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It has been noted virtually everywhere the Newt Gingrich thinks he’s great. He thinks he’s the smartest guy around, the one with the best ideas, an historic, transformative figure, a revolutionary, a protector of all that is right and fighter of all that is evil. What else? Just about anything else you could imagine. If his self regard has any limits, he hasn’t reached them yet. Follow him around a couple of days and he’ll let you know how great he is. Repeatedly.

Here is a clip, with a link, from an LA Times news item on how this is playing out in Iowa, a state where people say someone is “down to earth” as a high compliment and even just talking about yourself, for anyone other than a candidate, is considered an affront to good behavior.

By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times

December 24, 2011, 3:55 p.m.

Reporting from Des Moines

 With a rich trail of utterances, Newt Gingrich has outlined an opinion of himself that ranges from lofty to stratospheric.

In 1985, Gingrich told the Washington Post: "I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the planet. And I'm doing it." In 1994, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "People  like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz." Just the other day, at the Iowa statehouse, he gave himself credit for helping defeat the  Soviet Empire.

As Gingrich seeks the GOP presidential nomination here, where the first ballots of the 2012  nominating contest will be cast Jan. 3, Iowans are weighing his long  experience, conservative credentials and their hope that he is the  Republican who could best President Obama rhetorically.

But his occasionally apocalyptic self-regard is running counter to another Iowa interest: modesty. Gingrich heard about that last week from Jenny Turner, a 31-year-old wedding videographer in southeast Iowa.

"You did an ABC interview where you said 'I am gonna be the nominee.' I  have been for you, and have been a big fan," Turner told Gingrich when he and his wife stopped to chat with voters at the Hy-Vee supermarket in Mount Pleasant. "But that felt a little bit presumptuous."

Gingrich, whose considerable personal baggage has forced him to master the art of seeming remorseful, didn't flinch.

"It was a mistake," he said. "I used to be an analyst at Fox and every once in awhile a reporter will ask me an analytical question and I will  forget, I am not an analyst, I'm a candidate."

(To some, this amounted to the same kind of faux-pology he issued in March when he blamed his own bad behavior, an adulterous affair with his current wife, Callista, while prosecuting President Clinton for an adulterous affair,  on "how passionately I felt about this country.")

Achieving common-man authenticity is Gingrich's great challenge, said  Republican strategist Mark McKinnon: "Voters want candidates who are 'of us' and 'above us.' Gingrich has nailed the 'above us' part. He needs  some work on the 'of us' piece. A big part of the attraction to Newt is that he is bigger than life. But, they also have to be able to relate to him on some human level. And that's where Gingrich has a real  challenge."

Note from The TerryReport: Gingrich has also used the line about confusing his roles as a commentator versus Speaker of the House in the 1990s. He said that, when speaking to reporters back then, he often spoke not as a political leader, but as a commentator and thus went too far with what he had to say. It seems this explanation is supposed to cover over different problems from time to time.

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