While the GMD primary poll has John Edwards as the leading candidate, the “inevitability” of Hillary Clinton keeps gaining momentum in the MSM, primary polls, and fundraising tallies.

The problem is, Clinton's ability to clinch the nomination is more likely than her chances of holding the White House for a two-term presidency.  The baggage HRC will bring into the White House can easily translate into a challenging first term.  We can already expect to see skeletons gleefully dragged out of HRC's closet early in her administration by Swift Boaters and their ilk.  Assuming 1. that HRC doesn't clamp down the White House as intensely as GW Bush; and 2. that our bitterly divided nation suffers through another four years of needless vitriol cast at a President Clinton, it's easy to anticipate conservatives getting behind Newt Gingrich as a comeback kid for the Republican Party.

Crazy theory?  See quotes and links below the fold. 

Calling in to the Mark Johnson show on Thursday, I mentioned the possibility of a Gingrich run in 2012, basing my theory on nothing more than the “swinging pendulum” theory or gut instinct.  What was really making me scratch my head was Newt's September 29th announcement of his non-candidacy only days following Bush's prediction that Clinton would be the Democratic nominee.  It wasn't so long ago that Karl Rove seemed to be praying for the opportunity he might seize at a Clinton nomination.  With all of this inevitabilty swelling up in the primary storyline — well, let's face it, the MSM has already intimated the general election outcome, too — there seems to be a loose end hanging with Newt Gingrich.  Is he really passing on a presidential bid in his curious “won't run” press release, or is he writing a  prelude in an attempt to clear the field for a 2012 opportunity?

If his plan is to wait out '08, then it's a classic retreat and regroup maneuver.  All you need to do is look a few years down the road to see it all fall in place.  Hillary muddles through the war, immigration, and universal health insurance, and a frenzied 30% of the population goes into advocacy overdrive with zealous attacks on both her character and her “ultra-liberal” policy decisions.  All the while Newt Gingrich methodically makes the rounds on book tours (“A Contract with the Earth”), speaking engagements, etc., warming up his plate of leftover political capital and greasing over squeaky wheels from the 1990s.  

Pure speculation?  Absolutely.  But I'm not alone:  the theory is gaining traction. 

Here's this at the non-partisan National Journal:

Meanwhile, with his prediction that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win the presidency in 2008 by a hair and his comparisons of the '08 race to 1976, the former House Speaker's decision to sit things out this time around has led some to wonder if Gingrich isn't hoping for the chance to play Ronald Reagan to Clinton's Jimmy Carter in 2012.

Minnesota conservative blogger Edward Morrissey rallies the troops:

Look for Newt in 2012. He will have his national constituency, a bipartisan reputation, and a record of providing practical solutions over vitriol. He will be positioned as this century's Teddy Roosevelt.

 Over at MyDD:

I am not so sure that Gingrich will be running this year or is now trying to set himself up to run in 2012.  Had Thompson not declared I think that he would have but now there may not be enough room for him.  He may be talking up the $30 million as an excuse to not run.  In addition, I read somewhere that he said something about it taking 5 years to get a grassroots effort together to change the kind of vicious partisanship we are currently experiencing (of course he never said that he started it).  That would fit right in to a 2012 candidacy.  In addition, he may believe that after 4 years of a Clinton Presidency Republicans will be willing to back him despite his high negatives.  I hope he does jump in now but wouldn't mind him popping up in 2012.

Finally, Here's Newt himself:

“We had a surprising number of people contacting us,” Gingrich said. “The first response was pretty encouraging. Whether we would have gotten to $30 million, I can't say. Whether we could win, I can't say.” 

But he kept the door open when asked if he would consider a race in 2012.

“Make a note now,” he said. “Call me the day after the 2008 election.”

So the two-part question for me is:

“Is a one-term presidency worth the potential cost of an 'inevitable' Clinton administration?

Or should we dream a little bigger and try to change the MSM storyline about the Democratic primary?”

Respectfully submitted,

Nate Freeman

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My frustration with the content of Sen. Obama's campaign overheated while reading the friendly exchange between Vermonter and JD.

The Obama critiques are being hijacked by perceived slights. This misses the chance to examine the inherent – and obvious – dangers of the campaign Sen. Obama is waging.  For better or worse, Sen. Obama is the frontrunner and he (and we) only have so much time to salvage a campaign that is becoming more and more ruinous in its squander of an historic opportunity.

Senator Obama is running an “Up-With-People” feel good campaign which, given our situation and unfortunate place in history, is insulting. It dismisses the dire jeopardy into which Mister Bush has placed the U.S.  It shows an alarming insouciance for the pain caused by Mister Bush's actions, and it glosses over the behavior of a congress, in which he has been inaudaciously silent, that blithely enables those policies.

The issue of how candidates campaign is just as important as what the candidates declare they want to happen if elected.  There are a boatload of things we all want to “happen;” however, explaining the fundemental changes required to accomplish anything of value is the most critical responsiblity facing each of the major Democratic candidates.

JD 's recent diary starts with a the politically (and phenomenologically) valid observation that

I tend not to like candidates that have that cult of personality thing going on, because if he wins, and pushes through bad legislation or ideas, his most ardent supporters are going to go along for the ride, unquestioning. We already have that with Bush. I don't want it with Obama.

Predictably, out come the complaints that he is trashing the Obama supporters. Read it again.

The criticism is squarely on Senator Obama's campaign strategy of non-offensive playing-out-the-clock to a nomination victory instead of running and leading to earn a mandate. He is squandering a chance to lead his supporters and the rest of us to accomplish the change and earn the political capital to destroy the ingrained policies and institutions that have corrupted the future of our country. The criticism is against the type of support a painless and leaderless campaign generates.  It is a stretch to read it as criticism of those supporting a campaign when we all generally share common ground with our supporter of the various serious Democratic contenders.

Granted Sen. Obama is running a campaign.  It is hard to fault a guy for sticking with a winning strategy. (My take is that Obama is playing it safe because he knows he's the front runner in the same way that Sen. Clinton is saying what she thinks people want to hear rather than what they need to because she thinks she is the front runner). The point for us Democrats (and nauseous nose-holding but engaged voters like JD) is that we already own a winning climate, not because the Democrats earned it but because the Republicans have alienated enough of the hardened and ambulatory brain injuries, who typically vote GOP, that it will be hard for the Dems to lose in 2008.  Unlike 2004 we do not need to defeat a Republican in November, we need a candidate who will defeat the ingrained pathologies that have killed any meaningful future this country might otherwise possess.

Our need is for a leader who will not merely undue the damage of the last six years generation, but we must demand one who will attack the system that led to our current fiscal, economic, health care, security, foreign relations and physical infrastructure decay. A leader will not successfully “build bridges,” as Sen. Obama keeps metaphorically promising, without explaining how the construction will occur, how the construction needs to occur and why the old engineering is so broken and corrupt that it must be abandoned forever.

The criticism of Obama's campaign is well taken. I highlight it because I take his frontrunner status seriously and I see a trainwreck of squandered opportunity at the end of the tunnel. We ignore at our own peril the substantive criticism of the insubstantial campaign Sen. Obama is waging.  Our risk is a nomination barely worth winning followed by an opportunity we jointly squander with another leader elected official who will otherwise coast when he needs to be pulling.