"Gingrich seems to be a pretty disgusting fellow across the board"

The problem with all of this is that it presumes that the only meaningful factor in assessing a potential president is to look at the policy positions they take as a candidate. In reality, though, neither “the establishment” nor ordinary voters actually operate that way.

Policy positions are pretty far down the list of reasons most of us don’t want Gingrich to be our standard bearer. Indeed, despite being closer to me on a host of public policy issues than Obama, I’d be hard pressed to vote for Gingrich in a head-to-head matchup. Simply put, I don’t believe Gingrich is morally fit to be president.

I continue to believe Bill Clinton should have been removed from the presidency for his sleazy conduct as president and that his sleazy conduct as governor should have been enough to keep him out of office. Once upon a time, Gingrich professed to believe that, too. But Clinton’s problems all stemmed from an inability to keep it in his pants; his crimes were limited to lying about it when caught. Gingrich seems to be a pretty disgusting fellow across the board. There are the two divorces under very unfortunate circumstances. The numerous ethics violations in four short years as Speaker. The personal pettiness. The hypocrisy. The lobbying.

I was a big Gingrich fan in 1994. While, in hindsight, I find some of the tactics used to get attention for himself and bring discredit on the Democratic House leadership of the day unsavory, he was a shrewd tactician. And he was as articulate a spokesman for core Republican principles as any national politician since Reagan.

But, like many a revolutionary, he was a lousy leader once he took power. He was constantly maneuvered into corners by Bill Clinton, who managed to use Gingrich as a foil in his triangulation policy. Gingrich alienated most of his own caucus and the country within a few months and became the bogey man of the 1996 elections, with every Republican morphing into his likeness in all the ads.