President Newt Gingrich: The conservative insurgency– draft for The Hill on 2/28/12

Hill commentator Dick Morris on a recent Lou Dobbs show was asked about the primary outcome: Mitt Romney wins Michigan and then goes on to sweep Super Tuesday and wins the nomination. He beats Obama and is elected President in 2012.

Makes sense. But Laura Ingraham, who brings intuition to her take, said Tuesday morning on Imus, if Romney wins Michigan, look for a Gingrich insurgence on Super Tuesday. In a word, Gingrich will finally have commandeered the insurgent’s role, taking it finally from Santorum (and Perry, Cain, Bachmann and Paul). And since Sarah Palin was named VP by John McCain in 2008, conservative culture has been in a grass roots insurgency; it is an authentic insurgency in search of its Trickster and that could well be Newt Gingrich.

Intuitive, in my estimation as this race has been influenced by two factors; one, the rise of a garden variety of new ideas and all candidates besides Romney can be seen as proponents of some kind of new thinking; some of it strange (Santorum) some of it lucid (Paul). This calls an end to the conservative tradition if there ever even has been one to end. Two, the “establishment,” a phrase I first used primarily to call on the Bush family apparatus featuring Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, including the Weekly Standard group, featuring Fred Barnes as representative (who first pitched Christie/Jeb Bush 2012), is not really a tradition so much a mainstream power/influence group and they have shown great reluctance to get behind the obvious manager here, Mitt Romney. I can think of no other reason why they opposed him other than the fact that he is a clear thinker and smarter than they are will not be lackey to their initiatives and agendas as George W. Bush was. This has left the field open to the insurgents.

This could be a fatal mistake for the Republicans because without mainstream support behind Romney and with the wicked, perverse and subversive wish for a brokered convention in which Christie and Jeb Bush would emerge, it sends the weight instead to whomever can consolidate the varied publics behind the “new people”: Perry, Cain, Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich, Ron Paul and throw in Sarah Palin. Who would be the single combat warrior to oppose? Newt Gingrich. And bring back Rick Perry as VP.

In a more spooky vein, it is interesting that Gingrich brought up the Lincoln/Douglas debate as with Gingrich it has always come to my mind in my Southern experience the Simon Legree type or archetype; those from elsewhere who come to the South and love it too much. And Obama brings Lincoln to mind considering that Obama fulfills the third goal of the Lincoln era: The first goal to prevent Southern secession, the second to free the slaves, the third to bring egalitarianism between white and black. Obama v. Gingrich in debate does indeed suggest Lincoln v. Douglas; the ghosts of Lincoln and Douglas.

When history finally completes its purposes, it tends to move on. Is it possibly to see Gingrich winning a debate with Obama? Entirely. And thus the presidency? The country has been in a fever these past two years. Absolutely.