the strongest candidate to take on President Barack Obama in 2012.

Besides high name recognition, Gingrich brings to the race a slew of policy ideas, a network of grass-roots support and a political machine years in the making.  But his personal baggage — he's on his third marriage — could hinder his chances as he seeks to woo conservatives who make up the core of the GOP primary electorate.

Ths AP article leave out what I find most interesting and notable about Gingrich build up to this run for President: his active and vocal involvement in the Right on Crime Campaign, in which he has stated explicitly in a co-authored commentary that the US "can no longer afford business as usual with prisons" and that the "criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it."

I expect and fear (and lament) that Gingrich's important concerns with US crime and punishment policies will get overshadowed by lots of other issues.  But Gingrich has already said more about these issues than any other nationally-prominent politician, and I will reamin hopeful that his work and his advocacy concerning these matters will get some additional national media attention int he weeks and months ahead.

Some recent and older related posts on Gingrich and the modern politics of sentencing issues:

• Newt Gingrich says "criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it"
• "Right on Crime: The Conservative Case for Reform" officially launches
• "NAACP, right-wing foes get friendly" when it comes to prison costs
• "Conservatives latch onto prison reform"
• When and how will state GOP leaders start cutting expensive criminal justice programming?
• New poll reports that large majority of Americans consider "War on Drugs" a failure
• Can GOP "Pledge to America" be read to suggest drawing down federal involvement in the drug war?
• Green tea party: will Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or other professed liberty lovers support ending pot prohibition in California?
• What does the tea party movement have to say about taxing and spending on the death penalty, the drug war and mass incarceration?
• Will we invest in classrooms or cells in these tough times?