Is Gingrich Toast (Again)?

In a move that surprised everyone in Washington and no one at Benzinga, key members of Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign team have resigned.According to the AP, campaign manager Rob Johnson and press secretary Rick Tyler have both resigned from Team Gingrich. Also resigning today were aides in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The moves leave Gingrich without key players right before he tries to turn his floundering campaign around.For his part, Gingrich is not yet giving up on the campaign. So far, his campaign has been a how-to guide for what not to do if you want to be President. Gingrich started off by blasting the Paul Ryan Medicaid “reform” plan, calling it conservative social engineering. He later backtracked, but the harm was already done.Then came Blingfest at Tiffany's, where Gingrich faced allegations of taking interest-free loans from Tiffany's (NYSE: TIF), a company regulated by the House committee his wife worked for, and who employed a former top Gingrich aide as a lobbyist.Rumors are circulating that the staffers resigned because Gingrich took a lengthy vacation after announcing for President, showing what some consider to be a total lack of seriousness and focus, two qualities he would need to compete for the nomination and ultimately defeat President Obama in 2012.It might be completely unrelated, but gold has come back a bit since the news first broke that Gingrich's staff was leaving en masse. Might Gingrich's implosion mean good things for gold and bad things for the U.S. dollar, which almost always runs the inverse of gold? Stay tuned.Feel free to start your "When Will Gingrich Drop Out of the Race" betting pools. I've got September 15th in mine.