Newt Gingrich is not Howard Dean.

I'll take incredibly lazy false equivalences for $800, Alex.

This is not 1984 and nor is it 1972 or 1964. Selecting Gingrich would be an act of unpardonable folly and a declaration that the Republican party has lost its political bearings. That's fine but it's not serious politics. Newt isn't Kerry, he's Howard Dean. (And worse than that: he's also Newt!)

Let's see.

Howard Dean was a successful, moderate, popular governor who opposed the Iraq War.

Newt Gingrich was the only Speaker of the House in US history to resign as the result of ethics violations, left politics as a hugely unpopular figure, is on his third wife and cheated on at least two of them, has spent the last decade and a half making millions as a lobbyist -- and takes lots of hugely really unpopular positions, like say, bringing back child labor.

But they're totally the same!

Newt isn't Dean. He's Jim Trafficant.