"The Comeback Kid"

The Weekly Standard:

In their hearts, Republicans have always wanted a candidate who is bold and tough, and Gingrich is. They’re not sure about Mitt Romney, who is cautious, conventional, and sounds more conciliatory than Gingrich. There’s a reason Romney’s support has been stuck for months at roughly a quarter of the Republican electorate. His blandness explains it. Gingrich is anything but bland.

To rally behind Gingrich, Repub-licans wouldn’t have to forgive his past sins, just treat them as irrelevant. They already talk about how sweet it would be to see Gingrich crush Obama in presidential debates. They don’t see Romney that way.

But Romney has two important traits Gingrich lacks: carefulness and self-discipline. He doesn’t shoot off his mouth recklessly, as Gingrich often has. In May, the former House speaker practically blew up his campaign by attacking Representative Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan as “right-wing social engineering.” He later apologized.

Talk to any of Gingrich’s current or former associates and you hear about the “bad Newt.” This is the undisciplined Gingrich, prone, as one long-time friend says, “to overshoot the runway on something,” perhaps with a wild and inappropriate comment that’s ruinous to his campaign. Many of those who know him believe it’s only a matter of time before he runs amok.

Believe it or not, his press secretary, R.C. Hammond, insists Gingrich has gotten a grip on himself. According to Hammond, “the only thing Newt says to himself before each debate is, ‘My goal tonight is to not screw anything up.’ ”

He’s largely succeeded.

(...) Gingrich turns out to be a shrewd analyst of himself and his prospects. He has told friends he’s like Richard Nixon, not particularly likable and hated by the press and the left. He’s hardly a perfect candidate, but against a weak field, he can win the nomination and beat Obama in a tight race. And by the way, he’s the best of the bunch in connecting with the populist yearnings and resentments of average Americans.

Months ago, Gingrich foresaw his emergence as the chief rival to Romney. No one else did. The expectation was that Romney would face a challenger from the right. Gingrich, associates say, may be slightly to the left of Romney. It’s hard to tell. We won’t know for sure unless the two go head-to-head after the Republican field shrinks in January.

The Republican race, in Gingrich’s view, is a tortoise and hare contest. Who would have thought Gingrich, the flashy talker, would see himself as the tortoise. If so, he’s a cocky tortoise. In the end, we all know who wins.