Gingrich to Win South Carolina
It looks like Newt Gingrich will win the South Carolina Republican primary with about 40% of the vote. Mitt Romney will finish second around 27%, and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul will be 3rd and 4th, with 17% and 13% respectively. (Link to results from CBS News).
Last cycle, I thought that one of the late-starting, non-conventional candidacies (Giuliani, Thompson) was going to have a big impact on the race, but that turned out not to be the case. The Republicans nominated their traditional “next guy in line” who ran an uber-traditional campaign. I learned my lesson and decided that this time around, I would not get pulled into spending any time analyzing scenarios in which the next-guy-in-line frontrunner might lose the nomination to someone else.
The lesson, for me personally, is that I’m so bad at predicting the outcome of the Presidential nomination process, even when I don’t make any predictions, I’m still wrong.
I can’t say I am too surprised by Gingrich. He is a recognized conservative,in a conservative part of the country. He is also from “down home”. I would expect his “background” to cause some trouble there. But, not so much as his conversion to Catholicism. In Charleston, a city of 350,000, there are three Catholic churches (I was suprised there are that many). Compare that to Providence. I suspect that Romney’s Mormon faith might have been a problem.
Here’s the problem.
Gingrich brings the fire and passion so many Republicans are yearning for but is unelectable nationally. I wouldn’t vote for this guy and I lean pretty far right in my politics. He’s the right’s version of David Cicilline only far more accomplished. Newt Gingrich is a dirtbag.
Romney is electable nationally (his Mormon faith will not be the defining issue with him) but he lacks the fire and passion to bring it home. Romney has the resume but lacks the gravitas in this 24/7 media hyped world.
This is a real problem……for the entire country.
Posted by Tim
“Romney has the resume but lacks the gravitas in this 24/7 media hyped world.
This is a real problem……for the entire country.”
There is something in that. As my Southern grandfather used to say when he opened Sunday morning breakfast discussions, “Now is the time for grits and gravitas”.
Romney seems,for want of a better word, harmless. That may soothe and attract “the middle”. Without doubt, “electability” matters. Like the Obamanistas of old, I want “change”.
A further thought. If Gingrich succeeds in the primaries, I think there is a good chance he could “gain stature” and be “re-invented” as the man who “balanced the budget”. If he could obtain the debates he desires, I have no doubt he would win, decisively.
The problem. The “middle” regards the “right” as scary,while the “left” is seen as manageable.
The middle sees the left as scary and the right and too fundamentalist (aka hard to argue with rationally).
Gingrich is a guy who can win nationally. I don’t buy the argument he can’t. People are forgiving and can forgive him. If he loses a few folks on the right, who are they going to vote for, Obama?
I don’t think so. If he’s the nominee conservatives come out for him and he’s got some messaging that can inspire the middle. Romney’s got nice hair and a few million. What else?
“Gingrich is a guy who can win nationally. I don’t buy the argument he can’t.”
That’s right. I don’t see how a quarter billionaire who apparently has something close to $100 million stashed in the Cayman Islands is electable. Sounds like a creepy Grisham novel.
Posted by Tommy Cranston
“I don’t see how a quarter billionaire who apparently has something close to $100 million stashed in the Cayman Islands is electable. Sounds like a creepy Grisham novel.”
Everyone with that kind of money is familiar with Cayman Islands. I don’t like the connotation of “stashing” but “tax avoidance” might be appropriate, and legal.
Having left his dog on the roof of his car might be a more telling criticism.