Those of you across the border may be interested to know Newt Gingrich has several Delaware events planned this week, well in advance of their April 24 primary. He also has two stops later today in Frederick, Maryland.
Newt will be at a local auto dealership and Hood College in Frederick in a last-ditch effort to improve his Maryland standing, which places him in the low teens, according to recent polls. But tomorrow evening wife Callista comes to the First State for a speaking date at the Sussex and Kent County Republican Women’s Dinner in Milford.
Thursday will be a whirlwind day of stops in Delaware, with plans for Callista to read to children at a Christian academy in Dover, Newt to visit the Delaware Electric Cooperative office in Greenwood, then both holding late afternoon and evening rallies in Magnolia and Millsboro, at their respective fire halls. (I suppose one could call that a whistle stop tour.)
It’s obvious Newt is making his appeal to the conservative side of the Delaware GOP as his initial itinerary steers him away from the more centrist Wilmington area, where the bulk of Delaware voters live. On the other hand, the rural portion of Delaware he’s visiting is well off the beaten path for Presidential politics in most years – but 2012 will be an exception.
And it’s likely that these events will have a markedly different feel than Newt’s Salisbury stop, because they’ll likely be populated with local officeseekers gladhanding and the actual trappings of a political rally as opposed to Newt’s low-key college presence – conveniently, Newt has a fire hall rally in both Kent (Magnolia) and Sussex (Millsboro) counties. This is important because Delaware has a number of local elections including a Republican nomination to oppose current Governor Jack Markell.
So Newt fans who couldn’t get a seat at Salisbury University because the event was only open to campus attendees can see the Gingriches live and in person on Thursday if they want to take the drive up Delaware Route 24 to Millsboro. It’s a nice, sleepy little town that will be far more awake come Thursday evening.
The line stretched outside Holloway Hall at Salisbury University. It’s not often you can be up close and personal with a presidential candidate.
They were lined up an hour early at Holloway Hall at Salisbury University to witness a little history – for the first time in recent memory the presidential campaign came to the lower Eastern Shore.
And true to the advice given by one university official who stressed the school wanted to promote “critical thinking” without heckling or other inappropriate disruptions, the audience of about 200 inside the hall was very well-behaved. The parents of these SU students should be quite proud of how their charges acted inside the hall. Once the question-and-answer period began it was obvious that not all in the room shared Gingrich’s worldview but the discussion was extremely civil.
Thanks to SU College Republican president Nikki Hovercamp for the invitation.
However, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. First I’d like to thank Nikki Hovercamp of the Salisbury College Republicans for getting me into the event, because even the local Central Committee was taken by surprise with the announcement. She had the distinct honor of introducing the candidate.
(I tried four times to catch her with eyes on the audience but these old fingers are too slow.)
Gingrich walked in to a thunderous ovation, and after praising the Salisbury Zoo (which he had the opportunity to visit, saying “I have a passion for dropping by zoos whenever I can”) he revealed a little-known fact: one could consider Salisbury University the birthplace of the Contract With America, as House Republicans held a retreat here in early 1994. Newt went on to claim that Republicans won “because we were positive” and the net gain of 10 million votes gave the GOP the largest off-year gain up to that point.
While the Contract was successful as a “management document” it also provided them a guideline for what to do when they assumed power. Newt reminded us there was no “institutional memory” for House Republicans, as none had ever served in the majority.
I have to say it was an unusual point from which to begin a campaign appearance, but Newt told us that this would be “a different talk.” This speech would serve as part of an overall statement in the academic setting to be expanded on tomorrow at Georgetown University, Gingrich announced.
“I have been trying to wrestle with what I have not been able to communicate,” continued Newt, bemoaning the fact that during the campaign “I got sucked into normal politics, which is frankly…a waste of time.” The two challenges he wanted to address were, first, the core nature of this country, with American civilization being “profoundly different than other models around the world,” and, second, the “role of innovation in meeting challenges in creating a successful 21st century America.”
