Analysis: GOP stuck with establishment picks
In the wake of Herman Cain's withdrawal Saturday from the Republican presidential contest, political analysts are looking at two longtime politicians, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, as the foremost contenders for the Republican presidential nomination.
But in a year when the "establishment candidate" is a deeply unpopular concept to many conservative voters, some observers say both candidates will have to rely on the hope that Americans are struck with "amnesia" about their political pasts in order to have a shot at winning the White House.
"I think one thing we can say that Romney and Gingrich are both praying for is American amnesia," Politico's Mike Allen said Sunday in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation." "They don't want voters to remember what they've said before."
Allen, who appeared in a political roundtable with CBS' Jan Crawford, John Dickerson, Norah O'Donnell and Nancy Cordes, said Americans could likely see Cain endorse Gingrich for the nomination in the weeks to come.
"It looks like the Gingrich wave could turn into a tsunami," Allen told CBS' Bob Schieffer.
"We're told by a Cain adviser that Cain will endorse before Iowa, before the end of the year, and he's most likely to endorse Newt Gingrich."
Allen said Gingrich would rely on "a new model of campaigning" in the months to come, which would focus more on "the Internet, on grassroots and, he says, substance."
But Gingrich, as much as Romney, will have major obstacles to overcome in his pursuit of the White House, according to Dickerson - even if he does secure the endorsement of Cain, who had presented himself as a Washington outsider.
"When Herman Cain says he wants a non-establishment figure, and his movement is not going to be like the establishment, if he's then going to go over and throw his endorsement behind Newt Gingrich - I mean, you can't pretend Newt Gingrich is not a part of the establishment," Dickerson said.
Dickerson added that Gingrich would have to deal not only with anti-establishment sentiment among Tea Party conservatives, but also concerns about his personal history and moral credibility.
"He's going against two fundamental tenets of Republican politics in recent history," Dickerson said. "The Tea Party, which doesn't like establishment politicians - that's what Gingrich is - [and] social conservatives, another major force in Republican politics, [who] used to say the moral character of the candidate was fundamental to their being president."
"Well, we know Gingrich has a past," Dickerson said. "If he is the nominee he runs in the face of those two major trends of Republican politics."
Still, Dickerson says that Gingrich's surge in the polls speaks volumes about Romney's weakness as a candidate.
"There's a chronic fatigue syndrome about Romney in the Republican Party," he said. "I mean, the voters just do not want to move to him. And what's extraordinary about the Gingrich rise is both that he's come back to life here."
Nevertheless, Allen pointed to what he described as an "inside-the-beltway/outside-the-beltway split" on Gingrich's chances.
"We all know him. Norah covered him. Everybody here covered him. And so we can't believe that he's going to take hold. We can't believe that he's being taken seriously," Allen said. "Out in the country, they don't remember that.
"Of course, they're about to be reminded," he said.
O'Donnell says the president's team is still targeting Romney as the likely Republican nominee.
"The Obama campaign has made the decision that they believe Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee," she said. "And they have trained their fire on Mitt Romney. They're going to launch a new offensive next week. They believe they were successful painting Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper last week. And so they're going to lay out a new attack.
"They want to keep up the offensive on Mitt Romney, plant the story early, define him as a serial flip-flopper without a core," O'Donnell added. "And define Mitt Romney before the whole electorate."