As Gingrich's campaign fades into the rear view mirror, it merits a closer look. I think what we saw as errors of hubris over the past year were really because Gingrich was never running for president; Instead, he was running as a spoiler - sponsored by the corporatist arm of the Republican Party to make sure the Tea Party didn't get its candidate as the Republican Party nominee.
So we all shook are heads and thought "how stupid is he?" when Gingrich took a two-week Greek cruise just as the Iowa caucauses were heating up, causing his entire staff to quit en masse. And we couldn't believe our luck when, shortly afterwards, it was uncovered that he and his wife had a $250,000 credit line at Tiffany's.
We chalked this up to Gingrich's infamous hubris but I hypothesize these were actually the price his wife exacted because she knew he had agreed to be in the race for the long haul, no matter what. Even if only one single person was his donor (aka Sheldon Adelson), he promised to stay in the race. Because that's what the corporate Republicans needed in order to be sure the Tea Party Republicans didn't win the nominee. They needed a candidate who was just credible enough to strip away much-needed votes from the far-right candidate to make sure their more "mainstream" corporate candidate came out ahead. I don't think the corporatists knew who the Tea Party candidate would be, but they knew they knew Mitt Romney was their man and Newt Gingrich was their insurance policy for splitting the far-right voters.
Rachel Maddow touched on this when she did an entire segment around this thesis, stating: "Sheldon Adelson is actually Mitt Romney's best friend." She argued Adelson's support of Newt Gingrich is actually helping Mitt Romney, with voting stats supporting her thesis. Other pundits also touched on this when they pointed out that, once Adelson became Gingrich's backer, Gingrich's treatment of Romney during the debates became much gentler.
No one, however, has really examined Gingrich's motives in a comprehensive way, particularly through a lens that assuming he began this race only as a spoiler hired by the corporatists to split the Tea Party. This has the potential to be an important issue because, as much as we want to think Romney's nomination would mean the Tea Party support is waning, the amount Romney had to spend to defeat Santorum is alarming.
My hope is that the media looks into this - with a particular focus upon Sheldon Adelson's new business opportunities in the next few months. I anticipate he will be rewarded with lucrative business agreements for his generous support of Gingrich, and his important role in getting Romney the Republican nomination.