Regarding the first point, Newt went into an explanation of “the American Experience,” reached back to the Founding Fathers to remind us their first complaint was taxation without representation, but the second was judges. He recalled Hamilton saying the judiciary branch would be the weakest part of government, but now we’re at a point where the future could depend on “where one lawyer could reinterpret the Constitution based on a whim.” Obama is the personification of the opposite school of thought, said Newt.
He spent the bulk of his time expanding on the second point. “There is no reason for this country to have any significant problems,” Newt continued. Instead, the blame lay on a “really bad governing structure and a really incompetent bureaucratic system.”
There were two sides to this coin, with the “world of innovation” going up against the federal government. Newt joked we could easily find all 11 million illegal aliens by simply sending them a package via UPS or FedEx and tracking them from there. American Express, VISA, and Mastercard can validate you’re charging something in real time while Medicare and Medicaid are being “run by paper-based bureaucrats from 9 to 5 who are trying to keep up with crooks who use iPads 24 hours a day.” The point was fraud and waste could be eliminated, but the problem was administrations of both parties being “impervious to new ideas.”
The presidential candidate makes a point.
Newt also defended his idea that we should go back into space, despite ridicule by his opponents and the media. Using the Wright Brothers and their 500 crashed test flights over five years as an example of private incentive, Gingrich said “I want to go back into space.” He believed that we use “a fairly large amount of NASA’s money” to create prizes as rewards for innovation. “Quit studying things and start doing them,” said Newt.
Energy was another key theme of Newt’s speech, as he spoke about the trucking industry’s conversion to natural gas, drilling for more of our own energy needs, and weaning our dependence off Middle Eastern oil. The bounty of natural gas “blows apart an idea some of you heard in class called ‘peak oil’,” continued the former Speaker. President Obama was being “plain factual false” when he said we had just 2 percent of the world’s oil supply, stated Gingrich. “Under my plan it might be harder to get to $2.50,” Gingrich said later when asked about the prospect of Iranian trouble, “but under Obama you’d get to $10.”
With the energy independence “revolution,” Newt went on, “(Other countries have) to worry about the Straits of Hormuz – we don’t.” We could even pay off our debt simply based on oil and natural gas royalties, which Gingrich claimed could run $16 to $18 trillion.
Other ideas Gingrich bounced off the audience were replacing the civil service system with a Lean Six Sigma approach, which would “accelerate the capability of government dramatically,” and privatizing the Social Security system, perhaps on a Chilean model. “Nobody dictates when you retire” under such a model, Gingrich added.
But another focus we need to create is one on “brain science,” combating diseases like Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, and other mental illnesses. “Trillions” could be saved if we improve the research to “fix it rather than just take care of it.”
“If you take the most modern things available,” concluded Newt, “we would pull away from the Chinese just as decisively as 40 to 50 years ago, we pulled away from the Russians.” We have to “fundamentally overhaul” the government, but both parties are failing in this.
Like any good lecturer, Newt was kind enough to take questions from the audience, and I sensed many of those asking were across the political spectrum from the GOP hopeful. For example, the first questioner asked whether Gingrich backed a nuclear-free zone for the Middle East. “No,” he curtly said, because it would be a threat toward Israel.
Another questioner asked about cap-and-trade which he claimed Newt backed in 2007. But Gingrich cited a much smaller program limited to sulfuric acid and certain utilities that Congress approved under the Clean Air Act, and said that to jump from such a program to controlling all the carbon in the United States “is an absurdity.”
“I testified against cap and trade the same day Al Gore testified in favor it,” said Newt.
On his previous opposition to women in combat and ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ Gingrich believed we should defer to the command officers. But they would be disinclined to speak in public over their objection, added Gingrich, for fear of being “retired summarily.”
“If I become the nominee (and Obama doesn’t agree to seven three-hour debates) I will let the White House be my scheduler and wherever he speaks I would rebut his speech four hours later.” This was in reference to a question about debating President Obama. I liked that concept.
