Peggy Noonan, a consummate Washington insider with impeccable conservative credentials, recently came up with a nice turn of phrase to describe Newt Gingrich: "He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, 'Watch this!' " Back in Newt's heyday, the comic strip Doonesbury portrayed Gingrich as a lit bomb with a short fuse, who would occasionally explode with a bang. Right and Left seem to be in agreement on Newt's resemblance to trinitrotoluene, in other words (or, maybe, "Newtroglycerine"?). Which leaves only one key question to be answered: When, exactly, will this "Newtsplosion" take place?

Seeing how it's an interesting test of political prognostication, and seeing as how we haven't done one in a while, we're going to hold our very own "Call The Newtsplosion" contest. First we're going to outline the possible impact on the presidential race in a few wide ranges (so we all understand what the Newtsplosion's timing will mean), and then we're going to throw the contest open to all commenters at the end.

So, ready to play? Here we go....

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We've got quite a few awards to hand out this week, so we're going to just quickly note two events from the past week, and move right along. Oh, and as for this week's article title, well, it just felt appropriate, somehow. I promise, by the end, we'll have at least one blatant Alice In Wonderland reference to justify it, OK?

The week dawned with the exit of Herman Cain from the Republican nomination battle. Cain, love him or hate him, will be missed on the campaign trail because he had two qualities most of the other Republicans are sorely lacking: personality and cheerfulness. Cain was a character, you have to admit. And -- right up until he had to defend himself from the echoes of his social life -- he was almost always smiling and upbeat. After his sex life entered the discussion, he looked a lot more annoyed and a lot less cheerful, but while it lasted Cain was a bright spot in the Republican field of snoozers and the Uncles McGrumpy (and Aunt Shrill). So Cain will be missed, at least for that.

That wacky gang of Republicans running the House of Representatives acted swiftly and decisively this week -- to overturn a big, bad environmental rule that didn't actually exist. At some point, this morphs from sheer ridiculousness into downright Swiftian satire. Or, perhaps, "clinical paranoia" (but then I am no doctor and do not even play one on the internet, so I'll leave such sweeping conclusions to others). Seriously, we pay these guys for this? Sigh.

You know, it strikes me that this week may be one politics-watchers look back on when proving the thesis: "Anything can happen in politics, and usually does." I can picture seeing some wise pundit a few years down the road making the historical reference: "Yeah, but remember when Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were leading the polls in the Iowa caucuses? Anything can happen... just anything..."

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[Program Note: Two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote the following column, hoping that the Obama administration was going to live up to its promise to have a "science-based" drug policy. I spoke of two examples: medical marijuana, and the "morning after" pill. Today seemed a real good day to re-run this column. While some on the Left are expressing surprise and outrage over Kathleen Sebelius' recent overturning of the FDA's scientific conclusion on the morning-after pill, some of us weren't so surprised because we've been paying attention to this from the beginning of Obama's term. Politics, sadly, has trumped science in the Obama administration's drug policies -- as it has in all previous administrations. Anyway, here's a trip down memory lane, for those interested. Two points about the article: the links to the White House site are old and may not work. Also, there is an update at the end about the question Obama did answer at his press event.]

[Originally published 3/25/09]

President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.

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OK, all you Ron Paul fans out there -- this article's for you.

Since the 2012 Republican nomination fight has, so far been marked by its "anything could happen" nature, and since Ron Paul is still very much in the race in places like Iowa, let's explore how he could actually win the Republican nomination. This scenario is unthinkable for many inside-the-Beltway types and mainstream media types alike, but since it is the height of speculation season, a winning Paul scenario is worth considering. Two of them, in fact.

Path to a Paul victory (number one)

Ron Paul spends a lot of money in Iowa attacking Newt Gingrich. But his hidden weapon in the caucuses turns out to be how committed his mostly-young supporters are. Young people flock out in the freezing weather to the caucuses, and their participation swamps the other demographics who show up. Because the young are so committed, in other words, they turn out in outsized proportions to all other groups.

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[Program Note: President Barack Obama gave a speech today in a small town in Kansas. The reason he chose this venue for this speech was to draw historical comparisons with a speech given there by Teddy Roosevelt, over one hundred years ago. While you may see some clips of Obama's speech in the news, few will bother to look up the original speech. Which is a shame, and which is why we present it today. We leave comparisons with Obama's speech to others, for now, mostly because the speech itself is a long one. But it is worth reading to the end, to see where the real (capital-P) Progressives stand in American history.]

