In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday.  In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday.  David Brooks: Gail, I’m on vacation this week, and in my absence the entire political world seems to have come to bipartisan agreement: Newt Gingrich would be a terrible president. I believe this. George Will believes this. Michael Savage, the über-populist shock jock, is offering him $1 million to quit the race. Every commentator on the left believes this.  Needless to say, Gingrich is surging in the polls. So my question is, are we the top 1 percent of opinions? Do we in the commentariat possess a disproportionate share of the national pontifications? Does the rest of the country resent this unequal distribution of certitude? Are they rejecting our views on Gingrich because the 99 percent rejects the top 1 percent, or is it just because they really do want honeymoon suites on Mars and they are willing to stop at nothing to get them?  Gail Collins: David, even the Republicans who have put him ahead in the polls think he would be a terrible president. They’re just messing with your head.  David: By the way, did you know that when Gingrich went on vacation, he made his second wife ride on the roof their car?  O.K., that’s not true. I was just trying to get you fired up.  Gail: Actually, you have defined the current Republican conflict. Do you want the serial adulterer or the guy who once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the station wagon? The key here is remorse. Americans are total suckers for anybody who says he’s giving up his bad old ways and turning over a new leaf. If only Mitt Romney would hold a press conference and apologize for the Irish Setter Incident, he would be a candidate reborn.  David: More seriously, I’ve been asking smart people what they think the odds of Gingrich getting the nomination are. I myself put the odds at 25 percent. A week ago the average among the experts I spoke with was about 10 percent. More recently, it has surged to 30 percent among my cognoscenti friends.  Gail: I find it peculiar that I seem to have more faith in Republican voters than the Republicans do, but I put Newt’s chances at around — oh say zero percent.  David: By the way, just because I said Gingrich has a 25 percent chance of getting the nomination doesn’t mean I think Romney has a 75 percent chance. I put him about 50. I’d give the other 25 percent to some unnamed senior party figure, like Jeb Bush. I figure that if Romney looks weak in South Carolina and Florida, then the party regulars mobilize and drag somebody else into the race. Even at that late date, that person could compete in some big primaries. If Bush were in the race now, he’d be the easy frontrunner.  Gail: Ah yes, the Senior Party Figure fantasy. There’s a reason these people are S.P.F.s and not presidential nominees. It’s because they don’t actually have the capacity to win primaries. They’re boring or not hungry enough or too cluttered with baggage. They look good in theory. But Rick Perry looked good in theory.  I remember being in Florida for the Republican primary in in 2000 when Jeb Bush was campaigning for his brother. He had a look on his face that made me imagine Jimmy Carter being forced to introduce his brother Billy as the next president of the United States. But W. was the better candidate. Which should make you rethink Jeb.  David: It’s also worth reminding ourselves that the G.O.P. is attempting suicide at the same time the Democrats are in horrible shape. Did you see the poll showing Obama losing to both Romney and Gingrich in the 12 swing states? Did you see the Gallup chart that has been making the rounds that many, many more people fear big government than big business?  Gail: The one thing I am totally confident about in this uncertain world is that the more the public gets acquainted with Mitt and Newt, the more those numbers will change to the president’s advantage. To know them is to yearn to vote for somebody else.  David: This is one more piece of evidence, by the way, that the Occupy movement is the most over-hyped story of the year. The O.W.S. people want one thing, and the rest of the country is shifting in the opposite direction. The only people who lavish attention on the Occupiers are editors at various coastal media outlets. The rule seems to be that the more Louis Vuitton ads a magazine carries, the more stories it will run on O.W.S.  Gail: Speaking of polls, have you noticed all the ones showing that most Americans are extremely eager to see the top one percent contributing more to the common good by way of taxes? I give the protesters a lot of credit for that. And in the year of the Kardashian wedding and the Donald Trump presidential candidacy, you think O.W.S. is the most over-hyped story of the year?
Talking about Gingrich, Romney, a mysterious Senior Party Figure and Donald Trump - not to mention Kim Kardashian and Occupy Wall Street.