And Republicans in particular will be especially wary of proclamations of inevitability that come from media who do not have conservatives’ best interests at heart. Conservatives will resist declarations from a political class who have an interest in diminishing their range of choice. And wouldn’t the GOP nominee—whether Mitt Romney or someone else—end up a stronger candidate if he doesn’t coast to a supposedly inevitable nomination, but has to earn it (viz. Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2000)? 
 
 For one thing, his nomination is evitable—perhaps all too evitable (see below). For another, we are a proud, self-governing people. We’re sometimes even an obstreperous bunch—and a good thing it is for the cause of liberty. We often balk at yielding meekly to claims of inevitability. Here in America, we the people rule by electing. We don’t bow to those anointed by pundits. 
 
 Nor has Romney always been in the lead. In three of the four most recent polls, he’s trailed another candidate. The good news for Romney—the very good news for Romney—is that it’s been a different person each time. Rick Perry, who was at 29 percent at the end of August, has collapsed to 7 percent in the latest survey. Herman Cain, who polled at 24 percent a month ago, is now at 15 percent. If Newt Gingrich, who now edges Romney out at 23 percent, follows in the path of Perry and Cain (and Michele Bachmann, to some degree, before them), then Romney may well win as the last man standing. 
 
 But that’s a big if. Gingrich may not follow the Bachmann-Perry-Cain trajectory of rapid rise and rapid fall. He is a far more experienced national politician than they. He’s a familiar figure. It’s not as if, like Bachmann, he’s making a favorable first impression that will then be qualified, or, like Perry, that the idea of the candidate will be very different from the reality, or that, like Herman Cain, he seems a breath of fresh air. Voters who have warmed to Gingrich in the last few months could still have second thoughts, and his rise may stall and reverse. It will indeed be surprising if he doesn’t now hit some bumps in the road. But he could be formidable. 
 
 And the massive fact of the race so far is that, as various candidates have shed supporters, those voters have looked for someone to go to other than Romney. One could almost say they’re going out of their way not to go to Romney. That could well change, of course. Romney will have the resources and the standing to make his case forcefully to these voters. And Romney defeats President Obama in the latest Fox poll, 44-42, while Gingrich trails, 46-41. That will be an important point in Romney’s favor among GOP primary voters eager to defeat the president. Can Gingrich come close to evening the poll results in the Obama matchup? That’s something to watch for. And more generally, can he rise to the occasion as a co-frontrunner, or will he fumble the ball? Will his famous baggage just prove too heavy? Who knows? We don’t think the inevitable answer is yes. 
 
 And even if Gingrich fades, let’s not assume it’s over. Bachmann and Santorum could still have a run in Iowa. If they continue to trail badly, it’s not out of the question that someone else could still present himself in mid-December to the citizens of Iowa (Hi there, Mike Huckabee! Hello, Sarah Palin!). Or, if Iowa (January 3), New Hampshire (January 10), and South Carolina (January 21) produce fragmented results, and the state of the race is disheartening to Republicans, a late January entry by another candidate isn’t out of the question, either. Couldn’t Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio win the January 31 Florida primary as a write-in candidate in such circumstances? 
 
 With a splintered field in a turbulent time in the Internet age, there are more possible outcomes in today’s politics than are dreamt of in the philosophy of inevitability. ||||| Republicans figured that once voters learned of President Clinton’s White House trysts with intern Monica Lewinsky and dalliances with other women, they’d turn on him and give Republicans a big victory in the 1998 midterm elections. Instead, Clinton’s popularity held steady, and Republicans lost five House seats. 
 
 A similar phenomenon occurred in 2003 when Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for California governor in a recall election. The media dredged up stories of his chronic groping of women. Voters, intent on ousting Governor Gray Davis, didn’t care. Schwarzenegger won and was reelected in 2006. 
 
 They were wrong. It wasn’t that voters ignored Reagan’s offbeat comments. They just didn’t think eccentric statements he’d made over the years were important. Bigger things were at stake, like Soviet aggression and a stagnant economy. And Reagan had better answers than Carter. 
 
