In a word: No. Gingrich may be Shakespearean, but he's less Iago than Godfather. His icy demeanor this weekend in the face of the rage that we know is bubbling inside of him reminded me a famous scene from the movie -- a scene that sums up a certain concept of honor, of revenge, and of negotiation. In it, Singer Johnny Fontaine asks the Godfather for help landing a leading role in an upcoming film. The Godfather agrees and dispatches consigliere Tom Hagen to Hollywood in order to make studio head Jack Woltz "an offer he can't refuse." Hagen presents Woltz with a generous offer. The Godfather will finance the entire movie if only Woltz casts Fontaine in the role. Woltz angrily refuses. One morning shortly thereafter, Woltz wakes up to find himself and his bed drenched in blood. He pulls back the covers to find the severed head of his prized racehorse.

Newt made Romney a generous offer. If Mitt would call off the Super PAC, Newt would stay positive and run an "ideas-oriented campaign." Mitt refused and even taunted Gingrich, saying: "This ain't bean-bag," in the "Meet the Press" debate over the weekend, in essence telling Gingrich to grow a pair. Well, this week Mitt woke up next to a horse's head.

On Monday, all became clear. Gingrich was smug and restrained over the weekend because he knew that the first missiles were ready to launch. Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson had contributed $5 million to Gingrich's Super PAC, Winning Our Future. $3.5 million dollars worth of ads were going up in South Carolina. But more importantly, Winning Our Future had bought the rights to a 30-minute documentary about the job-killing destruction wrought by Mitt during his time at Bain Capital. Judging by the trailer, this thing is a doozy. It calls Romney "more ruthless than Wall Street" and includes devastating first-hand testimonials. One woman looks directly into the camera and says of Mitt: "I feel that is the man that destroyed us." Another says: "That hurt so bad to lose my home because of one man that's got 15 homes." It's bad. But will it matter?

In some ways, the trailer for "When Mitt Came to Town" has actually rallied conservatives to Romney's side. Many of the same conservatives who trash Romney regularly found the criticisms of Bain Capital and the corporate chop-shop method of money-making antithetical to their party's blind worship of the "free enterprise" gods. In fact, although the Super PAC ads and the documentary could well depress Romney's poll numbers, it's unlikely at this point that anyone but Mitt will end up with the nomination.

Nevertheless, outside of the deluded GOP echo chamber where teachers, firefighters, and civil servants are overpaid leeches protected by cigar chomping union bosses and where, in the infamous words of one GOP congressman, it takes $200,000 per year to feed your family, this ad is devastating. It cuts to the very core of what makes Romney precisely the wrong candidate for the age of the Tea Party/Occupy Wall Street political duopoly. In fact, the ad swipes at the argument that Romney has been making consistently and that has kept him in the catbird seat, that Romney is the most electable candidate. The privileged corporate raider who enriched himself by laying off workers in Midwestern swing states doesn't seem particularly electable.