In case you didn’t get the memo, Newt Gingrich is mad and he’s not going to take it anymore. The New Newt, 68-year-old grandfather, happy warrior, and above the fray historian, is now in mothballs for the primary season.
Newt the Destroyer is blanketing the free media airwaves, with Mitt Romney in the crosshairs. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum, considered by Dick Morris and many others as a threat to Gingrich’s chances in South Carolina, is the beneficiary of a Gingrich security bubble, being praised as Newt pushes back at Romney.
Few major political figures have combined intelligence and petulance the way Gingrich does, so it’s hard to determine how much of this is strategy and how much is pique. South Carolina is considered a must-win state if he plans on having a shot at the nomination.
Has Newt given up, now only hanging in to ruin Romney? Does he think he can somehow win South Carolina even with a strong Santorum? Or, has a display of old-fashioned Gingrich temper temporarily blinded us to a particularly bold and potentially effective plan? Let’s test the alternatives:
Photo used under Creative Commons from Gage Skidmore (http://flic.kr/p/aqnHXQ)
Newt the Kamikaze
It sure looked like this was the answer Tuesday night, as a tired, disheveled and washed out looking Gingrich followed up on his morning denunciations by taking after Romney in his concession speech. In a series of interviews, Newt talked about his “contrast” ad scheduled for today in the New Hampshire Union Leader, said Massachussetts moderate at least once every other minute and generally gave the impression he was headed to the Granite State as a one man truth squad, results be dammed.
Given Newt’s vindictive history, this is an easy storyline to believe. While Gingrich only trails Romney by a few points in the national Gallup tracking poll, his numbers fell more precipitously in Iowa and New Hampshire and he can look forward to a hail of negativity in the Palmetto State as well. Knowing he does not have the funds to compete ad for ad, perhaps he is reining in his larger ambitions to extract a pound of flesh instead.
While Gingrich is often an easy target for scorn, if you went from front-runner to also-ran in less than a month, with the entire weight of the establishment pressed on your neck, you might be a mite grouchy too. While Romney and his Super PAC are not the only cause of Newt’s collapse (anti-endorsements from his congressional colleagues and the National Review didn’t help), he’s the most motivated culprit and visible target.
Newt the Overconfident
On the other hand, Gingrich has never lacked for confidence, perhaps starting some of his trouble by declaring he was the likely nominee back in his salad days of early December. Is he suffering from arrogance-induced blindness? Perhaps Newt thinks Santorum is not as much of a threat as he seems and by going on the offensive, he can knock Romney down fast enough to best both candidates in South Carolina.
This seems borderline insane. Gingrich is now in single-digits in New Hampshire, somewhere between third and fifth place depending on the poll. While he has two debates to look forward to over the weekend, Newt can choose between the debate persona that won him so many admirers and attack dog, but even Gingrich doesn’t have the skill to do both at the same time.
Though he has a definite home field advantage in South Carolina, if Santorum finishes ahead of him in New Hampshire (virtually certain if Newt continues on this course), it’s hard to imagine how Gingrich recovers in time to win only 11 days later. Santorum spent a surprising amount of time in the state during 2011 and can rely on a fairly large base of social conservatives to help propel him. It’s tough to make the math work out and after years of counting votes, you would think Newt knows this.
Gingrich the Political Strategist
Gingrich the Strategist has the ability to see way down the road and dig out from almost any adversity. This is an important skill, as Newt the Candidate tends to push Gingrich the Strategist to the limit. The original plan (once Newt rocketed to the top) was to blow Romney out of the water.
A victory in Iowa, followed by a respectable second place showing in New Hampshire, would give Gingrich enough strength to win easily in South Carolina. With Romney having failed again in Iowa and South Carolina, he would look like a loser heading into Florida, which Newt would win handily, virtually wrapping up the nomination by the end of January.
While Romney would not drop out and could win a few states, Super Tuesday would finish him off completely as Gingrich would win the important swing state of Virginia, proving he was the more electable candidate in the states Republicans have to win in the fall.
It sounded great on paper, but as Gingrich began to collapse in the polls and then failed to qualify for the ballot in Virginia, holes developed in the game plan. When it became obvious Romney would do well enough in Iowa, sure to finish ahead of Newt, whether or not he won outright, a drastic change in thinking was required.
If Romney wins South Carolina, the game is over. He won Iowa (not by much, but it still counts as a win) and will (barring a miracle) win New Hampshire. Not only has South Carolina chosen the Republican nominee each year since 1980, but it represents Romney’s opportunity to prove he has improved as a candidate since 2008. John McCain lost a bitter primary there in 2000; coming back to win in ’08 showed he could satisfy more of the party and set up a crucial victory in Florida.
