Review of the 2012 GOP Presidential Candidates: Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is one of the 4 major candidates in the running for the Republican Party's nomination for the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election.  He is most famous for being the Speaker of the House in the 1990s, a face of the Republican Party of the mid-1990s during the Clinton Presidency.

He has the great distinction of being married three times.  His campaign operation has not been the best either.  Newt is not on the Virginia primary ballot, a state where he has the potential to do well in.  However, Newt has had his moments in the sun this campaign cycle.  He was twice the GOP frontrunner, first-a week before the Iowa caucuses, and then the week of the South Carolina primary.  He is currently in the doldrums of polling though.  However, he has been in this position before and subsequently recovered (For example, during the 2011 summer, Newt was in CA courting Asians--that was dumb--Asians don't vote in large numbers in the Republican primary not is CA towards the front of the 2012 primary calendar).

One telling tale for Newt is that while he has the endorsements of many leading conservative pundits such as Rick Perry, Sarah  Palin, and Chuck Norris, the people who presumable know him best are not endorsing him in mass numbers.  You don't see legions and legions of 1990s Republican congressmen sticking their necks out for Newt.

Newt does benefit from being the most rotund of the remaining candidates.  Given how "plump" most Americans are, this may be a relate-able quality that Newt has.

Movie Character Analogy: Cap from Any Given Sunday.  In this movie, Jack "Cap" Rooney, played by Dennis Quaid, is an aging quarterback on a team that searching for an identity, sort of how Team GOP is trying to figure if they want more focus on the economic conservative (Mitt Romney) or the social conservative (Rick Santorum) part of their platform.  Like Cap, Newt is the elder statesman of his team who has led the team to past glory.  Cap winning whatever football championship in that movie and Newt leading the GOP to capture the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.  However, in Any Given Sunday, Cap is upstaged by the new quarterback, Willie Beaman, much like Newt is being upstaged by younger politicians currently.  Later in the movie, Cap's team makes the playoffs and Cap has some very inspiring quarterback play for the 1st half of the game and scores 2 touchdowns, including running one in while (presumably) suffering a career ending injury.  The question is, does Newt have a greater comeback in him to capture the Republican nomination and possible the presidency?

I will be doing a similar review of the remaining 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates (Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul) in subsequent posts.