COMMENTARY | Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has got a "big head." "Big head," which is something one "gets" or "is getting," is a colloquial phrase (not used as commonly as it once was) that doesn't refer to the actual size of a person's head (although in Gingrich's case, comedian Stephen Colbert often makes an exception) but to an over-inflated ego brought on by fortuitous circumstances or seemingly undeserved arrogance. Gingrich has taken a double-digit lead in the national presidential preference polls and is now telling anyone who'll listen that he will be the next Republican presidential nominee and the race will come down "Newt and Not-Newt." With confidence born of a few poll wins, the so-called historian is flat-out ignoring recent history's constant repetition of elevating and discarding GOP candidates. Simply put: Gingrich appears to have acquired a "big head," although it could be argued that he has had one for years.
"I would have thought originally it was going to be a 'Mitt and Not-Mitt'," Gingrich said, according to CNN . He was referring to early predictions of the GOP race. "It may turn out to be 'Newt and Not-Newt,' and that's a very different formula."
A different formula, he says, because he is far more conservative than Mitt Romney, the former GOP frontrunner, whom he characterized as a flip-flopper.
Romney trailed Gingrich by 21 points in the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, but it is a position the former governor of Massachusetts has become accustomed to, having fallen behind both Texas governor Rick Perry and Georgia businessman Herman Cain in the national polls before Gingrich's recent surge.
Forgetting that Romney has done fairly well in the eleven Republican presidential debates held thus far, Gingrich said that voters will go "Newt" simply because Republicans " need someone who can debate Obama."
He says that once nominated, he wants to do seven Lincoln-Douglas style debates with President Obama. If the president refuses, he vows to follow his campaign schedule, making speeches in the same towns and cities Obama visits, taking apart the president's speeches just after he delivers them. In the end, Gingrich says, Obama will acquiesce to the debates because of "pure ego."
"How can you be Columbia, Harvard Law, editor of the Law Review, best orator in the Democratic Party and be afraid of some guy who taught at West Georgia College? How is he going to look himself in the mirror and say I can't stand up to Newt? "
Nothing like a little projection to bolster one's confidence...
The next day, Gingrich made the following comments: "I'm going to be the nominee," the former House Speaker said, as reported by CNN . "It's very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I'm going to be the nominee."
Rick Perry and Herman Cain may have both had the same thoughts when they jumped out ahead of Romney as well. But Perry, after several horrendous debate performances, and Cain, the target of several scandals regarding alleged sexual impropriety, saw their poll numbers dwindle after a brief period as the race leader.
Gingrich suggests that the Republican national presidential preference polls indicate he will be the next nominee. The first-in-the-nation caucus kicks off in Iowa on January 3 and polls indicate Gingrich has the lead there as well. But Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have both led in Iowa, so there's no guarantee that the caucus will swing Gingrich's way.
And Romney currently leads local polls in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary that will be held a week after the Iowa Caucus.
To put things into perspective, Perry led the national polls for six weeks, getting as high as a double-digit lead over Romney. Cain's campaign played leapfrog with the Romney camp for five weeks. Newt Gingrich has had the lead in the polls for three weeks. There are less than five weeks to go before the primary season begins in Iowa.
Plenty of time for Gingrich to drop back level to or behind Romney after he is put through the media wringer like Perry and Cain (and Bachmann, who only challenged Romney nationally but never led in the polls). And Gingrich has a lot of political baggage that Romney does not, such as a House of Representatives sanction for ethics violations while he was Speaker, not to mention being a notorious flip-flopper as well.
But Gingrich's hauteur is nothing new. He has referred to his fellow candidates on several occasions as immature in their debate performances, holding himself aloft as if he's never had disagreements with fellow Republicans (see aforementioned sanctions). Assuming that voters are too ignorant to see the similarity, he says he was never a lobbyist -- he has never registered as one -- while records indicate he was paid millions over the last decade to curry favor for various corporations and financial institutions, including Freddie Mac. He talks austerity programs and spending cuts in future budgets that will impact millions of individuals at or below the poverty level while going on million-dollar spending jaunts with his wife. He constantly refers to President Obama as the "food stamp president" as if Gingrich himself has never received assistance, even going so far as to refuse to work while married and in college, according to a PBS "Frontline" report. Instead, he received money from his mother's family for the duration.
Apparently hypocrisy and disingenuousness inflates egos -- or helps keep them inflated. So do high poll numbers. And Gingrich certainly has a swelled head. Now it remains to be seen if the Republican electorate will continue to support it.
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