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By all accounts, he was a popular professor.  But because he never published, he would not have gotten tenure.  Colleges and universities require publication because it's a form of professional development.  Faculty members who fail to do serious work will eventually go stale as teachers as well.

Even before he became speaker, he was not averse to bringing home the bacon.  Here is what George Will wrote in his 1992 book on term limits:

[Gingrich] said: "if you had the choice between the No. 2 ranking Republican in the House or you can have a freshman who doesn't have any idea who the Cabinet members are, has never met any of them and has never worked with the President, which one do you think can do more for Cobb County?"

With an almost -- only almost -- admirable forthrightness, he was asking: Which one of us is more of a well-wired, pork-producing, inside-the-Beltway operator?

Expect his opponents to cite that passage and many more like it.

By citing his status as a historian, he tries to give authority to what he says.  But by doing so, he makes his academic record -- or more exactly, his  lack of published scholarship -- a legitimate object of scrutiny and criticism.

Gingrich constantly refers to his background as a professor, just as Cain and Romney cite their backgrounds in business.  So just as it is legitimate to look at the Cain and Romney business records, it is equally appropriate to consider the Gingrich academic record.

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, one candidate spoke for a full hour.  The second candidate then spoke for an hour and a half.  Then the first candidate had a half-hour rebuttal.  (For excerpts, see this.) Gingrich can certain speak for extended periods of time.  But here's the problem:  the longer he talks, the more likely it is that he will say something that could hurt him.  In his book, Lessons Learned the Hard Way, he is surprisingly candid about some of his gaffes.

Thanks for remembering!  I would not compare him to Walt Whitman on a personal level, but "Song of Myself" (a Gingrichian title if ever there was one!) contains a number of passages that seem to apply.  Here is one:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

A passage from All the King's Men comes to mind:

For nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost. There is always the clue, the canceled check, the smeared lipstick, the footprint in the canna bed, the condom on the park path, the twitch in the old wound ... And all times are one time, and those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us.

That is what all of us historical researchers believe.

And we love truth.

As I said at the beginning, it's complicated.  On the one hand, he's an extremely bright man who has read widely and can talk about many subjects.  On the other hand, there is a scattershot, undisciplined quality to his work.  Political danger comes when he lets his speaking get too far ahead of his thinking.

This issue is a good example of how Gingrich can start with the germ of a sensible idea and then give it a spin that makes it sound bizarre.  The sensible idea is that there ought to be greater part-time job opportunities for people in their late teens.   But by suggesting that even younger people could do the work -- and replace adult janitors -- he took it a huge step too far.

Gingrich has acknowledged personal transgressions, but there is little doubt that they will hurt him politically.