 In 1980, when Ronald Reagan emerged as the likely Republican presidential nominee, President Carter’s advisers were thrilled. They’d done extensive opposition research. By pointing to what Reagan had said in speeches, radio commentaries, newspaper columns, and conversations, they assumed it would be easy to characterize him as a right-wing extremist. And enough voters would reject him and reelect Carter. 
 
 Before you dismiss Newt Gingrich for having too much “baggage” to win the Republican presidential nomination, much less the presidency, consider this: 
 
 The point is this: Gingrich probably has at least as good a chance of getting a pass on his various transgressions in 2012 as Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and Clinton did. If 2012 were an ordinary election year, Gingrich would be doomed by his gaffes, three marriages, and fleeting alliances with Hillary Clinton on health care and Nancy Pelosi on global warming. But 2012 is different. Republicans are fixated on defeating President Obama. They’re obsessed. They think about little else. And if that means choosing a candidate with a lurid past and a penchant for self-destruction to beat Obama, Republicans are likely to swallow hard and nominate Gingrich. 
 
 In their hearts, Republicans have always wanted a candidate who is bold and tough, and Gingrich is. They’re not sure about Mitt Romney, who is cautious, conventional, and sounds more conciliatory than Gingrich. There’s a reason Romney’s support has been stuck for months at roughly a quarter of the Republican electorate. His blandness explains it. Gingrich is anything but bland. 
 
 To rally behind Gingrich, Repub-licans wouldn’t have to forgive his past sins, just treat them as irrelevant. They already talk about how sweet it would be to see Gingrich crush Obama in presidential debates. They don’t see Romney that way. 
 
 But Romney has two important traits Gingrich lacks: carefulness and self-discipline. He doesn’t shoot off his mouth recklessly, as Gingrich often has. In May, the former House speaker practically blew up his campaign by attacking Representative Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan as “right-wing social engineering.” He later apologized. 
 
 Talk to any of Gingrich’s current or former associates and you hear about the “bad Newt.” This is the undisciplined Gingrich, prone, as one long-time friend says, “to overshoot the runway on something,” perhaps with a wild and inappropriate comment that’s ruinous to his campaign. Many of those who know him believe it’s only a matter of time before he runs amok. 
 
 Believe it or not, his press secretary, R.C. Hammond, insists Gingrich has gotten a grip on himself. According to Hammond, “the only thing Newt says to himself before each debate is, ‘My goal tonight is to not screw anything up.’ ” 
 
 He’s largely succeeded. True, he called Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke “corrupt” and labeled President Obama “the most effective food stamp president in American history.” And in a debate in October, Gingrich said, “If you want to put people in jail . . . you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.” In other debates, he said Congress should immediately “defund the National Labor Relations Board” and abolish the Congressional Budget Office. Amazingly enough, the press barely raised an eyebrow. 
 
 Even when Gingrich made a specialty out of quarreling with questioners at the debates, the media response was tepid. In August, he asked Chris Wallace of Fox News to “put aside the gotcha questions.” Later in the same debate, Gingrich said he’d “love to see the rest of tonight’s debate asking us about what we would do to lead an America whose president has failed to lead instead of playing Mickey Mouse games.”
– Look out, Mitt. The conservative Weekly Standard thinks Newt Gingrich has a legit shot at being the nominee. In the new cover story, Fred Barnes writes that GOP voters are so "obsessed" with defeating President Obama they'd be willing to overlook Gingrich's "past sins," including his three marriages and policy forays with Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Romney remains "bland" in the eyes of many GOP voters, and Gingrich is most definitely not bland, adds Barnes. If Gingrich can avoid his tendency to go off on reckless tangents, the race could be his. "He’s hardly a perfect candidate, but against a weak field, he can win the nomination and beat Obama in a tight race," writes Barnes. In his own column, editor William Kristol adds that it would be a mistake to consider Romney the "inevitable" nominee, just as it would be a mistake to assume that Gingrich will fade in the polls as Bachmann, Cain, and Perry have. He's a savvy politician, and "he could be formidable." (Click to read how Gingrich's website is taking the offensive against critics.)