-- Chris Weigant

The New Nationalism
Theodore Roosevelt (Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910)

We come here today to commemorate one of the epoch-making events of the long struggle for the rights of man -- the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country -- this great Republic -- means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him. That is why the history of America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your country, but the burden of doing well and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.

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Good News, Bad News

This month Obama poll watchers got some good news, and some bad news. This was capped off, at the end of the month, by the Washington punditocracy making an incredibly stupid comparison between polling for Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter -- which we will address at the end of the column (complete with a "guess the president" graph quiz, for your amusement).

But we've got a lot to cover, so let's just jump right in with Obama's chart for November, 2011.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

November, 2011

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Governments -- state and federal -- have three big ways of raising money. The first, of course, is taxes, which are endlessly fought over and usually get most of politicians' attention. The second is fees -- on a state level, registering a car or getting a driver's license; on a federal level getting a passport or becoming naturalized, for instance. But the third one hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention at the federal level: fines.

Because the states are strapped for cash, they've taken several measures to increase revenue. Taxes have been raised in some states (and lowered in others). Going down to the D.M.V. (or M.V.A., or whatever your state calls their drivers' license bureau) has gotten more expensive for most people. And, on the state level, fines have gone through the roof. That parking ticket which used to cost ten or twelve bucks now can cost $50 or $60. Minor speeding tickets often cost hundreds of dollars now.

So why isn't the federal government getting behind this idea? Raising fines is good politics, for the most part. After all, to incur a fine, you have to have done something wrong. The fine itself is a punishment. So it's easier for a politician to vote for raising a fine than it is to raise a fee or a tax, it would seem.

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A few recent news items caught my eye today, so I thought we'd combine them here for a revival of the "Three-Dot Thursday" concept. As always, these are presented as an homage to the late, great Herb Caen, pioneer of "three-dot journalism." So without further ado...

... There's apparently a new effort to repatriate the bodies of some U.S. Navy men who died in the line of duty... over two centuries ago. For those who have always wondered why "...to the shores of Tripoli" is a line in the Marine Corps theme song, it goes back to the Barbary Coast pirate days. For decades, relatives of those killed in this battle have been trying to get the bodies exhumed and shipped back home, but with Ghaddafi in charge of things in Libya, the effort never went anywhere. Now that he's been overthrown, a new push is on to bring the bodies back. Senator John McCain seems to be blocking the effort for now, but still the story is an interesting one, if you're in the mood for some history...

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One can't help but sense that we're all in a bit of a collective "What decade is it?" moment, as Newt Gingrich climbs to the top of the Republican presidential nomination polls. Up until now, the liberal blogosphere and much of the mainstream media have been treating Newt Gingrich's candidacy as either a joke, a book-tour publicity stunt, or (at the very least) an outright impossibility. This week, it seems that everyone is reassessing Newt's chances (while Herman Cain reassesses his own chances). You can almost hear the cry from newsrooms across the land: "Newt? Really?"

To put this another way: it is time to start taking Newt Gingrich seriously, folks. Because he's got a solid chance of denying the Republican nomination from Mitt Romney. For better or worse, the possibility of Newt pulling this feat off is becoming a lot more concrete.

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[Program Note: Instead of our regular article today, we are going to attempt to shamelessly beg money off of you. Just thought I'd warn everyone up front. That's right -- it's that time of year when I tug on everyone's heartstrings in an effort to cover the costs of this site. So be warned -- I am not afraid to deploy the kittens in pursuit of this goal!

The 2011 Holiday Fundraiser should be completely up and running by now, so click on the Holiday Fundraising banner on this page, or any other throughout the holiday season, to take you to the page with instructions on how to donate. My wife mentioned that the actual "Donation" button is kind of hidden over in the right-hand sidebar, so I have included it in the article below, for easy use.]

The ChrisWeigant.com 2011 Holiday Fundraising Drive Kickoff

Because last year's fundraising drive was so overwhelmingly successful, we have decided not to mess with a good thing. In other words, to be blunt, there will again be kittens.

I discussed the scientific reasons behind this at some length last year, but this year there's a much better way to put it. I give you the "secret weapon" of Puss In Boots (from the Shrek movie franchise):

I am hoping, once again, that everyone will prove to be powerless when faced with this secret weapon. I admit it right up front, just so there's no confusion later. To drive this point home, here is a quick link to the Donations PayPal page itself, for easy reference:

Your generous donations help keep this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.

