But Gingrich has real advantages. He will generate some excitement among conservatives. He is a natural emissary to both the establishment and the right. If his personality is not Trumpian, it is big enough not to seem overmatched. No one is as much of a self-promoter as Trump, but Gingrich punches above his weight — in a recent interview, he said, characteristically, that he couldn’t be entirely sure that he would take the VP slot because both he and Callista have new books coming out and they just finished making a new movie about George Washington. Gingrich loves the game and would relish his unlikely return to the top of it like, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the saved and the thankful.

Gingrich’s big upside is that, perhaps outside of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, he is the most glib politician of the past 30 years. Not only would he defend Trump ably, he would put whatever Trump says in the most impressive light possible. You could shake Gingrich awake at 3 a.m., tell him Trump just came out for nationalizing the banks, and he would rattle off a five-minute riff on how it has always been the policy of the future and the country is lucky to have such a radical agent of change.