He never could have pulled it off were it not for Romney’s shortcomings. For whatever reason, Romney seems like a creature put on Earth to blend in with the humans and report back what he finds. He clearly likes earthlings, and they in turn find him pleasant enough, and surprisingly lifelike. Occasionally he finds the right words, but he rarely connects them to the right tone. This dearth of convincing passion in the front-runner makes the passionate base of the party want to look elsewhere — even to Newtzilla…

No doubt there’s a temptation in the Romney camp to out-populist Gingrich, to beat him at his own game. It would be a good strategy if Romney was up to the task. But my hunch is that we would only see an unconvincing animatronic impersonation, a MechaNewtzilla, if you will.

Right now Romney’s best hope is time, because history shows the only thing that can truly defeat Newtzilla is Newtzilla himself. The question is, is there time?