Regarding the “decaying dollar”, Newt vowed if elected to ask Congress to fire Ben Bernanke if he didn’t resign before Newt was sworn in. Gingrich also pledged to audit the Federal Reserve, which drew a smattering of applause. “We deserve to know who got the money and why,” Newt said.
Of course someone asked about student loans. Newt wasn’t going to change what students owe, but instead help to create jobs. “My goal is to get you to have the ability to have a good job,” he commented, but continued on, “I would urge all of you to rethink this whole student loan game.” By only borrowing the minimum required for schooling and not thinking of it as “free money” they could help themselves down the road. He used the College of the Ozarks as an example, where work pays for books, room, and board. “92 percent of those students graduate owing zero,” claimed Newt.
Was Obama “weak on terrorism” if he killed Osama bin Laden? he was asked. “You cannot explain (terrorism) unless you confront the problem of radical Islam,” Gingrich answered. Even when another student countered with the requisite Timothy McVeigh example, it was still “99 point something percent” of the problem.
And energy independence meant we wouldn’t tolerate Saudi threats. But Obama “lost the chance” to do something about the Iranian dictatorship and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and he blasted the President for apologizing to Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. “If I were the Commander-in-Chief I would never apologize to people who are killing young Americans,” Gingrich railed, “but that is exactly what we did three weeks ago, and the apology wasn’t warranted.”
Once Gingrich finished his 50-minute presentation, he met with a very fortunate group of Salisbury University College Republicans; meanwhile I stepped outside to see if the media presence looked like it did on the inside.
There was quite the media presence inside Holloway Hall.
It was pretty busy outside too. Here’s one young lady being interviewed by Channel 47.
Being interviewed by a local television station.
When I took that picture there was a print reporter on the other side of me; suffice to say we were getting plenty of reaction. It’s interesting to note that reportedly Gingrich lost his print reporter following but there was a solid sampling of media present.
So what did I think of the speech?
There was a lot to like in what Gingrich said, particularly in terms of the War on Terror, but there is a fundamental difference in the way I see his approach and my impression of straight-line conservatism and limited government. Look at all the things Gingrich would like to do involving the federal government – yes, he speaks about streamlining it but in the end the government is still there, still too powerful for our own good.
I was struck by the fact Newt talked about the fact one imposes discipline on Washington because they can’t do it themselves, but I don’t think he gets it that discipline isn’t just about spending but about curtailing federal power as well. Yes, having a prize for space-related activities is nice but we see what happened when the Department of Energy decided a $50 LED light bulb was “affordable.” There’s no guarantee that a Department of Environmental Solutions won’t eventually devolve to the same behemoth we have with the EPA.
But it’s interesting that, at this late stage in a campaign reduced to cheering upon staying out of the fourth-place basement, Newt is returning to his roots in a way. And when he spoke about never seeing four wolves howling at the same time as he did during his trip to the Salisbury Zoo today, that incident seemed to me a metaphor for how the GOP race should have been run – this pack should be howling about Obama instead of snapping at each other’s heels. In this stop Gingrich went back to his original theme of being solution-oriented and positive, barely mentioning his GOP opponents save on a couple occasions.
Of course, what put his campaign on the map for the brief time he was considered the top threat to the “invincible” Mitt Romney was his performance in the South Carolina debates, where he savaged the media and seized his own narrative for a few days – only to be destroyed by a barrage of negative ads from PACs affiliated with Mitt Romney in Florida. (Those same entities have set their sights on destroying Rick Santorum now, as Newt is barely a memory in the race.) It’s unfortunate that Newt couldn’t maintain his campaign on the comfort level he seemed to have today, holding 200 students and observers in the palm of his hand while he made his points.
In this moment it seems like Newt has practically abandoned his 2012 Presidential plans and now wants to return to being a teacher. While a younger generation of voters may or may not push the X next to Newt’s name this coming Tuesday, I’m hoping they learned the lesson of critical thinking the Salisbury University official stressed prior to the event. Isn’t that what college is for?
