Newt Gingrich Invests Remaining Campaign Cash in Mega Millions Lottery
Long-shot U.S. presidential contender Newt Gingrich has unvieled a bold new strategy for keeping his faltering bid for the Republican Party's nomination alive despite the near mathematicalÂ certaintyÂ that rival Mitt Romney willÂ ultimatelyÂ beÂ declaredÂ the nominee. America's two major parties determineÂ theirÂ candidates for president through a months-longÂ byzantineÂ process of primary elections conducted in each U.S. state and territory. Each contest awards candidates a certain number ofÂ delegatesÂ who will make theÂ officialÂ choice at party conventions in late summer. A candidate must accumulate 1144Â delegatesÂ to win. Â More than half the contests have already taken place andÂ Romney currently has 550Â delegatesÂ compared to Gingrich's 132. Despite his infinitesimalÂ chances at winning he race, Gingrich has vowed to stay in to the end. This quest is looking increasingly difficult, however, because Â his campaign isÂ reportedlyÂ millions deep in debt and has little cash on hand. Calls for Gingrich to bow out have beenÂ deafening, and have Â grown louder as the press has revealed that taxpayers are stillÂ paying thousands of dollars a day for his security detail. "With this $100,000 I have 100,000 chances to win a $55 million cash jackpot." Yet the mathematicallyÂ challenged former history professor has announced today that he not be dropping out and will instead be seeking to replenish his campaignÂ resourcesÂ by investing the remainder of his campaign's cash balance into thousands ofÂ Mega Millons lottery tickets. "What the liberal mediaÂ elitesÂ don't want the American people to understand is that there is always a way to raise money if you need it.," announced Gingrich at a press conference carried live by all major American news networks, "With this $100,000 I have 100,000 chances to win a $55 million cash jackpot - which will be more than enough to pay for a campaign to defeat Mitt Romney by 70 points in all the remaining states." Although purchasing multiple tickets does indeed increase the odds of winning the lottery, experts calculate that Gingrich's chances of winning the jackpot with 100,000 tickets will only be 0.056 percent. The Daily Currant emailed Gingrich at hisÂ campaign's official email address asking for comment on these calculations. After a few days someone claiming to be Gingrich emailed from a Hotmail account to say simply: "I will be the nominee."