Gingrich captures Tea Party’s angry mood
Former Speaker of the House bounces back from Iowa humiliation with win in South Carolina
CHARLESTON, S. C. — When Newt Gingrich got humiliated three weeks ago in Iowa, he responded the way any selfrespecting political scrapper would after being beaten down and bloodied.
He got up and started swinging wildly. Not just at the guy who knocked him out, but at any foe ( hello media elite!) who dared come within reach.
Contrast that with Mitt Romney, a candidate so scripted and disciplined even his one- liners in TV debates sound poll- tested and focus- grouped.
“I will show passion and, from time to time, perhaps a little energy — as I feel it in my heart,” Romney said on the morning after his crushing loss to Gingrich in the South Carolina primary.
“But I am a person of sobriety, capacity, steadiness. And I think that’s what you need in the White House.”
Sobriety. Capacity. Steadiness. Perhaps a little energy. Right there, in a nutshell, is Romney’s problem.
In an election year when a great many Republican voters are motivated by unbridled contempt for President Barack Obama and East Coast political elites, the former Massachusetts governor’s failure to channel that populist anger in any convincing way is becoming his biggest obstacle to the Republican nomination.
With the results in South Carolina, Americans saw the first stirrings of anti- establishment Tea Party resentment that had been largely absent in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But Gingrich’s win also ensures a long battle for the Republican nomination rather than a Romney coronation. And such a bitter fight could end up crippling the Republican party going into the November presidential election.
Gingrich’s defiant comeback to CNN host John King’s Thursday night debate question about his marital infidelities is being cited — correctly — as the turning point in a state often described as the heart and soul of the Republican party.
The former House Speaker’s indignant critique of “despicable” media types was catnip for the Republican base.
It’s part of a broader “politics of grievance” strategy that Gingrich is executing — at the moment — better than his rivals.
Unlike Romney, Gingrich is an instinct- driven politician eager to feed the deeper Tea Party appetite for a candidate prepared to go all in on the anti- Obama rhetoric.
Romney describing Obama as
[ Gingrich} plays the resentment chord the way Yo- Yo Ma plays the cello.
STEVE SCHMIDT
REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST
a “nice guy who is just in over his head”? Meh.
But Gingrich calling Obama the “food stamp president”? That’s precisely what the Republican base wants to hear, even as Democrats fume that Gingrich’s language is a racist dog whistle.
In his South Carolina victory speech, Gingrich said Obama embodied the “radicalism of Saul Alinsky.” It was a reference to a long- dead Chicago community organizer who worked in poor African- American communities, penned a book called Rules for Radicals, and is said to have influenced Obama.
If Gingrich’s success continues past South Carolina, Alinsky could become the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of 2012 — a bogeyman whose name can be invoked to confirm the right’s worst fears about Obama as an America- hating socialist.
Gingrich “plays the resentment chord the way Yo- Yo Ma plays the cello,” Republican strategist Steve Schmidt quipped Saturday night. It sounded at once like an insult and a compliment.
Romney, on the other hand, showed no sign here of connecting with the conservative base — folks more likely to be small business owners and working stiffs than fellow travellers in the world of high finance.
A better campaigner would have gone into economically challenged South Carolina with a message tailored to blue- collar conservatives.
Instead he spent days complaining his opponents were envious of his private- sector success and waffling about releasing his taxes. He now plans to do so on Tuesday.
“We just made a mistake in holding off as long as we did,” Romney told CNN.
The lingering suspicion of Romney on the right was evident in South Carolina’s exit polling. Among “very conservative” voters, 45 per cent backed Gingrich. Only 20 per cent voted for Romney. Another telling detail — half of South Carolina voters who consider defeating Obama to be their biggest priority backed Gingrich.
That doesn’t mean he can win. But it shows Republicans believe a candidate who at least sounds angry about the current state of affairs in America has a better chance than one who is more reserved.
Not for nothing did Sarah Palin announce she would have voted for Gingrich in South Carolina. It was a sign the party base isn’t hearing what it wants to from Romney.
South Carolina “sent two really big messages, which I wish the national establishment could pick up. The first is real pain,” Gingrich said on Meet The Press. “There’s tremendous unemployment. People really are hurting.” Still, one primary victory does not a nominee make. Gingrich still has the same flaws he did when his campaign was foundering — an ethically- murky past, a propensity for recklessness and a seeming inability to edit himself that can lead to rhetorical blunders.
Chances are voters will hear more from Gingrich’s foes about his $ 500,000 revolving credit line at Tiffany’s — a reminder that the former Speaker is himself a dues- paying, card- carrying member of the establishment. He could implode at any time.
But Romney, if he is to survive a “long haul” campaign, needs a message that resonates with the Republican’s rank and file.
“I am proud to be pretty steady,” Romney said Sunday. “No one says to me that I am someone who flies off the handle, that I am erratic.”
In the current climate of the Republican party, that’s a problem.