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Matthews: Is the GOP desperate?

Let me finish tonight with the desperation of the Republican field.  How desperate is it?

Let me finish tonight with the desperation of the Republican field.  How desperate is it? Any field in which Newt Gingrich thinks he a serious candidate – that's how desperate it is.

Newt - Nasty Newt - has got Tricky Dick beaten as a nickname.  As historian Jon Alter said last night here, his running for president - even trying to get back into politics after what he pulled is what Nixon running against - daring to - after Watergate.

Shameless. That's the word for this entry.  Newt is the guy who brought nastiness to the U.S. Congress in the 1980s.  Newt is a downward influence on American politics.  He not only behaves nasty; he sells nasty. It's always about character; the other side is always "corrupt" or "scaring people." It's always this scourge of righteous-pretending negativity.  He robs the political arena of joy and humanity and screeches anger and menace.   

I cannot believe there are young Republicans idealists out there, young people with hope who want our country to be good and have good politics to want to resurrect this element of Freddie Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street politics. What kinds of dream for America would a person have that would see this weird political element somehow seep under the door of our political process into the America's highest office?

Mitt Romney may be hopelessly bound up with his Obama-like health care bill up in Massachusetts.  Pawlenty may be stuck with cap and trade. Mitch Daniels may not want to put up with a presidential run. But why on God's earth would any happy, or wanna-be happy American want to drag down the American presidency so that Newt Gingrich can see himself slipping under the door?