Heilemann: Five Consequences of Gingrich’s South Carolina Win - John Heilemann

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/heilemann-five-new-gop-primary-factors.html

For years Gingrich was allowed to stick around. He was here and there, cautiously allowed to reveal himself as THE conservative intellectual, a man whose ideas sometimes embarrassingly strayed from orthodoxy, but only because he was so darned smart and wonkish. For some time he was in kind of a limbo, not really held close by any of the conservative establishment as he toyed with really strange ideas and appeared with Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Then, apparently, he decided that he needed to get some of this anti-Obama money that was being larded around. So he rejected many of the things he had been holding close for some time, rewrote his character as an angry tea party visionary, and set out to run for president. Well, not really. He was really only there for the future speaking fees, books, and appearances that a presidential run would earn him. Say a bunch of angry things, skip the vetting that might harm him since, afterall, he was only supposed to be a second tier candidate, then cash in on what he probably wagered would be a second Obama presidency.

How ironic that he is now instrumental in ensuring that this comes true. They deserve every second if it.