How does ‘President Gingrich’ sound?

And if there are, indeed, second acts in American public life, there would be a particular resonance to this one. President Bill Clinton tried to nationalize health care and failed, but the backlash to this attempt allowed Newt and his original Contract with America  to claim the Congress for Republicans in 1994. The next Democratic president, Barack Obama, did manage to ram through a health care takeover, and so Gingrich returns, like Cincinnatus from the farm, with an even more comprehensive Contract, to restore limited government.

(Lest historically minded readers take umbrage, this column does not condone declaring Newt to be dictator, as Cincinnatus was, nor do we expect he would relinquish that title after 16 days, as the Roman leader did; we’re just saying Newt would be an old guy making a comeback.)

For Gingrich, the current polling picture is a freak show. In a head-to-head matchup, he trails President Obama by a Real Clear Politics average of 15.2 percent — the largest such deficit of any Republican candidate — and from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina, there is no early contest in which he leads or appears poised to do so.

But available polls pre-date the release of Gingrich’s new Contract and, more importantly, reflect the mindset of Republican voters still waiting for Godot. With the demurrals of Christie and Palin, along with those of some outstanding presidents America may never have — Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, et al. — the GOP recognizes that its choice most likely comes down to Romney or, well, someone else.

“I’m someone else!” was enough of a platform for Homer Simpson to get elected head of the neighborhood watch, but Republicans should expect more of their nominee, and America certainly deserves better from its next president.

So, given a binary choice between Romney’s anodyne remedies for a system of taxes, laws, and regulation that is in need of comprehensive reform, and someone who purposes to make big and necessary changes, the decision should be obvious — or, at least, could become so in a protracted primary campaign.

Romney’s focus-grouped, peripheral tinkering — leaving corporate taxes far higher than those of America’s competitor nations, giving tax relief only on a class-targeted basis, etc. — is designed for no practical purpose other than to get him elected — and it may yet. But what the country requires is someone with the courage and wherewithal to overhaul the tax code, drastically reduce the reach of the federal government, and scare the holy hell out of Iran’s mullahs like no one has since, dare we say, Ronald Reagan.

Despite his warts, and in some measure because of them, Gingrich can do all these things. In this way, there may yet be a future for yesterday’s man.

Theo Caldwell, an international investor and broadcaster, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com.