That's One Small Step for Mitt, One Giant Fall for Newt-kind

After the onslaught against Newt Gingrich in recent days from GOP establishment figures revealing how hated he really is, and then last night's debate, I'd say Newt  has a better chance of being elected governor of America's 51^st state--the Moon, presumably--than he does of getting to the White House.

In the Florida debate on CNN, it wasn't just that a tanned and confident Mitt Romney got the better of every exchange with Newt, at a time when Romney had begun surging ahead in the polls. (OMG, that's far too journalistically polite: he tore him to pieces!) Or that an inordinate amount of time was spent on Gingrich's loony idea of setting up a moon colony in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, reminding one and all of a trait that Gingrich was boasting about earlier today but which he didn't seem eager to bring up again: his "grandiosity."

The main problem for Gingrich was the complete absence of the fiery, base-rallying Newt that got him here in the first place. You can't take on the establishment of your own party if people are constantly being reminded -- by Mitt Romney, Bob Dole and most of your former House allies who despise you -- that you were part of the establishment yourself. It's just that they rejected you.

Gingrich sounded peevish and defensive the whole night and barely landed a punch on Romney as the latter floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Whether the subject was Romney's taxes, his conservatism or even Romneycare--all badly tender spots for Mitt in past debates--Gingrich passed up chances to attack. (Rick Santorum, by contrast, was brutally effective once again in making the case that in an Obama-vs.-Romney race, Mitt would not be able to sufficiently distinguish himself as an alternative, that the president could simply turn to Mitt and say, "You say your plan worked in Massachusetts. So why not for the country?")

Romney's best line, perhaps, came over the lunar -- and loony -- portion of the debate. If one of his subordinates proposed spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a moon colony in the midst of all the needs "down here," Romney said, "I'd fire him." Gingrich mainly smiled a lot, shifted uncomfortably, whined about tough Romney ads (as he once did in Iowa before getting trounced there), and trotted out his familiar "repeal, repeal, repeal" spiel.

Gingrich's few counterattacks were feeble, barely noticed and easily parried. He often didn't make sense at all. When asked about his attacks on Romney's taxes and wealth, he responded that he was happy to say that on TV in an interview, but not in a national debate. Huh? When he sought to sully Romney over his investment links to Goldman Sachs and its foreclosures, Romney's retort that his investments were "blind trusts," while Newt's were not, went unanswered.

Maybe the best evidence that Romney sees himself as back on top was that, midway through the debate, he became the first one to attack Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday, saying if he's elected all those "promises" will be kept. His closing peroration--why he's the one person to be beat Obama--at least had a clear theme: to fix Washington, you've got to bring someone in "who's been on the outside."

Gingrich has had an extraordinary yo-yo-like spell as candidate--and he looks like he may be down at the end of his string once again. I'd be surprised if he makes it back up again.