Newt v Mitt

Chatting with an ultralib friend the other day, I mentioned in passing I find the idea of POTUS Newt Gingrich vastly more horrifying than the Romney alternative.  Newt Gingrich is engaging in vile rhetoric--he's half Nixon half McCarthy.  I assume he'd be the far riskier pick, for the GOP, as I sense his intra-party opposition very adamant and well-connected; he of course makes liberals' blood boil.  Playing 'intellectual conservative' and attracting the rabidly anti-intellectual, white-victimhood-centric vote, ever rediscovering its inner woundedness.  In choosing Newt, I would feel required to look down on Republicans more than I would were they to go with Romney--whether or not Newt would be the easier opponent for the person in American politics I admire most.

By comparison, I find Mitt's Mormon-culture family-appearance fetishism comparatively harmless.