Last week Newt Gingrich - serial polygamist, blowhard, D.C fixture, his very face a reminder of what even Republicans hate about Republicans - launched his campaign for the GOP nomination, despite having next to no chance of winning the presidency. But in the days since his announcement, he has done something quite extraordinary: he has forced commentators to reassess his chances. They are now judged to be zero. In fact, he has only an evens chance of making it past Memorial Day.
Gingrich gravely upset his own party by laying into one of its current heroes, Paul Ryan, the author of the GOP's plan to reduce the deficit. Humiliatingly, he then had to call Ryan to apologise. It's also been revealed that he once owed up to $500,000 to Tiffany's the jewellers. Not a good look when you're trying to portray yourself as a man of the people.
Still, Gingrich's self-regard is nothing if not resilient. His press secretary has issued the following statement:
Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.
Gosh. I suppose, with Donald Trump gone, there was a vacancy for the Grotesque-Joke-Candidacy. Brave of Newt to fill it.
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