Republican Candidate for that party’s Presidential Nomination, Newt Gingrich, was interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday afternoon. During the interview, he was not shy about letting his feelings be known about fellow candidate, the cranky old isolationist nutjob himself, Dr. Ron Paul:

I think Barack Obama is very destructive to the future of the United States. I think Ron Paul’s views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.

When asked if he could vote for Paul, the former Speaker of the House said “No.” And if it came down to Paul vs. Obama?

You’d have a very tough choice at that point.

As people get to know more about Ron Paul, who disowns 10 years of his own newsletter, says he didn’t really realize what was in it, had no idea what he was making money off of, had no idea that it was racist, anti-Semitic, called for the destruction of Israel, talked about a race war – all of this is a sudden shock to Ron Paul? There will come a morning people won’t take him as serious person.

Dr. Paul’s campaign manager Jesse Benton issued a statement in replay, stating:

If Dr. Paul will have to soldier on without Newt’s vote, then so be it.

Benton went on to call called Gingrich “a divisive, big-government liberal who is unelectable” and his attack on Paul a “childish outburst.”

While Gingrich declared twice during the interview that Paul won’t get the GOP nomination,  Benton shot back with the rhetorical equivalent of “neither will you.”

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Former Massachusetts Governor and, also a Republican Candidate for the Presidential Nomination, Mitt “The Legacy” Romney fired a cannon shot over Gingrich’s bow:

Appearing in Portsmouth, Romney noted a statement that Gingrich’s campaign director compared the former House speaker’s recent inability to qualify for the Virginia ballot as a setback comparable to Pearl Harbor from which the campaign would recover.

“I think he compared that to Pearl Harbor? I think it’s more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory”, Romney said in reference to the famous I Love Lucy skit in which the comedienne was overwhelmed by a rapid assembly line of candies. “You’ve got to get it organized.”

In another appearance in Londonderry, Romney also took a subtle swipe at Gingrich for a 2008 speech in which he praised Romney’s health care plan and the individual health insurance mandate at its heart. “I’m familiar with the fact that he supported individual mandates in the past and was supportive generally of the plan in Massachusetts, and he’s changed his view in the election year,” Romney said.

Concerning Dr. Paul, it seemed like “Mittens” was trying to sound conciliatory:

I haven’t seen the Ron Paul newsletters. From what I understand, he repudiated them and, from what I understand, that was the right course for him to take.

It also sounded like Romney was beginning to an attempt to “reach across the aisle”, ala John McCain:

I think there are Republicans and Democrats who will sit down, work together, and say we are going to put America on a sound financial footing…. I can tell you, I’m not going to spend my time bashing Democrats and attacking them day in and day out, because that makes it impossible to sit down and work together.

Gingrich, during the interview with Wolf Blitzer, said about Romney that

He’s buying millions of dollars in attack ads … paid for by his millionaire friends.  Now, I’d like to have him have the courage to be on the same stage and defend his ads and explain his record of raising taxes … and, frankly, explain why he wasn’t a job-creating governor.

Reagan Conservatives are watching this, shaking our heads, as two Moderates and a certifiable nutjob battle it out to be the Presidential Candidate for the Republican Party, muttering to ourselves:

How in the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan did we get here?  And why is it so cotton-pickin’ difficult for the Republican Party to nominate an actual Conservative?

The problem, as I see it, is the fact that the Grand Old Elite of the Grand Old Party, who never liked President Reagan in the first place, are determined to put a Moderate ( i.e., Romney) in the Oval Office, in order to keep their Grand Old history of “reaching across the aisle” and their Grand Old “status quo” in place.

The fact that only 25% of Republicans can even stand the flip-floppin’ snob is of little consequence to these power brokers, living out their lives, isolated from us common folk, in the Beltway.

The reason that Americans out in the Heartland have tended to gravitate toward Newt Gingrich may be explained by the process of elimination.

While Newt has a lot of baggage, he does have the most Administrative Experience of the three, he is very good at speaking off the cuff and would destroy Obama in a debate, is the most entertaining of the three, and the least objectionable to the average American Conservative, struggling to survive in the Heartland.

Lord, I hope those myopic idiots up in the Beltway don’t blow this election.