Newt's Chances

CNN’s Paul Steinhauser reported Tuesday in his article, “Gingrich:  Debates helping him rise in the polls,” that the candidate is currently enjoying the support of twelve percent of Republicans and Independents with tendencies toward the GOP.  According to the article, that is a five percent increase from the previous month’s polling conducted by USA Today/Gallup.  This rise, some have conjectured, is due to the downfall of the Perry campaign, which has lost significant support since the point in time when he was considered the frontrunner. 

The recent jumps in the polls are a major victory for Gingrich, who during the summer faced a number of difficulties.  Not only did many of his very important campaign staff members resign from his campaign, but he was all but broke at the time as well.  At that point, the question was, was he broke because he had no staff to raise money, or was he unable to keep his staff members because he lacked the finances.  The most likely answer is the former, given the following comment the candidate gave to Steinhauser on the subject:  “I made a big mistake in the spring.  I brought in very smart, traditional consultants, and I’m not a traditional candidate…Those people needed to leave.  They had a vision of a traditional campaign, which I couldn’t possibly run.” 

Now that Gingrich is off and running once again, he has discussed his campaign strategy in terms of potential votes, as described in the CNN post by Gabrielle Schwarz entitled “Gingrich:  I’m the tortoise, Romney’s the hare.”  That is, he plans on securing the support of the approximately eighty percent of Republicans who have not committed to Romney; he claims that he does not need to take away the voters that have already to committed to the former Massachusetts governor, but merely needs the rest of the electorate to be on his side.  If the sexual misconduct scandal with Cain continues (or begins, rather) to hurt that candidate’s campaign, this task will become that much easier, as the votes will likely flock to Gingrich.  After Perry’s flubbed “three agencies” remark at the most recent debate, it is unlikely that he will receive any of those votes.

 

With so much seeming to go his way, what is preventing Gingrich from securing even higher poll numbers?  One answer may be his holier-than-thou attitude, which may seem unappealing to many.  As demonstrated in the following video, he does not come off as the most likeable candidate.  He appears almost – for lack of a better word – snooty with his responses. 

One other hindrance to Gingrich’s campaign is that silly technicality that is quickly turning this GOP nomination race into one big conundrum:  whichever candidate becomes the Republican presidential nominee must be able to defeat Barack Obama in the general election or else, well, what’s the point?  This very point may put Gingrich a bit too far to the right to be able to effectively compete in the general election.  It may also be why the Party establishment has been so willing to throw consistent support behind Mitt Romney.