It will be interesting to see how Gingrich expands his topics tomorrow, but today may have been the start of the post-Presidential Newt Gingrich. Just by invoking the memory of his political salad days two decades ago, we were reminded that Newt was great at getting to the top. His problem was staying there.
Update: Robert Stacy McCain calls this period the “campaign death watch” for Newt. But Gingrich said in the remarks he was going to Tampa.
It’s an exciting day at monoblogue, made even moreso by the fact the presidential race came to Salisbury and I was there to cover the event. Yesterday I finalized a long-term sponsor to the site, so I encourage you to check out TEA Party Posters at rightposters.com. Welcome aboard John!
And late last night I found out that my site had finally broken through the 300,000 barrier in Alexa rank – when you figure this is somewhat of a regional website that’s pretty rarefied air. I’m just a little outside cracking the 50,000 rank for the first time insofar as U.S. rank goes as well. (Update: made it today!)
My rankings have been going down (like golf, lower is better) because people have been coming to my site of late. Readership has been surging with a number of well-read posts on Trayvon Martin, the Maryland presidential primary, and my U.S. Senate endorsement being just a few.
And look for more exciting stuff in the days to come!
Well, as Mitt Romney says on his website, “it’s your turn, Maryland.” But will the turn be expressed in simple media buys or are we going to be graced with the presence of the four major candidates? That’s the question which doesn’t seem to have an answer, but unfortunately the signs presently point to a heavier emphasis on Wisconsin (which also votes April 3 and has a slightly larger delegate package) than on Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Most would consider Mitt Romney the favorite in this state, which is relatively similar in makeup to a number of other Northeast states where he’s done well. Mitt was the first to visit this state last week by holding a townhall meeting in Arbutus, but he’s also cultivated a long list of endorsements from state elected officials and party insiders in the months leading up to the primary. Add in the fact he has plenty of money to saturate the state’s two key media markets (one of which he also used leading up to the Virginia primary) and he may not even feel the need to visit the state again.
Newt Gingrich hasn’t been a stranger to Maryland, being the keynote speaker at the state party’s Red White and Blue Dinner twice in the last three years (the other speaker was Mitt Romney in 2010.) But while he has a Delaware appearance on his upcoming schedule tomorrow evening at Hockessin (near Wilmington), there are no Maryland events on his docket yet. However, Newt does not have a Wisconsin event slated for himself until Thursday evening, meaning he could spend the midweek in the Free State.
Moreover, Gingrich has an incentive to campaign in this area, as First District Congressman Andy Harris is one of his state co-chairs. The Baltimore Sun is reporting that Gingrich will be in Annapolis Tuesday, which fits with the Delaware event.
Ron Paul has already slated a Maryland event, appearing at a rally at the University of Maryland on Wednesday evening. But he has slowed down his appearances since keeping up a frenetic pace in caucus states earlier this month, sticking mainly to rallies at large colleges (such as the University of Maryland) in other states.
So far Rick Santorum has a limited number of events on his calendar, all in Wisconsin. It’s likely he would be in the Badger State until at least Tuesday, when he has two rallies there. In theory he could be in Maryland tomorrow but that’s very short notice. Given that his rallies seem to be somewhat lengthy affairs, there would likely need to be some advance notice so if he’s indeed coming to Maryland it’s likely Rick would make a final push here closer to the end of the week.
And while early voting has commenced, the vast majority of votes will still be cast on Election Day April 3. So if presidential candidates want to do some retail politicking here in Maryland, their opportunity to do so is waning quickly.
On Sunday I received an e-mail from a friend and professional associate of mine wondering aloud if a coup d’etat was being perpetrated:
It appears from my cursory review (I could be wrong, but I don’t think so) that this EO gives this administration complete and utter control, up to and including confiscation, of all farms and equipment, and many, many other items of infrastructure if they, in so many words, choose to do so.
Well, I suppose I’m happy to report that, while the mainstream media has pretty much ignored the Friday afternoon document dump (something they are quite reliable for), Ed Morrissey at HotAirtook a closer look at the Executive Order’s effects. In essence, this EO is a rewrite of one (EO12919) signed by President Clinton in 1994, but updated to reflect the new cabinet positions created since.
