Is Newt Gingrich a viable candidate?

Throughout most of the summer and up until quite recently, the poll numbers indicating support for a Gingrich presidency were hovering in the low, single digits. Those numbers are recenty starting to tick upward ever so slightly as Tony Lee recently observed...

"In a volatile election cycle, Gingrich has battled his way back into contention, rising to third place in several national and state polls on the force of his ideas and breadth of knowledge of how Washington does and does not work. After nationally televised debates and local town halls, Gingrich has made voters want to give him a second look, especially after he speaks emphatically about American Exceptionalism and about bureaucrats and unelected judges who threaten to undermine it."

Gingrich answers some of the tough questions facing anyone who would like to lead this nation in the linked Human Events article. And kudos to Gingrich and Herman cain agreeing to an unmoderated Lincoln-Douglass type of debate. Today's televised debates seem to be moderated disproportionately by media figures whose political leanings skew leftward.

John Hawkins cuts to the heart of the matter by spelling out why a Gingrich candidacy is so appealling to conservatives...

"Over the last fifty years, the three most important politicians to the conservative movement have been Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich. Goldwater got the ball rolling while Reagan and Newt proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that conservative governance would work in the real world.

Newt's books and columns have been consistently conservative, his public comments have been consistently conservative, and his debate performances have been consistently conservative. As a matter of fact other than perhaps Michele Bachmann, Newt is the purest movement conservative on the stage. If you're a conservative who wants someone who represents your beliefs in the White House, you couldn't do much better than Newt Gingrich."

I wholeheartedly agree with Hawkins on the above statements as few people in American politics are a solidly conservative as Gingrich. Hawkins goes on in the article to present his idea that Newt's personal baggage isn't as bad as it seems at first glance. Perhaps so, but it's a given fact that the MSM never treats faux pas by conservatives the same as those by leftists and thus I don't think Gingrich would receive anywhere near the lack of attention and abscence of inches of type as were curiously not devoted to Al Gore or John Edwards.