He’s also on the speaking circuit — facing off with former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at Penn State University last week. True to form, he detoured to check out the school’s “Lunar Lion” — its entrant into the Google Lunar X-Prize science competition. “It’s a groundbreaking project,” he gushes, “all for one-tenth of what it would cost NASA.” Then there’s the new movie project, “God Loves You: The Life of Billy Graham,” a documentary about the iconic evangelist.

Over the weekend, Newt and Callista attended the White House Correspondents Dinner as guests of CNN. The following day he appeared on ABC’s “This Week” — his second appearance since the start of the year. He’s been on CNN nearly a dozen times since January, and even scored a cameo appearance on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.”

The traditional ladder by which people rise in Washington, running for office, is essentially no longer available to Gingrich — advisers admit as much even as the man himself remains coy. So Gingrich is trying to turn one part Al Gore, one part Oprah — working to build a broad empire to regain and expand his influence.

POLITICO fingered Gingrich as the potential co-host of a revived “Crossfire” on CNN, the much-maligned current events debating show famously skewered by Jon Stewart in 2004.