Mainstream media pundits gave Newt Gingrich "A's" for his stage performance in Des Moines on Saturday night.
Downgrading Mitt Romney by obsessively fixating on the former Massachusetts governor's silly "$10,000 bet" that Rick Perry misrepresented his position on health care, the chattering class appeared drunk on Gingrich's rhetoric.
Yet the "great debater" wasn't exactly in the league of Lincoln or Douglas, or even Michele Bachmann.
In one of the few times he was put on the defensive, Gingrich claimed Bachmann and Ron Paul were "wrong" when they criticized his $1.8 million consulting fee at Freddie Mac. The former House speaker said his "advice" to the government's giant mortgage mover was an exercise in "free enterprise." Bachmann said it was closer to "crony capitalism," and Paul noted that hard-pressed middle-class taxpayers paid Gingrich's lucrative tab.
Meanwhile, the "humane" Gingrich renewed his call for "review panels" to hash out legal status for illegal aliens. How do you think that will play with Hispanics, or anyone else, in a debate with Barack Obama?
Following up on his insistance that child labor laws are "stupid," the Georgian stuck by his proposal to pay poor children to clean up schools. This at a time when tens of millions of adult Americans can't find jobs?
And Gingrich still takes a shine to his over-the-top idea to put mirrors in space to light U.S. highways. And conservatives deride California's Jerry Brown as "Governor Moonbeam"?
To adapt basketball legend John Wooden's apt admonition: Never confuse brain activity for intellectual achievement.
While Romney styles himself a guru of the private sector, Gingrich's 20-year stint in Congress and subsequent series of D.C. consulting gigs make him the consummate government insider. His idea of job creation is another book tour (the latest of which he is running with his campaign).
Gingrich is indeed a strange bedfellow for tea party conservatives eager to throw the bums out. It's all the more surreal as he flip-flops his way to the top of the polls, and wins praise from supposedly sophisticated journalists.
Few of his rivals were willing to directly challenge the newly anointed front-runner Saturday night. But Bachmann didn't back down. Indeed, the Minnesota congresswoman took on both Gingrich and Romney by collectively dubbing them "Newt Romney."
If you look at Newt Romney, they were for Obamacare principles. If you look at Newt Romney, they were for cap-and-trade. If you look at Newt Romney, they were for the $700 billion bailout," she charged.
Youve got to have our nominee who has a stark, distinct difference with President Obama, who will go toe-to-toe and hold him accountable, said the founder of the House Tea Party Caucus.
Our nominee has to be willing to not agree with Barack Obama on these issues, but stand 180 degrees opposite."
Where Bachmann defines herself as a "consistent conservative," Gingrich is anything but.
Gingrich's lounging on a couch with Nancy Pelosi to discuss global warming, and his picayune complaint about rear-cabin seating on Air Force One are not hallmarks of a right-thinking constitutionalist, but indulgent displays of overweening hubris.
It was revealing that viewers of the ABC debate begged for clarification on the difference, if any, between Romney and Gingrich on the crucial issue of the individual mandate for health care. Good question.
Yet all the media could jabber about afterward was Romney's aborted $10,000 wager. Perry didn't play along, and their verbal exchange evaporated in an instant, but the punditocracy had its moment. The talking heads concluded that the "Romney gaffe" gave more momentum to the surging Gingrich.
Determined to handicap a two-man race, popular press reports characterize Romney as the most viable opponent to Obama, and portray Gingrich as a bomb-throwing insurgent out to rock the establishment.
Both caricatures miss the mark precisely because they are caricatures. The deeper you look into these two corporate-driven candidates, the more their cosmetic differences blur into nothingness.
As commentators on the left and right strive to simplistically frame a Romney-Gingrich contest, Republicans face an uninspiring choice between tweedledee and tweedledum. Each is rooted in little more than the shifting sands of crass political opportunism.
Conservatives can only hope that Iowa voters will see through this farce before it's too late. In fact, two-thirds of GOP voters say they remain open to switching their choice of candidates.
Paul, consistently marginalized by party and press, is poised to deliver a wake-up call with a strong showing at the Jan. 3 caucuses. Bachmann, against all odds, advanced her case as well on Saturday and could vault back into the top tier.
If Republicans distrust the mainstream media as much as they claim, they have the power to upset the pundits' smug duopoly game, and put some fight back into this race.
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
