Breaking Commandments In The GOP Presidential Primary

Written by William J. Richards

William J. Richards is the Director of New Media for the Hall Institute of Public Policy.  His research interests include aerospace policy, science education, information technology in the democratic process, and civil rights.

Mitt Romney has been the presumed Republican nominee for months now.  Never mind the fact that no actual votes were cast until three weeks ago.  He’s withstood challenges from Bachmann, Cain, Perry, and Santorum.  Everyone got their moment in the sun to go against the presumed champion.  And they all fell to his presumed strengths – electability and inevitability.

But now Newt Gingrich has pulled off a major upset in South Carolina.  In doing so, he’s now collected more delegates than Governor Romney.  He did so with less money, and in a state where virtually every state official endorsed Mitt Romney.

And it raised a great question:  If Romney couldn’t win under those conditions, is he really inevitable?  Is he really the only one that can challenge President Obama?  These are ominous questions for the GOP to ask.  These questions risk piercing the delicate façade that the Romney campaign has constructed – the idea of Romney being the inevitable nominee.  Of course, he’s only inevitable because Republicans believe he is.  If they stop believing, one of his core strengths is taken away from him.

Gingrich is a masterful politician.  He knows his party’s core and he knows how to pander to their baser instincts.  The man managed to turn his prior infidelity to his political advantage at a debate sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage. He then took this question and turned into an attack on the media, in a stunning display of political Judo.

But Gingrich is an untested far right wing ideologue.  Although he has gone far in American Political life – The Speaker of The House is second in line to the Presidency, after all – he’s never been competitive in an election where the electorate was not heavily Republican.

The former Speaker won South Carolina with 40.4% of the vote.  That’s an impressive lead over his closest rival, Mitt Romney who managed only 27.8%.  But in terms of actual quantity, the former Speaker received 243,153 votes.  That’s a career high for Newt Gingrich!   Prior to this primary, the man has never received more than 174,155 votes in an election.  The man has never won an election outside of his home Congressional District – Georgia’s 6^th, which has a Cook Parisian Voting Index of R+19.

So the GOP establishment is understandably nervous of the prospects of a Gingrich ascendancy.  Governor Romney has been poll tested in all the swing states.  He’s projected to be competitive against the President with the crucial voters who decide presidential elections – independents.  By contrast, the former Speaker has been on the national Political stage for decades.  He has 100% name ID in polls, and very high disapproval ratings outside the GOP (and troublingly high disapproval ratings within the party).  Romney has defeated a strong Democratic candidate in a state that does not favor Republicans.  He also ran competitively against Democrats in races that he lost.  The former speaker has never been tested against a strong Democrat.

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