And The Perfect Candidate Is...

First Rick’s ‘brain freeze’, then Herman’s ‘Cain freeze’, now its Newt Gingrich’s turn in the Republican 2012 firing line.
Like clockwork in this race so far, no sooner has a candidate surged to the top of the opinion polls, he either puts his foot in his mouth or an alleged skeleton emerges from the alleged closet.
At the root of Newt’s woes are consultancy fees his firm received from the troubled mortgage lender Freddie Mac over an eight year period.
Because at the same time he was lambasting ‘Freddie’ and its partner Fannie Mae, labelling them “irresponsible”, criticising everyone connected them, including then-senator Barack Obama.
His words have come back to haunt him now.
The problem for Gingrich is that it confirms the impression that he is a Washington insider, politician-turned-lobbyist, steeped in the business of influence. They are not exactly popular with the American public at the moment.
Gingrich says he wasn’t lobbying – he says he was offering his help as a “historian”.
That argument hasn’t helped his case and the story has started to spiral upwards here.
Good news for Perry and Cain, taking he focus of their problems for a while, but a reminder of the challenge facing the Republicans.
The search for a serious rival candidate to poll leader Mitt Romney seems to have become an obsession – Romney polls consistently at around 25 per cent but that leaves 75 per cent looking for someone else.
It has been noted that the ideal candidate would have Cain’s charisma, Gingrich’s intellect and Perry’s fund-raising ability.
It’d be risky business trying to create THAT in 50s-horror-movie-style laboratory – after all, what if they got those qualities the wrong way around.