this many candidates already?

I’ve been so out of touch with U.S. political news lately that I didn’t realize any of these people were already declared.

“In fact, his viability may be one of Mr. Santorum’s biggest challenges as he joins a field of five declared candidates — Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson, Tim Pawlenty and Mr. Romney.”

No reason for Obama to lose any sleep over this list, or over Palin or Michelle Bachmann. I was sorry to learn that Bachmann originally comes from Iowa. We deserve better.

Of the somewhat serious people on that list, Pawlenty is a bore, Romney is only a replicant or some sort of simulated human, and Gingrich is smart but compulsively self-destructive. I can’t forget how Gingrich singlehandedly revived Bill Clinton’s career and ruined his own by blurting out: “This may sound petty, but I shut down the government because Clinton made me sit in the back of the plane on the way back from Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral.” (Saturday Night Live then did a hilarious skit in which the back of the plane had piles of hay, with chickens flying around.)

If you were going to make a list of the greatest American political gaffes in my lifetime, that may actually be the worst, because its consequences were so extreme for Gingrich and his movement. This guy was the most powerful person in American politics from November 1994 through early January 1996, and he threw it away on one idiotic remark. And he’s already making further idiotic remarks in this campaign. Too bad, because he may be the smartest candidate the Republicans have. It would take something pretty grim domestically or internationally, in my view, for anything but another Obama landslide to occur 17 months from now.