When the networks call your victory the minute the polls closed, you had a good night. When you were left for dead a week ago, you had a great night.
Before the returns came in, I speculated that a narrow Gingrich win would not be the victory it seemed like, given his home-field advantage. It wasn’t narrow. Newt finished well ahead of Mitt Romney and reached the 40% level.
No other candidate has the distance between ceiling and floor that Newt possesses. Romney has not reached Gingrich’s highs or lows in the polling. Newt literally doubled his South Carolina support in one week, snagging seemingly every undecided voter. Besides proving that if you don’t like where Newt Gingrich is in the polls, you just need to wait a few days, here are a few other things we learned:
Somewhere, JFK is smiling. Only 52 years ago, a Catholic candidate was viewed with suspicion. Today, South Carolina evangelicals gave 65% of their vote to Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum–both Catholic.
This election is about courage. I’ve argued this for awhile. America is tired of getting its head kicked in. This isn’t just a Republican thing. People liked Herman Cain because he had courage, if he knew where Libya was he would still be in the race. Gingrich stood up for conservatism on Monday and himself on Thursday.
Romney defended free enterprise, which while admirable is not exactly sticking one’s neck out. Instead of releasing his tax returns and saying he earned his money and is re-investing his Bain gains in America, or telling everyone to mind their own business, Mitt opted to sound like a weasel. Sounding above attacks in debates while blasting his rivals in ads is not a profile in courage either.
Rick Santorum often talks about courage and had a big COURAGE sign behind him during tonight’s speech. What he lacked in South Carolina was the opportunity to demonstrate it. He needs a question on social issues in one of the Florida debates to give him the opportunity to show the voters how he would handle fall campaign mainstream media attacks, rather than just talking about how he will stand in there.
Santorum is a better candidate than people think. I was as much of a Santorum skeptic as anyone. A quick trip through the archives will lead you to any number of snide comments made during debate previews, reviews and drinking games during Rick’s time in the Margin of Error Zone. He gave an excellent speech tonight, easily the best of the four, neatly summarizing his purpose in the race and how his vision of America is different from his opponents.
Much of the conventional wisdom about his candidacy is wrong. Gingrich is not better off if Santorum exits. As much as people focus on non-Romneys, Newt just won by 12% with Santorum doing fairly decently. The two combined to grab 57% of the vote, more than double Romney’s 28%. Much as South Carolina decided the contest needs to go on a bit longer, a couple quick Gingrich victories and a real one-on-one contest would bring all of Newt’s detractors into the open.
Nobody sees a real path to the nomination for Santorum right now, but all he needs to do is finish well in Florida (well ahead of Paul and within 10-12% of the winner, even if he finishes third) and he can continue to Michigan in late February. Santorum’s big argument is that he can win those Rust Belt swing states, so there’s no way he’s getting out until he gets his chance to prove it. That’s more than a month from now, plenty of time for Newt to re-self-destruct and Romney to continue to sputter. This is the time to buy Santorum for the nomination on Intrade. He’s at 1% right now, way too low.
While Gingrich is great at debates, speeches are not his best format. Newt made several solid points in his address, and very wisely decided to compliment his opponents. Bringing up the Obama rejection of the Keystone pipeline was particulary timely. However, the delivery was lacking and it took him several minutes to build momentum. I’m not sure how many people were watching him on a Saturday night, but if he wins Florida, he’ll need to tighten up the victory speech a bit.
-Evan Dodge
Related Items:
South Carolina Primary Blog: Final Prediction
South Carolina Primary Blog: What’s Inside Newt’s Cranium
South Carolina Primary Blog: Runaway Train
Florida Primary Blog: Fickle Florida
I think you’re right about courage, but “courage” is kind of abstract. I think what really came across in the SC debates was that Romney isn’t willing to fight. With the President’s presumed $billion war chest, it’s definitely going to take some fighting (one manifestation of courage) to win.