I'm a horrible gambler...

...(one of the worst you'll ever meet), but that doesn't stop me from making predictions. And if I had to guess who would be the Republican nominee in 2012 I'd be tempted to say Newt Gingrich. I'm reminded of this by something Tom Schaller wrote yesterday in fivethirtyeight.com:

Finally, I have to say something about Gingrich. Though my politics don’t much line up with his, I like Gingrich. You may think his big ideas are kooky, and some are, but at least he has big ideas. He’s a thinker. He also knows something how the government in Washington actually runs (and not to foolishly shut it down)--unlike the rest of the field, including Romney. And the fact that a politician who lost his last substantive electoral job over a decade ago can still register 4 percent—a small share until you consider that Huckabee and Romney, who were in the national spotlight just a year or so ago, got little more—says something about his staying power. The other thing about Gingrich: He personally went down in flames, but unlike GWBush, who ruined the modern GOP’s brand and destroyed its majorities, the congressional majorities Gingrich, more than any other Republican brought to Washington, were still intact when he exited political stage right. Also, and despite his potentially backfiring move of supporting Dede Scozzafava over Doug Hoffman in the GOP’s moment-of-truth NY23 House special election, Gingrich is the one guy in the field who has sufficient legitimacy among both the Washington/policy/insider wing of the party and the base/cultural/heartland conservative wing to unify the Republicans. Something in my gut says he’s a guy not to ignore.

Absent some economic calamity, I think Gingrich is the only Republican on the scene today who would have even an outside chance of beating Obama in 2012.