But there is a problem here; it’s just not the one we think it is.
The law Obama’s EO traces its origin to was passed in 1950, at the start of the Cold War. While the Soviet Union is no more and we have gone through twelve Presidents in that time span (not to mention some more or less undeclared wars and incursions to various points around the globe) the question really should be why, if the update was needed, did President Obama wait until just a few months before the end of his term? Or perhaps another question: why release this on a Friday afternoon when many millions are paying rapt attention to a basketball tournament?
I took a lot of flak for talking about Ron Paul a few weeks back, and I can’t see how he has a path to the nomination. But I was chastised for the fraud allegations his supporters put out with the tacit acceptance of the campaign.
So I was quite interested to see this Stephen Dinan story from the Washington Times on Monday, and the money quote I’m repeating here:
“Sometimes we get thousands of people like this, and we’ll take them to the polling booth, and we won’t win the caucuses,” he said. “A lot of our supporters are very suspicious about it.”
He said he doesn’t have proof of actual fraud, but said it’s a possible explanation.
“It’s that kind of stuff that makes you suspicious, because quite frankly, I don’t think the other candidates are getting crowds like this,” he said.
I suspect the crowds are partially because the candidate has a certain buzz about him, but after seeing and hearing him they may not be convinced he’s worth voting or caucusing for. Needless to say, the online polls and rallies only prove that Paul’s followers may be rabid but not convincing.
However, the problem they present for the other candidates in the race is their attitude: “Paul or none at all.” I beg to differ because staying home is a vote for Obama and that’s the last thing we need.
Yet I wondered why the caucus strategy was ever thought to be a valid one when, even if Paul won every delegate available from the caucuses he wouldn’t even be halfway to the number needed for nomination. Getting 10 to 15 percent of the primary vote isn’t going to work in the four-person race it’s become, particularly once the winner-take-all races begin with Maryland and Wisconsin on April 3rd. (Apparently Texas, which was also slated for April 3, won’t have their primary until late May due to questions about their redistricting winding through their courts.)
So there’s very little chance Paul will win the nomination, but having three essentially conservative candidates split the right-wing vote against the party’s moderate minority means we could have another John McCain or Bob Dole wipeout on our hands. Needless to say, our country can’t afford that.
Sometimes we have to step back and, to use a sports analogy, take what the defense gives us. I’d rather work with a Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich in the White House than another moment of Barack Obama. If Ron Paul can’t win in the places where he’s supposedly strong and can only resort to wondering if he’s being cheated somehow, that’s no path to victory.
Since I’ve covered a lot of news over the last few days, I’m going to take a bit of a break tonight and put up two polls for your consideration. (That and I’m a curious sort anyway.)
If this were the regular fall campaign, the point at which we sit would be analogous to late September. A lot of time and effort has been invested so far, but anything can happen. So I want to see where my readers think things are.
I’ll be back in the swing tomorrow with some interesting news.
Update: I knew I forgot to do something. Now it’s a little more legit, since I honestly don’t think Dan Bongino would get over 99% of the votes. See what happens when you’re creating a poll while half-asleep?
Although he hadn’t won a delegate nor garnered more than a tiny fraction of the primary voters to date, it took until yesterday for Buddy Roemer to finally stop seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Blaming his GOP bid’s demise on the lack of participation in the debates, Roemer is now seeking either the Reform Party nod or ballot access via Americans Elect, an internet-based nomination process which was started late last year.
Throughout his campaign, Roemer has been a Republican of a different stripe; for example, he’s backed the Occupy Wall Street movement. Buddy has also made waves by vowing not to take PAC contributions or individual donations exceeding $100, with his point being that 3 million people donating $100 would net him $300 million and make him competitive. Obviously, though, reality has smacked him in the face as he’s collected under $400,000 in this cycle – by comparison, Rick Santorum, the weakest financial link still in the GOP race, had raised $6.6 million by the end of January.
