Dano dreams about the Newt

I had been a steadfast believer that Newt Gingrich was politically dead, and even when it became apparent that he would be the next in line after Trump, Bachmann, Perry, and Cain to have a bubble that seemed to threaten Romney, I initially assumed that his bubble would burst on the basis of his massive negative political baggage. For the first time, today, I am beginning to entertain the thought the Newt may actually get nominated. There are a few reasons for this. First, the Rupert Murdoch machine seems to be for him. Fox News is treating Romney harshly and Newt with kid gloves. The Wall Street Journal editorial board seems to be pro-Gingrich. That Murdoch machine is very powerful in the R selection process. The entire Republican family gathers around Fox every night. On the other hand, I still think the R electorate is having amnesia about Newt's history. Some people say, "well, everyone knows about all that stuff." But it is hard to over estimate the stupidity of the American electorate. I think the R voters have forgotten most of it, and Newt still remains vulnerable to someone exploiting it effectively against him. Nonetheless, his lead, at the moment, is large. In Florida, the biggest state which votes in January, three polls showed him with 42%, 47% and 50% in quick succession. All those still have Cain showing up in the teens (Romney in upper teens), and if you assume that Cain withdraws or completely implodes, those figures for Newt go to about 50, 55, and 60. Now, those numbers are, quite frankly, staggering. Maybe he has a fall in his near future, but it is going to have to be a very long, large fall. Of course, when the states start voting, the states farther down the list are affected by the earlier voting states. Right now, regarding the first two, it looks like Newt in Iowa and Romney in NH, although Mitt is only slightly ahead in NH, which is a tailor-made state for him. If that's how it comes out, then it would seem that South Carolina (the other January state) and Florida will feel free to vote as they choose. Now, if Mitt somehow wins in Iowa, which seems unlikely now, and then adds a win in NH, he might stop the Newt surge and get a bandwagon effect. I guess that has to be his goal.In all the head to heads I have seen pairing Obama against Newt or Mitt, respectively, Obama does about 6 points better against Newt. That seems believable to me, and, as I have said, I do not think the other candidates have sufficiently exploited Newt's weaknesses, as of now, and so that number could get wider. Obama is running anti-Romney ads in the primary states, in effect,trying to help the non-Romneys, or, perhaps, just Gingrich. They do that sort of thing a lot in California. I have not seen it here or nationally before, but California has perfected the art of one party's candidate invading the other's primary to try to influence it. Of course, Romney is making the obvious point to the voters--Obama does not want him to be the nominee--but I am not sure the voters are sufficiently sophisticated to realize what is happening. So, a perfect storm seems to be gathering around Romney. Before today, I never wavered in my expectation that he would be the R nominee. Now, I think there is substantial doubt.

Dano on Newt and others

Dano reports on the Republican debate last night. I missed it. I believe I was watching a re-run of Dexter. However, I'll take Dano's report as the whole truth and comment on the debate as well. Ron Paul, may be 75, but at least he knows what he believes and sticks by it. Dano's report also, oddly, stirs some sympathy for Newt. I've heard about Fannie and Freddie and the censure and all the marriages, but at least the guy can talk. Maybe that should be a threshold requirement.

I guess I am a little surprised that Gingrich was allowed to come out of this debate completely unscathed. Out in the real world, journalists, op-ed people, and probably the other campaigns, off the record, are attacking him vigorously. At the moment, believe it or not, Newt is ahead in Iowa and nationally. It has been my prediction that this will not last. I'll stick with that, but I will say that I would like nothing better than to be wrong. If the R's actually nominated Newt--and I guess that possibility has at least to be mentioned because Iowa votes in a mere 42 days--absent some earth-shaking change, I think Obama would mop the floor with him. But, anyway, at the moment, Newt leads, and last night he got nothing but softballs from the moderator, the audience questions, and the other candidates. Romney, with one exception to be mentioned below, did his usual good job. Cain has lost his confident, happy personality and now has a little of the "deer in the highlights" look to him. I think helives in great fear of making another showing of his vast ignorance of the sorts of things that a candidate for president should know. I think his reaction is completely understandable. I also think he's toast. Now, his poll numbers still show him to be arguably in contention, but the leak, and the fall, continue. Much as I dislike Perry, every time he has the floor, I cringe that he is going to embarrass himself. I suspect most other people have the same reaction. Bachmann had a decent performance and was heard from a lot. I doubt she will survive the Iowa Caucuses, but she has a bit of a chance there. Before her drop, she did win the Ames, Iowa straw poll; she was born in Iowa; she holds office in a neighboring state; and she has campaigned very, very heavily in Iowa. Maybe she will do well enough to survive there. My bet is no. This was a "national security" debate, and so a lot was on foreign policy. Ron Paul's views on those issues are clearly out of themainstream among most Republican voters. But he certainly did nothing to try to cover that up. Rather, he defended all of his dovish (and perhaps isolationist) views very vigorously and passionately, and, I thought, quite persuasively. He seemed to have part of the audience on his side. I continue to think he will do well better than he did in '08. Also, I think everyone seems to be forgetting that his age--75--has always been considered way too old for a presidential candidate. I didn't listen to any of the post-debate spin, and I haven't read anything about it yet, so this spin is purely my own. One thing that happened that I think may have been a mistake by Romney is this: one time Paul was speaking, with passion, about one of his foreign policy positions; the TV had a split screen so that you could see Paul speaking and you could also see Romney's reaction. Romney at one point "rolled his eyes." I think that may be significant because Ithink it has the potential of really pissing off the Paul supporters. They have cult-like loyalty. Romney may not have known he was on a split screen. If Romney gets the nomination, he will need those Paul voters. I think some day he may regret that eye-rolling. Like today, for instance. Gingrich's hope is that while each other "non-Romney" had its 15 minutes and then had its bubble burst, he gets his 15 minutes so late in the game that his bubble is still there when the real voting starts! I guess it's possible. I suppose stranger things have happened. But I can't think of any at the moment.

Dano thinks Romney can win in Iowa and New Hampshire

Dano is still handicapping the Republicans. I doubt he ever voted for one, but he never played for the Cowboys either and he always has an opinion about who will win. He sees Romney as a threat now in Iowa and New Hampshire.

He says:

The most recent two polls in Iowa and NH on the R race show Gingrichwith a big lead in Iowa (32 to Romney's 19) and Romney leadingGingrich by only 2 (29-27) in New Hampshire which had long beenthought to be a Romney lock.I don't think Gingrich will do nearly as well as these polls show.After he got up in the polls, commentators all over the place--fedprobably and secretly by opposition research from the othercandidates, at least in part-- have been re-stating all of hisbaggage. The big money from Freddy Mac is one; but his wholehistory, when re-remembered, just has too much negative in it toremain viable. Multiple adulteries, marriages, a fortune he hasmade as a crony capitalist since his years as speaker; and no one hasyet even bothered to mention that he was charged with an ethicsviolation in a Republican controlled House and fined hundreds ofthousands of dollars for it.To me, it looks like this thing is going to break pretty nicely forMitt Romney as we near the real voting. Four differentchallengers--Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich--have a bubble andthen each for one reason or another is found to have somedisqualifying negative. I think the anti-Romneys latched ontoGingrich because they had been burned time and again by being seducedby candidates who are so stupid and/or ignorant (Bachmann, Perry,Cain). At least Newt is smart and can speak the language.Now, the polls still also show Cain somewhat in contention, but thatcandidacy has a leak, and I don't think that leak is reparable.I also read that while Newt has raised a fair amount of moneyrecently, he still has little or no organization on the ground inIowa. In Iowa, there almost has to be a ground game of get-out-the-voters to get people to go to those caucuses, which is more timeconsuming than just voting. I get the impression that Newt is not agood organizer. He could hire one, of course, but a certain amountof discipline must come from the candidate. One also has toremember, he has never actually run for president before--heconsidered it several times but didn't run--and he has never actuallyrun in an election in anything larger than a Congressional district.I think he likes to spout pompous ideas and sound smart, and he maynot realize that that's not enough to win the Iowa caucuses.I think Mitt senses all this; for a long time, he made no seriouscommitment to Iowa because it is a place where he seemed likely tolose, and he wanted to be able to play down a loss. Well, just inthe last few days, he has decided to go all out there for a win. Hesees the opening. Romney is thus going to go all out to finish firstin both Iowa and New Hampshire. I think he has a decent chance topull it off. If he does that, it might create a sense ofinevitability that will make him the effective nominee pretty quickly.Meanwhile, as I mentioned in the last post, I am expecting a prettygood showing for Ron Paul, not only in Iowa, but in a lot of places.It is true that, mainly because of his foreign policy ideas--that is,he dislikes war and torture--80% of the Republican electorate willprobably never vote for him. But he gets his votes--now lookinglike perhaps15 or more percent--anywhere and everywhere. He'llalways have some money. And he'll always have a lot ofvolunteers--in any state. I read that he has a good organization inIowa.

The Rise of Ron Paul

Dano in the following post discusses Gingrich's likely collapse and the benefit to Ron Paul. Ron Paul has long been my favorite Republican. In fact, I think he is better on war issues than almost all the Democrats. I am not a libertarian; far from it. A true libertarian begins with a belief in free will and I can't go there. But I also think that government largesse is distributed so unfairly that the poor may be helped if subsidies to the rich could be curbed. Anyway, as weird as Ron Paul is, I still prefer him to a Gingrich or a Romney.

