Remember, Jerry. It's Not A Lie If You Believe It

Here's Krugman on his Sunday Chat Show Purgatory:

 “The Republican base does not want Romney and they keep on looking for an alternative. And Newt, although — somebody said, ‘He’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.’ But he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up.”

I'm not sure I've ever heard a better description of Gingrich.

Gingrich does have one attribute usually attributed to intelligent people.  He can hold contradictory ideas in his mind at the same time.  I grant him that.  This is why he's considered an "idea man" in the GOP.  He can understand Cap and Trade and the arguments against it.  In today's GOP that makes him some mutant combo of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

But what's striking about Newt is the absence of the sort of filter that allows him to consider the differences between Cap and Trade and the alternatives and then actually arrive at a smart, considered answer.  Crap just spills out of Newt's mouth.  He's gotten better and more disciplined over the course of the campaign, but so has Michelle Bachmann -  and that lady's crazy!

You see this sort of thinking in smart teenagers.  (Or you do, if - like me - you spend far too much time in their company.)  They are endlessly fascinated by new ideas and new paradigms, like kittens with a ball of twine.  This, by the way, is why I consider it a form of child abuse to allow a teenager to read Ayn Rand.  Rand's ideas are so out there, so transgressive that they immediately captivate the teenage fascination with "the New".  **

Developmentally, this process of fascination, followed by disenchantment, followed by a new object of fascination is really important.  It allows teenagers to explore and understand ideas, rather than memorize facts.

The problem - as I see it - is that the GOP "Idea Guys" have either never outgrown their fascination with transgressive ideas like Rand's (see Ryan, Paul; Greenspan, Alan; Paul, Ron) or they haven't outgrown the kitten with a ball of string way of looking at the world (see Gingrich, Newt).

So compared to the monolithic way that Conservatives like Dubya Bush, Grover Norquist and Every Damned Social Conservative In The Country see the world, the Teenage Thinkers of the GOP seem pretty smart.  In much the same way a stupid high school senior seems pretty much a genius when visiting first grade.

And then there's Mitt Romney.  In private, he probably thinks the things coming out of his own mouth are nuts, but he's running for office for Pete's sake.  Outside of Huntsman, he's probably the smartest guy in the GOP field, but he's also the least sincere.  Gingrich has the advantage - as teenagers do - of believing every single brain fart that escapes his mouth.

Romney knows he's pandering.

At least Huntsman's soul has remained intact.  He may not crack 3%, but he's got that.


** This requires relating the best quote ever about Rand: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.