Former House Speaker got Bank

Ken Vogel and Kathryn McGarr report on the giant cash sucking noise of Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future.

... the political group quietly pulled in an impressive $8.1 million in the first half of the year, a cash haul that enabled the former Speaker of the House to finance a robust political operation that includes at least 17 employees.

As a 527, Newt's group is barred from doing some of the things other prospective 2012 candidates can do, but it works both ways -- he can raise $ in ways they can't and still do much of what they can.

.... it can pay for Gingrich to do many of the same base-building activities that other prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidates are engaged in. And it raised considerably more money than the political groups of his potential rivals, most of which are registered as federal political action committees, and therefore prohibited from accepting the types of large checks that American Solutions accepted in the first six months of the year.

It might not be a PAC. But Newt's eating up money like Pacman.