"I Knew Ronald Reagan: You're No Reagan, Newt"

GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich this week attempted to compare his troubled campaign's recent upheavals to those experienced by Ronald Reagan at the launch of his ultimately successful 1980 White House bid -- a claim dismissed out of hand by a former senior Reagan staffer.

In recent days the former House Speaker's top aides and fundraisers have abandoned him.  He has lost all six of his paid staff in Iowa -- along with some in South Carolina and other key states.

Along with that, former Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue dropped out as Gingrich national campaign co-chair to join Tim Pawlenty’s bid for the White House.

Gingrich reacted by noting Reagan’s campaign had 13 aides quit before the 1980 New Hampshire primary but he still went on to win that first-in-the-nation -- and the general election.

"If I had to choose Reaganomics or 13 staffers quitting, I think for the average working American Reaganomics was a much better deal,” Gingrich said.

The only problem is that former history professor Gingrich may be shading the facts. Former Reagan campaign staffer Richard V. Allen -- and later National Security Adviser -- dismissed the comparison as inaccurate. Comparing the two campaigns is “a very long stretch, indeed,” he told FrumForum.

Reagan fired his campaign manager, John Sears, on the day of his New Hampshire primary victory.  On this decision, Allen says it “was a warranted, well-planned, and exquisitely executed action by Governor Reagan and those around him.”

One decided to make strategic cuts to his campaign team, while the other is having his crew trickle out from beneath him. In the words of Allen, “There is a difference between being fired and quitting in despair and disgust.”

This brief summary of Reagan’s initial 1980 teething problems underscores the superficiality of any comparisons between the two campaigns. With Reagan, the staff shake-up amounted to the candidate assuming more control of his campaign -- while Team Gingrich seems to be in its death throes.

The former Speaker’s campaign is estimated to be about one million dollars in debt -- and struggling to raise funds. At this point for Reagan in 1979, his campaign had already raised $1.4 million.