One can't help but sense that we're all in a bit of a collective "What decade is it?" moment, as Newt Gingrich climbs to the top of the Republican presidential nomination polls. Up until now, the liberal blogosphere and much of the mainstream media have been treating Newt Gingrich's candidacy as either a joke, a book-tour publicity stunt, or (at the very least) an outright impossibility. This week, it seems that everyone is reassessing Newt's chances (while Herman Cain reassesses his own chances). You can almost hear the cry from newsrooms across the land: "Newt? Really?"
To put this another way: it is time to start taking Newt Gingrich seriously, folks. Because he's got a solid chance of denying the Republican nomination from Mitt Romney. For better or worse, the possibility of Newt pulling this feat off is becoming a lot more concrete.
Some still scoff at such a preposterous state of affairs. This scoffing is, for the most part, misguided. It usually takes one of the following forms: (1.) Newt's just "flavor of the month," someone else will rise as he inevitably falls; (2.) Newt's baggage has baggage, and social conservatives won't vote for him; or (3.) Newt will inevitably say something so outrageous that he'll torpedo his own chances -- after all, this is Newt Gingrich we're talking about, right?
None of these scoffings may be correct, however. Scoff number one: this may have been true, say, back in September -- but we are now mere weeks away from the first voting in Iowa. There just isn't a whole lot of time left for Newt to nosedive and another anti-Romney candidate to emerge. There is also not much of anyone left on the bench who hasn't already been rejected by the Republican electorate. Perry, Bachmann, and Cain have all been measured and found wanting. Santorum is a possibility, but time is fast running out and he hasn't budged yet. Huntsman was never a possibility, because conservative voters were never going to flock to him. Who does that leave? Ron Paul? This is actually still a possibility (Paul could even sweep Iowa), but a long shot, at best. There simply aren't any good choices left for the anti-Romney voters out there -- who are, by the way, legion.
Scoff number two is Newt's supposed baggage. Here is where a lot of liberals miss a very important point. Sure, Newt's been married three times. Sure, he's left wives one and two by cheating on them. But, in every case, Newt "did the right thing" by his mistress (after divorcing the previous wife) and married them. Even more in Newt's favor is he has explained his colorful sexual past with exactly the right message that conservatives want to hear: he sinned in the past, he "got religion," and he has asked forgiveness for his sins. This is the perfect tone for Newt to take, especially in the evangelical South. A lot more social conservatives will be able to vote for Newt than most people think, in other words. Now, the flip side to the coin of Newt's baggage (not to mix metaphors) is Newt's policy positions which have occasionally strayed from what passes for Republican orthodoxy today. These may be a lot more problematic for Newt than his three wives, in the end. But only if his opponents start using them to attack Newt. So far, Romney has mostly stayed above the GOP ad-war fray, preferring to ignore all his Republican opponents in order to focus on Obama. But if Newt stays the true frontrunner (polling above Romney), then Mitt may have no choice but to go after Newt. And Rick Perry's still got a lot of money for ads -- which will be spent to attack Newt, and not Mitt. So Newt's baggage could eventually catch up with him, but not in the way most people expect.
The final item in our scoff index is the fact that Newt's brain seems, at times, not to be connected with his mouth. This is indeed true. He does come up with some whoppers, doesn't he? But compared to the other candidates' whoppers -- even in the past month or two alone -- Newt's gaffes may look a lot more intelligent than forgetting that 18-year-olds can vote (to pick just one recent example). Plus, there's no guarantee Newt will say anything wacky enough to outright disqualify him in the next two months. Sure, Newt does spout some Grade-A Prime nonsense at times, but there's no guarantee he'll reliably do so before Super Tuesday, just to pick a random date.
It's easy to see a path to victory for Newt in the primaries, as well. Newt wins Iowa, then Mitt wins New Hampshire. Newt wins South Carolina, and Mitt wins Nevada. This sets up Florida -- which is comparatively a much larger prize than any of the first four. If Newt wins Florida, he'll have Florida, Iowa, and South Carolina under his belt heading into Super Tuesday. Mitt will only have the sparsely-populated (by comparison) New Hampshire and Nevada. A big win for Newt on Super Tuesday, and he's all but wrapped up the nomination.
See? That wasn't as impossible as anyone thought, say, last month. In other words, the unthinkable (to the inside-the-Beltway pundit class) is now becoming quite thinkable indeed.
Newt. Really.
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I'm not so sure that's completely true and it may be a bit of an overstatement considering the states that come later in the primary season. But that scenario should give Mitt plenty to be concerned about.
Yeah, my whole primary wrapup there was actually a massive oversimplification. I wondered if anyone would call me on it, but I'm trying to write shorter articles, so that's my excuse.
In this mix is the most interesting factoid about the race this year: the GOP took a look at the Dems in 2008 and decided "a longer primary race actually helped Obama, so we should encourage that sort of thing in 2012." As a result, the RNC laid down the rules that for the first couple of months (including Super Tuesday, I believe), all the states would distribute their delegates proportionally, instead of the traditional (for Republicans) winner-take-all. This will serve to prolong the race if it is even close, or if there are three strong candidates. Eventually, after a certain date, the later primary states will be winner-take-all, and the race will end (that's the plan, anyway), to avoid dragging it out to June (as with Hillary/Obama).