The Americans Elect movement is an interesting one. Unlike most other third parties, they are only interested in one race: the presidency. To that end, they are looking for a choice determined via internet poll, with the winner then getting a vice-presidential nominee from the other party – if Roemer won the nomination as a Republican, the vice-presidential candidate would have to be a Democrat. Meanwhile, the Reform Party has its roots in the long-ago presidential run of Ross Perot.
Over the last forty years, the two elections Perot was instrumental in helped Bill Clinton secure two presidential terms. The elections over that span where a third party succeeded in getting a significant portion of the vote (1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000) generally shook out in such a manner that the third-party nominee took away support from the political side he resided on.
In 1980 John Anderson, a renegade Republican, got 7% but didn’t materially affect a 10-point Reagan win.
In 1992 Ross Perot picked up 19% of the vote, with Bill Clinton winning by a 43% plurality over incumbent President George H.W. Bush.
Perot ran again in 1996, receiving 8% of the vote in an election where Bill Clinton was re-elected with just 49% over Republican Bob Dole.
The infamous 2000 election featured Ralph Nader taking just under 3 percent of the vote. Al Gore had the plurality with 48.4% but George W. Bush got the majority of electoral votes with 47.9% of the vote.
So more often than not, the result of an insurgent third party has been the political philosophy of the third-party candidate getting more votes but losing the election due to a split. It can be argued that a large number of Perot voters would have helped Bush and Dole in the 1990’s – I know I would have held my nose and voted for Bush in 1992 had Perot not been in the race. (I voted for Dole in 1996.) The inverse was true in 2000, when it can be presumed that Nader cost Gore the election, particularly in Florida where he got far more than the 500 or so votes that Bush won Florida by.
By many accounts, at least at this early point, the election of 2012 looks to be a fairly close one, with President Obama leading over prospective Republican opponents by a few points in national polls. But an insurgent campaign from the right (such as Ron Paul) may draw voters away from the GOP candidate and assure Obama a second, disastrous term.
But if Americans Elect selects a far-left candidate, such as the Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Republican could pull the upset. Yet the Left seems a lot more disciplined about not deviating from their chosen candidates, knowing that even a moderately liberal candidate will pull America in the political direction they desire.
Yes, you read the headline right. With the Santorum sweep on Tuesday night we have the following results from the states which have voted in primaries or caucuses:
Rick Santorum has won Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.
Mitt Romney has taken New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada.
Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina.
Ron Paul has finished second twice (New Hampshire, Minnesota), third three times (Iowa, Nevada, Missouri) and fourth three times (South Carolina, Florida, Colorado). The third place in Missouri could have been a fourth if Newt Gingrich qualified for the ballot.
But Ron Paul supporters continue to believe the notion that there’s fraud in the two caucus states where delegates to the national convention were at stake (Iowa and Nevada.) In particular, this Examiner post by Mark Wachtler lays out what happened in one Clark County, Nevada precinct, and Wes Messamore at The Humble Libertarianpiles on. Their logic is relatively simple: since Paul did well in that particular, somewhat large precinct, he must have done just as well across the rest of Clark County and since that area makes up most of the state’s electorate Ron Paul was swindled.
It even goes back to the Iowa caucus – and beyond. The fact that Iowa’s GOP state chair Matt Strawn resigned in the wake of the caucus imbroglio is considered proof positive that Ron Paul was hosed there somehow, too – after all, Paul was dissed at last summer’s Iowa Straw Poll by Strawn. That’s how Paul supporters sometimes operate.
This truly wasn’t a shock; back in December when Herman Cain exited the race I came right out and said I wouldn’t be surprised if he endorsed Newt Gingrich. They’re very familiar to one another as both hail from Georgia and you may recall they had a one-on-one debate with each other last fall. (Gingrich also had a similar debate with Jon Huntsman, which neither did anything for Huntsman nor got him to endorse Newt, as Jon Huntsman now backs Mitt Romney.) Cain’s consolation prize is now a position chairing Newt’s tax reform efforts.
