As Newt Gingrich improbably surges to the status of front-runner in the Republican presidential race, Mitt Romney is faced with the dilemma of what to do in response. It's a tricky position he's in. Gingrich apparently has a double digit lead in Iowa, while also leading in the polls for South Carolina and Florida. Romney faces a dangerous scenario in which Gingrich wins big in Iowa on January 3rd, garnering a whole lot of momentum, publicity, and, potentially, money. Romney still seems likely to prevail in New Hampshire on January 10th, by which time the field will probably be winnowed considerably. (Ricky we hardly knew ye). It seems to me that at this point the anti-Romney voters -- who seem to be the majority of GOP voters -- will move toward Gingrich.
Gingrich appears positioned to be able to win convincing victories in South Carolina on January 21st and Florida on January 31st. At that point, it will probably be a two man race (plus Ron Paul, who really doesn't count) and Romney will be bleeding profusely. He will no longer be inevitable and his "electability" -- his major selling point to most of his supporters -- is going to seem far less compelling. One senses too that Romney will not perform well at the moment when it all seems to be slipping away -- certainly his recent whiny disaster of an interview on Fox suggests this.
All of this argues for Romney to go after Gingrich aggressively right now and try to prevent this scenario from unfolding. Certainly there is much to attack. But the question is, can he do so in a manner that is both effective -- we are down to a matter of just a few weeks now before these contests unfold -- and is not costly to Romney in terms of the Fox and talk radio primaries. Although many on the right see a Gingrich nomination for the disaster it will be, there remains such a deep skepticism regarding Romney that a poorly conceived attack on Gingrich could have a rallying effect for his opponent.
It's the sort of difficult tactical situation that Romney has been able to avoid as his other potential challengers self-destructed. Gingrich strikes me as different -- although he is deeply flawed and has more baggage than any front-runner I've ever seen, he has been in the big time before, he has an incredible capacity for bluster, and basically, his warts are well known to the Republican audience. Many of them just don't care -- they view him as a leader and as someone who presents an exquisite "fuck you" to the establishment (whoever that is), notwithstanding the fact that Gingrich is the kind of grifter that Sarah Palin could only dream of being.
I have my doubts that Romney has the chops to pull this off. The question then is whether he can recover -- South Carolina has generally been the pivotal contest in competitive GOP nomination races -- and beat Gingrich on the more favorable turf that will follow Florida.
Personally, I am rooting for Gingrich with all of my heart. If Obama can't beat him, then I agree for once with Will Wilkinson: "we all deserve to die in a purifying fire."
