I had no way of predicting that Gingrich was destined to be the nominee, but I thought he would perform well in debates and at least render us a service of sharpening the issues. I did not anticipate he would flame out like a rookie.
As previously posted, it seems to me that Gingrich was simply too arrogant to recognize the depth of the conservative resistance to him. I heard his phone call to Rush Limbaugh and his vaguely self righteous recital of his conservative bona fides going back to the days even before Ronald Reagan. I think he thought that conservatives, who were not even at the age of majority when Newt was standing alone before the cameras assailing the Democrats during special orders, would see him as he saw himself, the fire tempered veteran of conservatism. Gingrich simply did not recognize that he was placed on a very short probation which he promptly violated.
He was too arrogant to see this because Gingrich believes that he could draw the world of conservatism to himself and lead it into a postmodern age of new conservatism. This ceaseless intellectual probing to find the new technological way to govern is very Churchillian and, although he lacks Churchill's gifts, caused Gingrich to suffer the same reaction by people who find this kind of innovative thinking bumptious. The age desperately needs new ideas to apply verities of conservatism but the age is looking for orthodoxy. McCain gave us our fill of Mavericks last cycle.
Just as the British could never fully accept or fully dispense with Churchill because his candle burned too bright and too hot, so Gingrich has pissed people off. Churchill was able to cross and re-cross the aisle and came back from exile thrice, but Gingrich is no Churchill. He simply is not a team player and he violated a visceral sense among conservatives that we must have unity because to lose this election is to risk the Republic and to squander our legacy.
In the end, we might find ourselves nominating someone with counterfeit conservative credentials such as Mitt Romney. Will we wonder what we have cast away.
