Nothing says The Future of the Republican Party like the guy who was Speaker of the House back in the 1990's. Newt Gingrich was a skillful politician and a great legislator but he would look like a relic running against President Obama, much like Bob Dole running against Bill Clinton in 1996. Not only is Gingrich politically past his prime, but he is also out of sync with the much more conservative electorate of 2011.
Many of his innovative policy ideas-such as free market health care reform with an individual mandate and Cap and Trade-have been adopted by Democrats and are now reviled by Republicans. If Mitt Romney is the father of "Obamacare," then Newt Gingrich is surely its grandpa and if I were Romney, I would be sure to out Gingrich and John Huntsman as closet individual mandate enthusiasts.
Also, it seems Newt is a little rusty from his time out of electoral politics. His campaign all-important roll-out was a complete disaster. Gingrich committed the unforgivable political sin of actually speaking his mind in calling Paul Ryan's budget "right wing social engineering." Of course, before you could begin possibly respecting the man, he began to backtrack under intense Republican criticism. Stories about his revolving $500,000 credit line at Tiffany's are also not helping him in a country in which many are still out of work.
Politics is Darwinian and the Newt Gingrich of 2011 is now in the process of adapting to his new hysterically conservative environment. Will he succeed or will this Newt go extinct? (Many Republicans will refuse to understand this metaphor). Based on the early weeks of his campaign, it looks like Gingrich will do the latter, although in 2007, John McCain's campaign was also in shambles. So there is still hope that Newt Gingrich can win the nomination and go on to loose to Barack Obama.
PROS: A genuinely intelligent politician, with a long record of service.
CONS: A lot of Republicans revile intelligence and a long record of service always has things that can be used against him in a campaign.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Gingrich's chances of winning the primary are slim and the general election even slimmer.
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