NEW ORLEANS -- Few politicians not in the middle of a campaign enter a room quite like Newt Gingrich. While every other speaker at the SRLC entered from backstage, Gingrich walked in from the back of the ballroom with "Eye of the Tiger" blaring through the speakers.

Gingrich isn't running for office now, but he's leaving the door wide open for a bid. Asked by an audience member after his speech whether he would run for president in 2012, Gingrich said: "In February 2011, Calista and I will probably have to make a decision about whether or not to run."

But, he cautioned the audience to keep their sights on 2010. "If we will work as hard as we can from now until Election Day...when we win control of the House and Senate this year, Stage One of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund any of" Obama's agenda.

Stage Two, Gingrich said, is to be prepared to offer positive alternatives "to ensure that Obama joins Jimmy Carter as a one-term president." That's part of Gingrich's push for the GOP to shed its "Party of No" tag that Democrats have successfully attached to it.

Gingrich warned the 2,500-large audience that "this is the most radical administration in American history." He said Obama has a "fantasy foreign policy" and heads "the worst administration since Herbert Hoover." He even attacked the president's jump shot, saying, "We need a president, not an athlete."

"You watch, this economy is not going to recover," Gingrich predicted.

The former speaker of the House is on a mission "To Save America," which happens to be the title of his book that is being released next month. "And the subtitle of it is Stopping Obama's Secular, Socialist Machine," he said.

That machine, Gingrich said, is made up of labor unions and "liberal tenured faculty," among many other groups he said enabled Obama to become president.

"My prediction is: We will win in '10 and in '12, decisive elections," he said.