Andrew Rosenthal is onto something:

[N]o other candidate in the race expresses the kind of visceral, full-bodied disgust with President Obama that Mr. Gingrich does. No one else can even come close to the kind of withering ridicule that Mr. Gingrich employs.

… The crowd was convulsed with laughter and cheering by that point. No other Republican candidate can make a crowd laugh so hard, and it is difficult to imagine either Mr. Santorum or Mr. Romney using the cheap Mickey Mouse line. But it’s exactly the kind of rhetorical device used by right-wing radio talk show hosts for hours every day, and Mr. Gingrich is smart enough to know it and ape it.

The idea is not simply to show where Mr. Obama has gone wrong as president, but to fully discredit him as a person, and play into the article of faith among many Republicans that he has no legitimate claim to the White House. (Mr. Gingrich, for example, said Mr. Obama has no understanding of the meaning of “commander in chief.”) It also explains why Mr. Gingrich has played into racial animus more eagerly than any other candidate.

That kind of thing works. There are thousands of voters here who want to hear the president called indistinguishable from Goofy, who want a candidate to make the kind of jokes they hear on the radio. And there is only one candidate who is happy to give them what they want.

Gingrich is not running for talk radio president. He is running for president of the United States. Rick Santorum nailed the biggest problem with Gingrich last night when he said that Newt would be the kind of nominee who’d make you afraid to open the morning papers for fear of what he had just said. To call him inconstant and unreliable is to put the kindest possible spin on it. Yes, he’s an entertainer. Do we want an entertainer for our president? Whatever Romney’s and Santorum’s flaws, I would not worry that either man would be a rash kook. Gingrich has given ample reason in his public life to fear that from him. But so many Republican voters, ginned up by talk radio’s standards, don’t seem to care.

All of this came to mind this morning also when reading this account of the two Italian captains.  Capt. Schettino is the wild man who deserted his ship after it began to sink. Capt. De Falco is the sober-sided mariner who famously ordered him to get his cowardly butt back on board the ship and do his duty. Look, I’m not saying Newt is a Schettino-like coward; there’s no reason to say so. Here’s what I’m reminded of:

Though knowledge of the personalities of the two men is perfunctory at best, the Italian news media easily tagged them as distinctive Italian stereotypes: Captain Schettino as the flashy daredevil and rule-breaker; Captain De Falco as the upholder of duty and respectability, who is often overlooked in a nation easily taken in by more boisterous — and usually sneaky — behavior.

… The lesson to learn from the shipwreck, Mr. Severgnini said, was that Italy could move from a “my way” mentality to “another way.”

“We don’t want to become Swiss, but there are thousands of serious people in Italy,” he said, referring to the Swiss reputation for Calvinist work habits. And they should prevail over the ones “who may not command a ship, but manage to wreck their families, their work, or their country, and then run away.”

Newt fashions himself a political daredevil, which is true if the measure of political leadership is the ability to say grandiose and outrageous things, and to say them well. In practice, a President Gingrich would be a lot closer to Captain Schettino. It’s all very amusing until the ship hits the rocks. In a general election, No-Drama Obama would fare pretty well against Gingrich, I’m thinking.