Ron Paul's new anti-Newt ad.

That's hardcore. But is it unfair? Fair or unfair, it's what's coming if Newt is the nominee.

In that vein, here's Erik Tarloff in the Atlantic:

In my lifetime, I can recall only two presidential candidates who were patently anathema to their respective parties' establishment: Barry Goldwater and George McGovern. In both cases, the system sputtered and malfunctioned. Otherwise, the more extreme contenders have all been derailed before they could pose much of a threat.

My prediction is, that's what's going to happen to Newt Gingrich. He may have the wind at his back right now, but one way or another, he will be brought down. Opposition research will be leaked to compliant news outlets. Devastating anti-Gingrich commercials will be produced by campaigns that have no chance of winning. 

Like Ron Paul?!

People who have served with and under Gingrich will trash him in public. Personal scandals will be revisited, with new and uglier details provided. Reputable conservative newspapers and magazines will run editorials questioning his fitness. Much of this has already started to happen, and I'm willing to wager we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Okay, but Ron Paul is on his own. He's at least as "patently anathema" to the establishment as Newt.

Also in the Atlantic, from Elspeth Reeve: "Newt Gingrich's Women Problem":

There's a group of Republicans eager to nominate a Not Romney candidate but having trouble embracing Newt Gingrich: conservative women who don't like his history of adultery....

Former Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott told Politico that while Romney might have a hard time selling himself to southerners, when he gets in a room with them, he can win them over. Lott "recalled that Romney had successfully worked the room during recent campaign stops in Mississippi: 'The ladies loved him.'"

Oh? But Erik Tarloff says "there's something positively repellent about" Romney.

He combines a sort of feigned bonhomie with an air of profound, pervasive superciliousness.  His public self in fact mirrors his politics, opportunistic and inauthentic.  He's always reminded me of a very specific type peculiar to American educational life, one familiar, I should think, to most American males of a certain age:  The Boys' Vice Principal.  The one who pretends to be a regular guy, who kids around in the halls and sometimes permits himself the odd "Damn!" or "Hell!", but will bully you into doing something you don't want to do with a false smile of feigned friendship, and who will cheerfully, and with a little too much zeal, deliver stinging corporal punishment on your ass when he deems it appropriate.

Uh... okay. Well, that seems to be some wacky "male" perspective. The ladies loved him.