The Case for Newt

Donald Trump is on the verge of crowning a contender as a running mate.

If the reporting is accurate, he doesn't have great choices. John Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio, would have been a natural pick but doesn't want to be in the same room as Trump, let alone on the same ticket.

More than those of any candidate in memory, Trump's options are limited by who is actually willing to run with him, a list that appears to be down to a governor in extremis - Indiana's Mike Pence - and two figures hoping to have a political future, Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. None of them will help electorally, all have their downsides, but the former speaker is the superior choice.

Pence is a stolid, respectable conservative who thinks running away and joining the carnival sounds alluring, in part, no doubt, because he's at risk of losing his reelection for governor. But the carnival isn't as much fun as it looks from a distance if you aren't cut out for an itinerant lifestyle of operating the Tilt-A-Whirl or hawking dubious games of skill and chance.

Trump is going to need a wingman who can believe six impossible things before breakfast; who can defend the Muslim travel ban during those times when it is Trump's position and skate away from it during those times when it's not; who can take any new controversy of the hour, defend it and explain it away and look forward to the next one with relish; and who won't ever let personal or philosophical standards get in the way.

There's nothing to suggest that Pence is up to the rigors of this political and media proving ground. The closest he's come in his career was an unhappy experience defending his state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. His low-key Midwestern persona would risk utterly disappearing compared to Trump's outsize personality. The party's excitement over him would be low to undetectable. Trump and his family surely think that Pence is a safe pick, but if he stumbles, he won't look so safe.

Christie is another governor who is looking for an escape hatch, and even more desperately than Pence. Christie would be greeted with a collective groan by the party. He is as unpopular in New Jersey as if he had been indicted. It doesn't go over so well when a bunch of your childish and vindictive aides cause a days-long traffic jam to wreak revenge on a minor opponent and you abandon the state for a forlorn presidential run.

Christie's only memorable act in the presidential race was teaching pretty boy Marco Rubio a lesson in the New Hampshire debate, an application of schoolyard logic that if you aren't going to win the game, at least you can make yourself feel better by bloodying someone else's nose.

Christie has advantages, no doubt. He was the leading edge of GOP establishment submission to Trump. He has shown a willingness to prostitute himself to the mogul and to defend the indefensible, making himself the Scottie Nell Hughes of GOP officeholders. He is an energetic campaigner and comfortable around the media. He has just the right combination of bully-boy persona and self-abasing loyalty to make him alluring to Trump.

And, yet, Gingrich would be the better pick. Everyone knows the risks. Gingrich carries the baggage of his spectacular flameout as speaker; he is as undisciplined as Bill Clinton, although without the roguish charm; and he's not going to be liked by anyone who isn't already a fan. As my colleague Jonah Goldberg points out, Gingrich would be able to defend Trump's off-the-wall statements, but it's not clear Trump would be able to defend Gingrich's.

But Gingrich has real advantages. He will generate some excitement among conservatives. He is a natural emissary to both the establishment and the right. If his personality is not Trumpian, it is big enough not to seem overmatched. No one is as much of a self-promoter as Trump, but Gingrich punches above his weight - in a recent interview, he said, characteristically, that he couldn't be entirely sure that he would take the VP slot because both he and Callista have new books coming out and they just finished making a new movie about George Washington. Gingrich loves the game and would relish his unlikely return to the top of it like, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the saved and the thankful.

Gingrich's big upside is that, perhaps outside of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, he is the most glib politician of the past 30 years. Not only would he defend Trump ably, he would put whatever Trump says in the most impressive light possible. You could shake Gingrich awake at 3 a.m., tell him Trump just came out for nationalizing the banks, and he would rattle off a five-minute riff on how it has always been the policy of the future and the country is lucky to have such a radical agent of change.

If Trump has a deficit of ideas, Gingrich famously has a surfeit. He can embed Trumpism in a larger, more sophisticated argument about the country than Trump can, and do it vastly more eloquently. This wouldn't ordinarily be a qualification for a VP pick, but Trump is running a media campaign, so he should pick the most compelling, deft media personality on offer, and that's clearly Gingrich.

Besides, if the GOP is committed to a brash, unpredictable and divisive candidate at the top of the ticket, it might as well go all the way. Pick Newt, and let her rip.

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