Marty Kaplan, communication professor and director of USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center, discussed the possibility of Newt Gingrich winning the GOP presidential nomination in a Dec. 12 Huffington Post op-ed. Kaplan said Gingrich is more entertaining than President Barack Obama, and Gingrich's shock-value might work in his favor. "We vote with our gut, and our gut loves excitement ... With Obama comes steady-as-she-goes; with Gingrich come histrionics, conflict, suspense, surprise. Let's face it: Newt's better casting for the reality show we prefer to reality," Kaplan wrote. He said Gingrich needs "enough swing voters who are turned on by his apparent fearlessness" to become president, and Kaplan imagined what that presidency would look like. "If Newt is the nominee, I can see him winning big and getting a Republican Senate to boot," wrote Kaplan. "I can also see a Democratic Senate minority - instead of learning the lessons of these filibuster-filled years - being as wussy as it was when Reagan rolled into Washington." Read the article here.