Not Gingrich. Oh please, not Gingrich.

Via the American Scene we read that:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is examining whether or not to enter a "testing the waters" campaign phase beginning the first week of October. According to Gingrich associates, he is mulling an announcement tour that would include appearances on one major Sunday morning show next weekend, along with several Fox News shows on Monday, as well as an appearance on Dr. James Dobson's radio show...

Fuck. Just when I was starting to enjoy writing about this campaign.

Newt Gingrich is the most annoying little pseudointellectual troll in our public discourse today; he has said nothing of value in his entire career and is of no actual consequence to anything, yet Republicans hold him up like some brilliant futurist guru whose insights will transform conservative thought. (One assumes this is because no-one else in that camp is even trying anymore, and ideological beggars can't be choosers.) They have this fetishistic attachment to Gingrich that, natch, spills over into the media -- so if he does run prepare yourselves for a mess of magazine cover stories about "The Thinking Man's Conservative" and such garbage...

...and my God, think of Harvard. This place would cream itself over someone like Gingrich running for president. He's got just that combination of big words and small ideas that suits the Ivy League mentality so well; after all, being a Gingrich supporter gives you intellectual-maverick cred and distances you from the unwashed Midwestern rabble (which of course is required at these Elite Institutions), without having to bother with all those awkward liberal tropes like "caring about other people". It's the new libertarianism!

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not worried about Gingrich winning anything. Dude has the charisma of a lawn chair. (And as we all know, the appeal of a political candidate here at Harvard is exactly inverse to their appeal in the real world.) I'm just angry that, in the event he does run (or even if he just publicly dithers about it for a while, Bloomberg-style), we'll be obligated to listen to him and then write about the crap he says. Gems of wisdom like this, which he has employed multiple times:

He still describes himself as a radical and said this should be his slogan: “Real change requires real change.”

Very radical, that. I can see the protest now. "What do we want?" "TAUTOLOGIES!" "When do we want them?" "AS SOON AS WE WANT THEM!"

This is fluff. Gingrich offers nothing more than platitudes and the occasional insanely stupid policy idea; but his personality and cult-following threatens to eat the entire campaign for, I'd say, up to a month, to the obvious detriment of the real issues at play. Besides, it's just sad; between Newt Gingrich, Hillary Clinton, and Al frickin' Gore, I feel like we're having some horrible flashback to 1997 -- a year I had really hoped we were done with. Next thing you know there'll be another Spice Girls movie. (Item: Did you hear the Spice Girls are reuniting and going on tour? I am not fucking kidding.)

All I'm saying is, if Gingrich does run, prepare yourselves for some truly stupid and infuriating discussions on- and off-campus. This campaign might not be as much fun as I'd thought...