Of course, there's another way to go about this -- the hard-sell tactic infamously used by National Lampoon magazine with their "If You Don't Buy This Magazine We'll Kill This Dog" cover (I refuse to provide a link -- look it up yourself if you're not old enough to remember it).

I cannot stoop to such methods, however. The closest I would ever come would be:

Now, in this instance, my money is on that kitten over that Dalek. Traditionally, Daleks did not climb stairs or fly around (humph! -- call me a purist if you must), they could be defeated by the simple expedient of knocking them over. And if there's one thing kittens excel at, it is knocking things over. In fact, I think the battle would go something like this:

Dalek: "EX... TER... MIN..."

Kitten: [Whap! Smacks Dalek upside the brain casing, Dalek tumbles off the bed to lie harmlessly on floor. Kitten pursues, to the amusement of all.]

[Note: If you don't know what I'm talking about here, then you should go watch some old episodes of Doctor Who as fast as you can.]

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right! Kittens! Christmas! Begging!

Let's just get right back to it, shall we?

How can you possibly resist that? You are getting sleepy... sleepy... you are reaching for your checkbook...

Heh. That's about as hard-sell as we get, around here. Well, OK, sometimes we go overboard on the kittens-to-text ratio, and try to cram in as many kittens as possible.

But more seriously... ChrisWeigant.com has been up and running since the summer of 2007. This is only the third pledge drive we have ever run, and what astonishes us here at Chris Weigant Global Media Enterprises, Inc., LLC is the fact that this fundraising drive -- like the last one -- was actually demanded by our loyal readers. This is truly, truly overwhelming.

We're going to try something new this year. In the previous two pledge drives, we have privately set our own target for fundraising, and then provided a logo with a thermometer graphic to show how close we've come to that goal. This year, we are going to publicly put a dollar figure on this goal, because we are incurable optimists. Last year, we raised between $600 and $700 (I would have to look up the exact figure), which definitely reached the goal we had set of $500. This year, we're going to set the bar higher -- twice as high, in fact. We're shooting for $1,000 this year, folks!

We may not make this, of course, but we're going to try going public about the actual figures, as an experiment. Operating costs for ChrisWeigant.com's website run about $75-80 per month, which works out to over $900 in an average year. This is bare-bones, and doesn't count any extras (such as junkets to Netroots Nation, for instance) -- this is just the cost of doing business and keeping the lights on, in other words. Advertising doesn't bring in much, either, towards paying these bills. So we're going to shoot this year for slightly above the break-even point, because $1,000 is such a nice, round figure.

Sorry, this is getting too wonky, isn't it? OK, how about:

And, for our readers up in Canada, Maine, Montana, and other points north, we even have a special photo for you this year:

OK, that one kinda looks Photoshopped, I admit, but hey....

From now until the end of the year, we will display on our site at the top of every major page our Holiday Fundraising banner logo. The drive may not have officially started until now, but we've already got $50 in "the kitty" (sorry, just could not resist that one), and several very creative "matching pledges" in the comments (and one "I may annoy the heck out of everyone, but I certainly do pay for the privilege" pledge, from a commenter who knows very well who he is). Heh. If you'd like to make such a pledge, please feel free to do so, as we never would have come up with the idea on our own, but we heartily encourage them!

Look deep into the kitten's eyes. Doesn't she seem to be saying: "Have you made a pledge yet?"

Or, perhaps, you'll appreciate the following kittens, who appear to be saying in chorus: "You just pledged how much?!? Wow!!!"

To close on a serious note, I thank all my readers for their support over the last year. Support, to me, means visiting the site and reading my meandering prose on a regular basis. Without such support, I would have quit doing this years and years ago. But you folks stick with me through thick and thin -- and we're definitely in a "thin" period. Regular readers will know that this past August I started a book project. This writing has limited the time I devote to this website, and I am happy to say that the proposal I've been getting together is about 70% done at this point. I have especially been grateful to everyone for not abandoning me while the level of output has dropped.

Such support is what I blog for -- people reading what I write, and the dialog which follows in the comments. This support is worth more than money -- it is, quite literally, what keeps me going. I always feel sheepish (if not downright ashamed) to beg you to donate not only your time and interest here, but also financially. These pledge drives are not easy for me to do, because I still feel it kind of crosses the line of trust between reader and pundit. On the other hand, nobody else is paying me to write, so it can be viewed as "subscribing" to our little pamphleteering press here.

Nah, that's much too serious to close on. Let's end instead with the best motivator we can think of, in this holiday season. Because in December, as we all know, Santa is always watching:

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant