Newt's big moment
It's crunch time for Newt Gingrich.
In a remarkable political comeback, the former House speaker overcame a serious early stumbleand a summer staff exodusto rise to the top of the polls. Thanks to a series of sterling debate performances, Gingrich is now positioned to lay claim to the mantle of the consensus conservative alternative to Mitt Romney - and in light of Republican voters' continued skepticism concerning Romney, that slot that could plausibly lead to the GOP presidential nomination.
The question now is whether Gingrich can consolidate conservative support in the five weeks before voting begins. He got a big boost over the weekend, when the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader, the only statewide newspaper in the first-in-the-nation primary state, endorsed Gingrich. The endorsement, along with the Thanksgiving long weekend, helped shift media attention away from Gingrich's call for a "path to legality" for illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for 25 years, a position that his rivals seized on in the wake of last Tuesday's debate.
Gingrich couldn't have asked for better timing. While the controversy itself was always overblown - Gingrich's position on immigration isn't much different than Romney'sor other rivals like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, despite their rhetoric - it has the potential to hurt him with conservative Republicans who recoil from anything that might be called "amnesty." The Union Leader endorsement blunts attacks on that front as well as on another issue that would be expected to set off alarm bells for many in the GOP base - Gingrich's past payments from mortgage giant Freddie Mac, seemingly in exchange for his influence on Capitol Hill.
Gingrich is acknowledging his flaws, telling the Kelly Golden radio show on WSCC in Charleston Monday morning that "anybody who is honest about it knows that no person except Christ has ever been perfect, so I don't claim to be the perfect candidate."
"I just claim to be a lot more conservative than Mitt Romney and a lot more electable than anybody else," he added.
That might be enough for Republicans desperate for a plausible alternative to Romney. They've seen contenders for that slot rise and fall over the course of the year, brought low in part by poor debate performances (Rick Perry), a sexual harassment scandal (Herman Cain) and simply a casting about for someone better (Michele Bachmann). In Gingrich, they see perhaps their last, best shot for a nominee with a truly conservative vision - and who is willing and able to articulate it without apology in debates with President Obama.
There is still plenty for conservatives look past when it comes to the former House speaker, a man who became perhaps the consummate Washington insider in the wake of his unceremonious departure from Congress in the late 1990s. For one thing, Gingrich is theoretically vulnerable on many of the same fronts as Romney, starting with the fact that he, too, once backed an individual mandate for health care coverage. The good news for Gingrich is that while such issues seem to stick to Romney, who is seen by many Republicans as a flip-flopper with no real core beliefs, they seem to slide ride off Gingrich's back, perhaps in part because of his professorial bearing.
Gingrich may even have a chance to win over social conservatives despite a personal history that includes three marriages. (The details would give any social conservative pause: Gingrich and his first wife were divorced while she was suffering from cancer, and he cheated on his second wife with his current wife, Callista, while pushing for former President Bill Clinton to be impeached.) Gingrich converted to Catholicism in 2009, and he has argued that he has found redemption in the wake of his personal struggles. That argument may be working: Newsweek reports that many social conservatives, seeking an alternative to Romney and lacking a plausible option like Mike Huckabee, say they are willing to look past Gingrich's personal issues.
"Under normal circumstances, Gingrich would have some real problems with the social-conservative community," Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, told the magazine. "But these aren't normal circumstances."
In addition to the immigration dustup, the biggest challenge Gingrich faces in the next few weeks is building a campaign infrastructure that can compete with the well-financed Romney and Perry. He headed to South Carolina for a three-day campaign swing this week, and he is opening offices and building up staff in the state, and will also return to Iowa. But Gingrich, who struggled to raise money before his surge, has a far smaller operation than Romney and Perry. That means he doesn't have many surrogates to push back against on-the-ground attacks over immigration and other issues, and it also puts him at a disadvantage in terms of getting out the vote in Iowa and other states. He also doesn't have Romney-level money to spend to get his message out our counter attacks from his rivals through direct mail and television ads.
Gingrich said Monday morning that the Union Leader endorsement means that "we can have a very serious race with Mitt Romney" in New Hampshire despite polls showing Romney with a wide lead in the state. If Gingrich can overcome the immigration issue - as well as his past - to win the Iowa caucuses and then finishes close to Romney in the Granite State, he'll effectively narrow the race down to a two-man contest with Romney. And with Romney struggling to break 25 percent support in the polls, that's a pretty good place to be.