A Romney sweep of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida would make the Romney inevitability chorus deafening. As if he needed more assistance, the next important stops on the tour are Nevada (Romney won in ’08, big Mormon population), Michigan (where Romney grew up) and Arizona (where McCain will campaign for Romney).
Super Tuesday includes Virginia (where at least for now Romney and Paul are the only candidates on the ballot) and Massachussetts. There is a less than a 1% chance Romney will win South Carolina by more than 8 votes and lose the nomination.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. In this case it means setting up a tag-team with Santorum. Tuesday night, as bleary-eyed pundits talked about Gingrich clearing the way for Santorum, it seemed like Newt was sacrificing any remaining chance for himself to ruin Romney.
What if instead, Newt is using Santorum as a shield, promoting him as a way to stop Romney in South Carolina, figuring that while he can’t rehabilitate himself by January 21, he can by the time delegates really start accumulating in April?
No other candidate would attempt this or manage to execute it. Other candidates have influential campaign managers and strategists, none of whom would ever sign off on such a caper if they wanted to work again after it failed. Other candidates have more expensive operations that require the financial infusion that only victory brings. Other candidates lack the name recognition and base of admirers to rebound quickly at the first sign of viability.
If Romney loses South Carolina, the game continues for awhile. Either Santorum proves surprisingly durable, in which case Gingrich can console himself with the knowledge that he eliminated Romney (or at least gave someone a real chance to), or Santorum fills the role Herman Cain did in October, rising in the polls to combat Romney, while giving Newt a chance to repair his wounds and fight another day.
We’ve grown used to the idea that candidates drop out early unless they start winning or are a Ron Paul-style niche contender. The history of the past several elections gave us the idea that South Carolina was a must-win for Gingrich. While I’m sure he would prefer to win, with money in the bank, fire in the belly and plenty of name recognition, he can hang in for a long time (assuming Romney isn’t winning every state).
The relatively backloaded schedule and proportional delegate allocation through March changes the math from the usual equation. As is often the case with the inscrutable Mr. Gingrich, what seems like disaster is potentially opportunity (unfortunately, the reverse is also true). We didn’t think he was going to make this easy on himself, did we?
-Evan Dodge
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Requiem for a Candidate: Michele Bachmann
New Hampshire Primary Blog: Blood in the Water
New Hampshire Primary Blog: Why Ignoring Iowa is Dangerous
With proportional delegates, are you really a winner if you only get 25% of them? I dunno. FWIW, the last time Romney had more than a single digit lead in any poll was August. Unless Bachman’s votes go to Romney, he’s even further behind.
I’m looking forward to seeing a post-Iowa SC poll to see how Santorum registers. Previously he hadn’t done as well as Huntsman.
I also wonder how age will factor in to all this. About 1/3 of the voting age population is too young to really remember Gingrich.
The whole deal with Romney winning SC and then the next 5-6 states is psychological, it will make it seem insurmountable to other candidates (and more importantly contributors). He wouldn’t be anywhere near clinching the nomination if it was winner-take-all, proportionally he would have a relatively small lead (think Romney, Santorum, Paul split the delegates evenly or close to it in Iowa). That’s why beating Romney in SC would make such a difference. Newt, Santorum, somebody new, whomever would have plenty of time to haul down Romney in the delegate count as long as he hadn’t already proven he could win in the south.
I’m dying to see a new poll. It will give us a much better idea of Newt’s floor. I’m assuming they are going to poll at least once post-Iowa, pre-NH.
Newt normally does better with voters who do remember him than those who don’t. Those who do remember (and like him) aren’t as easily influenced by attacks. Those who remember and hate him were a lost cause anyway. Not sure how anybody who didn’t remember him could see those ads and think he was a good choice.
Thanks for introducing a little ratonailtiy into this debate.
Really good analysis for both Michelle and Newt. I think you have them both pegged. Can you help out Ron Paul a little? For instance I like to ask Hawkish republicans under what situation they see Iran getting a nuclear bomb. There is a 100% chance that Israel would take out any program preemptively. We literally could play no role at all and Iran would not get a nuke. Therefore the whole Iran issue to me is a non-issue. It’s used by military industrialists to suck more funding from tax payers willing to pay whatever it takes to feel safe. If you agree, maybe Paul should push his agenda from that angle, instead of continuing to point out that Iran is actually no where near a nuke, and even less capable of delivering it if they had one.