…Newt Gingrich. If a GOP debacle happens this fall, the conventional wisdom is that McCain will be a big winner. That’s probably true, but the biggest beneficiary might be Newt. I’m not saying he will leapfrog McCain to front-runner status, just that he will gain the most (McCain will be the front-runner no matter what happens in the fall). Newt will benefit because he has been warning a deluge to come, and doing it in a constructive way; because he is an idea guy at a time when the party’s intellectual well is dry; because he has the advantage of seeming fresh since he’s been out of power for so long, at the same time he has nostalgia appeal from the 1994 revolution.