by Casey Flynn

Gingrich smiling for the cameras.

Newt Gingrich has taken his turn as front runner for the Republican nomination for the 2012 Presidency.  His lead in the polls may last longer than expected because Herman Cain has suspended his campaign, with pay, not unlike what has happened with every other position he’s held (because of sexual-harassment allegations).  Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania is unlikely to ever surge in the polls because his name is too close to Sandusky of Pennsylvania.  Ron Paul is slated to be the next front runner, which seems slightly less implausible than someone who wrote books entitled, “Quotations from Speaker Newt,” “Lessons Learned The Hard Way,” and “A Contract with the Earth” (written with L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.), leading in the polls.  Some doubt that Ron Paul will get his chance as front runner because he has been accused of poking women in inappropriate places (though he has given the now standard defense of:  “I’m a board-certified gynecologist for Chrissake!”)  Jon Huntsman, the conservative Mormon ex-governor of Utah, is still too liberal to ever lead in the polls. 

Now that Newt Gingrich has taken the lead, the press is looking at him with greater scrutiny and posing the tough questions. 

How are Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain different?  Newt Gingrich has never sustained a 13-year-relationship with a woman.   

How are Newt Gingrich and John Edwards different?  Volume; that is, Newt Gingrich has cheated on and left more dying wives than John Edwards.

 How are Newt Gingrich and Romney different?  Newt Gingrich had three wives at different times.

 In fact, Newt Gingrich has had three wives, that’s two less than Osama Bin Laden.

 Like Bin Laden and consistent with Sharia law, Newt only lives with the youngest and most attractive wife.  So there you go, we have some common ground with the Islamic terrorists;  maybe we can build on that.   C’mon guys, when you heard that Osama bin Laden had five wives but only invited the youngest and most attractive one to his man cave, we were all thinking the same thing, “(though he’s still pure evil), well yeah that makes sense.”

 Newt Gingrich is against gay marriage.  Well if gay means ‘happy,’ that makes sense, considering his track record of three marriages.

 Newt Gingrich’s Secret Service name:  “The Marriage Counselor.” 

 Did you hear how Newt Gingrich explained away making $1.6 million as a consultant for Freddie Mac, the government mortgage finance entity that Republicans claim caused the housing crisis?

 He says that was a mistake, he was actually doing consulting work for Bernie Mac the comedian.  Newt said, “Just ask him … oh he’s dead … that’s too bad … I was hoping he would confirm that.  Oh well.”

The actual reason he gave for why he made the $1.6 million working for Freddie Mac was even more ridiculous.

He said that Freddie Mac hired him as a historian.  Well that makes no sense.  Freddie Mac got in trouble for giving out loans to people who had no credit history, not because they gave out loans to people who didn’t know history. 

 Gingrich wants to hold himself out as the fiscal conservative candidate.   

He had a $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany’s.  The only other two people who had such a large line of credit from Tiffany’s were:  Sarah Ferguson and MC Hammer.  

I would be hard-pressed to spend $500,000 to buy something at Tiffany’s even if they were selling Tiffany, the singer , of ‘I think were alone now’ fame. 

If this is the new definition of fiscal conservative, I suggest he makes his running mate:  Zsa Zsa Gabor (to use a Johnny Carson punchline).