McCain essentially had the race wrapped up in around mid-Feb. That may not happen this time around on the GOP side. This could get interesting...
-CW
IMO.
Thanks for your response!
L78lancer
Sarah Palin to her credit saw this early on before the attacks on Cain gave Gingrich his opening. In the polls asking the question, Gingrich was the second choice of many voters who became the first when the others faltered.
Gingrich is also the only candidate on either side who can offer a resume of very successful federal governance. Between Obama and Gingrich, Newt is the only one to reform entitlements and balance a budget as the economy boomed. This will be rather attractive to Indis and conservative Dems who remember the 90s rather fondly compared to the past decade.
As Romney has learned, take Gingrich lightly at your own risk.
Wow. Not the big history student I see.
I agree about the "television debate primary" thing. One odd factor nobody's mentioned much, though, is that out of all the myriad debates that have happened so far, only two-thirds of one was shown on broadcast TV. One hour out of 1.5 hours on one network. Everything else has been on cable.
I'm not sure this means anything, but like I said, I don't think anyone else has pointed it out -- cable's viewership is so tiny compared to the broadcast networks, I just wonder how many "undecided" people are even paying attention -- I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
You also raise a good point about Newt holding a solid second place for a very long time at the beginning of this race. His numbers eventually dipped, before their recent rise, but for a long time he was solidly #2. At the time, I thought it was just name recognition, but now I'm not so sure. Something to think about, that's for sure, and a good point.
-CW
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-republican-primary-schedule/
Whoops! I knew Florida had moved around, but didn't notice they had jumped the gun on NV. That paints an even more-daunting picture for Romney...
Anyway, mea culpa. Thanks for pointing it out.
-CW
Romney should be helped out by the calendar between Florida and Super Tuesday, but given that his whole campaign has been geared around inevitability, one slip behind Gingrich in the delegate totals could bring the jackals down from the hills. And not without reason! If Romney wants to take on primary-battle-scarred Obama, he'll need to be able to take the heat...and that wince-inducing Baier interview of his certainly won't help the case.
We all know how early the polls are, and how little they really mean at this time especially since the brutal part of the campaign is just heating up etc but since Chris is a great analyzer of Obama Polls I thought I would put that out here.
But why do you doubt Rassmussen? Do you have data that they are less reliable then other major polls like gallup ? at 3 months out how accurate were their polls in predicting the last elections ? What about 1 month out or right before the election?
If you are going to knock Rassmussen as opposed to other polls do you have sources or data to back up your assertions?
Awhile ago i had conversations with others and we all said we liked Newt, he was brilliant, we would love to see him debate Obama on the issues etc but we could not vote for him because of the adultery and baggage.
Then I was watching Debate after Debate and thinking, I really like Newt. So I turn to my wife of 24 years, and said I know he is an adulterer and all that in the past but would it be ok if I voted for him as long as I dont do what he did. And she said she was actually thinking I should vote for him. (She is not a US citizen and can't vote here)
As to ads attacking Newt, One was released yesterday (probably right before this was published but after it was written) by Ron Paul savaging Newt for the Globull warming stuff with pelosi and some other flips.
Conservatives in general will never flock to Paul in numbers because of his foreign policy (or lack there of), failure to accomplish anything in 30+ years in congress and his annoying fan base among other things.
You are right -- I hadn't seen the Paul ad when I wrote this. Right after I posted it, I read a story about it and watched it. Flip! Flop!
Heh.
OK, I have to ask because I know you'll give me an honest answer: do you buy Newt's explanations about his shifting position on Libya earlier this year? The only consistency in his position was: "If Obama's doing it, it's wrong." Within days, he had said he would go in to Libya, and then not go in to Libya. As a military man, does that bother you at all in a C-in-C?
Just wondering.
New polls are out today, Newt's way up (Cain is way down).
-CW
My position on Libya was we should have acted with Congressional approval and if none was forth coming after the Pres asked for it then he shouldn't have acted. (although I think eventually it needed doing). Of course the problem is going to be who is in charge there when the dust settles?
I was not really following Newt back then as close. But what do you expect? he attacked the President he was running against with small quips in interviews. i seem to recall Obama made an entire Campaign of running against Bush.
It was not like he was laying out detailed thoughtful positions after studying the facts.
Obama stated Qadaffi must go before Newt gave the fist interview saying we should implement a no Fly Zone. Then Obama dithered while civilians and rebels were slaughtered from the Air. If the Policy was to remove Qaddafi Newt said we need a no fly zone but it should be US led and we dont need others permission.
Then weeks later Obama let the Europeans take the lead and followed them without Congressional approval. Newt gave a badly worded statement that the Pres was wrong for intervening.
I guess it bugs me a bit but not nearly as much as Obama's overall foreign policy bugs me.
,,, "I would Vote for Newt in the General election over Obama if only he hadn't had an affair while attacking Bill Clinton for having an affair, I mean Newt eventually married the girl, and did not perjure himself in court which is what he really attacked Clinton for, but it is enough reason for me to side with Obama"....
You might pick someone else in a Primary because of that affair, yes I agree with that, but if he wins the Primary you will either vote for him over Obama or you were an Obama supporter all along.
Nothing wrong with being an Obama supporter if you like the things he is doing, but dont try and claim Newts affair 15 years ago is why you are voting Obama!