Spencer, Iowa

Newt Gingrich has a problem. It’s not just the avalanche of attack ads burying his campaign, or his comparative lack of cash, or the nattering naysayers’ inability to wrap their heads around his unorthodox playbook. Gingrich’s problem is that with less than a week before the Iowa caucuses, as he barnstorms the state striving to snap a vertiginous skid in the polls, he is grasping in vain for a vision to sell voters. Gingrich revels in his role as the GOP’s reigning Ideas Man™, but the sum total of those ideas has been a cluttered message that emphasizes the virtue of comity.