However, the timing of this perhaps shows Cain’s lack of political savvy – or, to play devil’s advocate, means he marches to his own drummer and eschews standards which would place him within the political norm. Your choice. The latter seems especially true when you consider Cain had already made his “unconventional endorsement” of “the people.”
Honestly, as a former Cain supporter, I think Herman’s post-campaign decisions have been quite disappointing. His TEA Party response to the State of the Union address was all right, but it seemed to me he pulled his punches somewhat; of course one could also argue that had he endorsed Newt earlier he would not have received the slot. As I said up top, it wasn’t unexpected that he endorsed Gingrich but doing so at this time, when Newt’s campaign is otherwise imploding in Florida, smacks of desperation on the part of both – but moreso Gingrich, who’s trying to corral onetime Cain supporters into his camp.
Too bad that, for many, the horse has already left that barn – Newt isn’t going to get much of a bounce from an endorsement eight weeks after the candidate’s withdrawal. Obviously it wasn’t needed for Newt to win South Carolina, so to do so now indeed seems like flailing from a candidate who vows to “go all the way to the convention.” That movie has played before, and usually that sort of declaration comes just before the closing credits roll on the campaign.
Unfortunately, the GOP voters and caucus participants who have come before me have seen to eliminate most of my top selections from the race. It will leave me a choice – as too often seems to be the case in Presidential politics – of:
voting my conscience (even if he dropped out before the primary), or
voting for my third- or fourth-favorite choice who’s still there, or
voting against the guy I don’t want to win with his strongest remaining opponent.
A combination of the second and third options was the approach I took in 2008, basically voting against John McCain rather than for Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was pretty much my fourth option after Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani withdrew. (As I recall, Florida was Giuliani’s Waterloo, too.) In 2012 I’ve already lost Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry (although Perry is on the ballot here.)
But we’ll see if Cain’s backing for Gingrich is too little, too late. If it ends up I vote for Newt Gingrich, it won’t be because Herman Cain endorsed him. Instead, see bullet point #3 above and you’ll find my reason.
For the second Republican presidential campaign in a row, Ron Paul is an enigma.
Here’s a guy who rakes in a whole lot of cash, only to finish in the middle of the pack or worse in most of the primaries and caucuses he participates in. The last time out, he turned his back on the GOP nominee, choosing to endorse a number of minor party participants. There’s no guarantee he won’t do the same this time, leaving establishment Republicans to fret that Paul may consider a third-party run.
Should Paul eventually decide to do so, he’ll have a significant and passionate base to begin from for a general election, where independents and disaffected Democrats would be allowed to participate. A large percentage of those who follow him say it’s either Paul or nothing – “There’s no one worth voting for,” said one young South Carolina supporter. Paul’s cult of personality is not unlike that of another 2008 candidate who’s running again this time around – for re-election.
Just two days before the South Carolina primary, Rick Perry decided at last to drop out. You may recall he was considering withdrawing after the Iowa caucuses, but instead decided to concentrate on placing well in South Carolina. Turns out he wasn’t doing well there either, so Perry decided to throw in the towel and endorse Newt Gingrich.
That’s the topline story. So what can I dredge up from between the lines?
First of all, Perry is the first notable dropout to endorse Newt. Others who were in the race either endorsed Mitt Romney (most recently Jon Huntsman but also Tim Pawlenty and Thad McCotter) or have remained silent as to who they would back. It was thought that Herman Cain would throw his support behind Newt but he made no official statement to that effect, and Michele Bachmann has likewise been mum with her choice.
This also changes the equation of the race, as it’s now down to four main contenders. In political terms among that rapidly shrinking group, Perry’s departure leaves only Mitt Romney with any sort of executive experience as a former governor and Ron Paul as the last remaining current officeholder – Newt left the House in 1998, Rick Santorum was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2006, and Romney chose not to run again in 2006. And presumably the anti-Romney vote is now split just three ways, with conventional wisdom predicting the new weakest link to be Rick Santorum.
But let’s talk about some other factors at play here.
