Newt Gingrich Is Running-- For Multimillionaire

Yesterday George Will admitted that even the rubes who actually favor handing the Republicans back the keys to the car are "detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party." He careened from the jaw-dropping and remarkably unserious buffoonery of Mike Huckabee, the front-runner in the entire South (which now very firmly controls the Republican Party it once eschewed for freeing the slaves) to-- speaking of unserious-- the on-again-off-again peekaboo candidacy of Newt Gingrich. Speaking for the Inside-the-Beltway old line Republican Establishment, Will brokers no patience for the institutional craziness that is now his beloved GOP. In his tiny world-that-once-was there's no need for all this sturm und drang that exists around your Sarah Palins, Michele Bachmanns, Mike Huckabees, und Newt Gingriches.

Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon-- Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.

So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.

I guess Will doesn't watch the only GOP-appropriate TV station or inundate himself in the real Republican Party debate which takes place everyday on Hate Talk radio-- a world where birtherism, political psychosis and disdain for logic are requisites, not just for the debaters but for the candidates as well. In that world, most of them never heard of Pawlenty, Huntsman, Haley Barbour or Mitch Daniels. They all know very well who Palin and Gingrich are. And Palin and Gingrich, unlike most of the Will contenders, poll in the double digits everywhere.

To Republican shot-callers like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich is a very plausible candidate and president. Although Newt must have forgotten to stop by the MSNBC studios for an interview on his way to Fox, I hope you watched the Rachel Maddow clip at the very top. She may not see eye-to-eye with George Will on much else, but she agrees that he's not a serious contender. Like Palin, Newt is just in it for appearances and enhanced money-making capacity. This despite the straight face he kept when he told Hannity that "My expectation is by the end of this exploratory process, they will have an announcement and we'll be in the race."

Gingrich's "exploratory web site"-- rather than the traditional (and FEC-regulated) exploratory committee-- allows Gingrich to do what he's does professionally these days: suck up unregulated money from suckers who think he's running for office and then pocket it. He'll be able to milk that ruse for at least two months.

Also in yesterday's Washington Post right-wing pundit Kathleen Parker explains that the "candidates" using the prospect of running to rake in the dough for themselves (not campaigns, money for lifetsyles and new houses in Florida and stuff)-- Huckabee, Gingrich and Palin-- exist on the drama. She points out that even Palin is "smart enough to know that she's most interesting when she's keeping her fans in suspense."

As with romance, it's the mystery that keeps suitors coming back. Even so, this endless drama, this turning over of every scrap, exhausting the insignificant, is enough to make one long for constancy.

This isn't mere non-news fatigue. Rather, it is the growing sense that nothing matters when everything does. We all understand the grinding demands of the 24-7 news beast, to which we are both slave and master. But even monsters need a nap.

It is perhaps testament to these tumultuous times that we are riveted by every flicker and utterance. Political polarization has so defined us that we are always deployed in campaign mode, never in repose. Politics is, among other things, spectacle, but there's something dreary about the incessancy. Familiarity doesn't only inspire contempt; it deadens the senses.

Eventually, assuming we're still cognizant, candidates will declare themselves. We'll rehash their pasts, squirm through debates, and watch glaze-eyed as the pageant plays out. But I for one can wait. Not knowing how it ends may be all that's left to enjoy.