Familiarity Breeds Newt

By FRANK BRUNI
NYT

In accordance with the rhythm of the Republican contest so far, it’s time to ask when Newt Gingrich, the unlikely race car of the moment, will run out of gas.

Much of the emerging thinking goes like this: He’ll be spared the sputtering by dint of the calendar. The caucuses in Iowa, where the latest polls show him in the lead, are less than a month away. Between now and then there’s too much gift shopping, gift giving, eggnog and “Auld Lang Syne” for distracted voters to travel the whole attraction-to-repulsion arc with him. The attraction endures. Gingrich contends. Mitt Romney, uncharacteristically, sweats.

I buy the contention and perspiration parts. But if they happen, I don’t think the sole or even principal explanation will be the lucky timing of Gingrich’s velocity. There’s something else — something more potentially advantageous — at work.

In sharp contrast to the candidates who sped up (and then slowed down) before him, he isn’t a relatively unknown quantity, some sudden crush whose real personality has yet to be revealed and whose demons lie in wait.

(More here.)