Dano says:

Well, just after my last post, where I concluded that there was a good chance that Gingrich would emerge as the main alternative to Romney,Newt got hit with an avalanche of bad publicity about his work forFreddy Mac in the early 2000's. In a recent debate, a moderatorasked him what he did for Freddie Mac to earn $300,000, and Newt saidit was just advice "as a historian", that he told them they weremaking bad loans and that a bubble was looming. It turns out hewas paid $1.6M instead of $300,000, and the folks he spoke to atFreddy Mac say they remember no advice along the lines that Gingrichclaims. They said he was hired to help them state positions thatwould be Republican-friendly so that the then-Republican controlledCongress would not dismantle Freddy and Fannie.Freddy and Fannie are hated by the Tea Partiers, so when this sinksin, it is going to hurt him--pretty badly, I think. He was tryingto help Freddie survive Republican attacks, and he lied about itbesides that.It hasn't sunk in yet. The most recent polls in Iowa and N.H. showhim in a very strong second place in both, one per cent behind Cain inthe former and 2% behind Romney in the latter.So, I am back to the position that it looks like Romney if for noreason other than you can't beat someone with no one. It is 46 daysto the Iowa Caucuses, and 53 to the N.H. Primary. I don't know ifthere is even enough time for another candidate to become thenon-Romney. Now, Santorum is conservative enough to satisfy thebase and has no big flip flop problem. Jennifer Rubin in the Wapohas several times suggested that he might have an ascendency. He isalso not a bad debater. But Santorum has never been out of singledigits, mostly not even out of low single digits.Another man who warrants discussion is Ron Paul. His numbers areinching up. Now, he will never be nominated because he is out ofthe mainstream of the R party on a lot of issues, especially onforeign policy where he is a consistent dove. So, I have alwaysthought he would be irrelevant--getting his 10 per cent or maybe even15 or a little higher--never enough to win anything. Well, hisnumbers in some polls are starting to rub against 20. So, he mayfinish second in a lot of primaries; I say "a lot" because he will noteasily drop out. He has a cult-like following that keeps giving himmoney no matter what. So, he can run and run and run and run, andhe may keep finishing second a lot--might even eak out a win or twosomewhere.I'll stipulate that there is some wishful thinking here, but I amhoping he loses (he will) but he does so well that he gets pissed offand runs in the General Election as an independent or third partier.He did that before--Libertarian candidate in 1988. However, hisfollowing is much larger now. Paul believes in conspiracy theories,and is a little off balance, so I can imagine him working himself intoa lather with the idea that he was cheated out of winning by the REstablishment. If he were to do that, Obama would benefit greatly.One poll on this showed Obama beating Romney by 6 without Paul as athird partier but by 12 with Paul in the race.Paul would know that he would be hurting the R's, but I am not surethat would stop him. He dislikes the R's about as much as the D's.I have even noticed that he rarely criticizes Obama in the debates;rather, he criticizes the whole American status quo, and thus"everyone else." Now, the history of third party candidates is thatthey poll well early sometimes but their percentage usually drops byelection day, sometimes by a lot. But in the case of Paul, while hemight have some of that usual erosion, his cult-like backers aremostly going to stay with him. And they don't mind losing toomuch; they think they are on some mission which goes beyond 2012.That would be a real nightmare for the R's.Obama's prospects still look pretty decent to me, but I worry thatEurope may plunge the world into more economic distress, and it wouldbe hard to see him winning if the economy were even worse than it isnow.

More from Dano on the presidential race

The commentariat is more and more seeing the R race the way I did acouple of weeks ago, that is, that it was shaping up, at leasttemporarily, as Romney vs. Gingrich. Then, there was a lot of talkabout how Cain had apparently survived his sexual harassment scandal.Now, everyone seems to see Cain as mortally wounded for variousreasons. Even before that scandal, I thought he would fall by theweight of his own vast ignorance. He's doing that--he can't thinkwhat to say about Obama's Libya policy, thinks China doesn't havenuclear weapons, has never heard of the "neo-conservative" movement,etc. He really was meant only to be just a vanity candidate.Cain's numbers show him still in contention, but there is a slow leak.The national poll numbers are going to start bouncing all over theplace when the states start voting. The Iowa Caucuses are in 48days. So, the most important polls to look at for the R's are Iowapolls. The most recent one is Cain 20, Gingrich 19, Romney 14, Paul10 Bachmann 10. Perry 5, and Santorum 5. The numbers are veryfluid--60% say they may change their mind. So, anything mighthappen there. Right now, I think the most likely scenario is thatNewt wins it.Perry really is dead, by the way. His disapproval/approval numbersare horrible and reflect no chance of a resurrection.Now, some say that Gingrich will also be exposed as too moderate and aflip-flopper, and there is some chance of that. He once believed inclimate change and some aspects of what is now Obamacare. When a"conservative" has been in politics as long as he has, it isimpossible to have always had the views that satisfy 2011 TeaPartiers. So, there is that danger for him. Also, there is thatbaggage of 3 marriages, an ethics violation, and forced resignation.The R primary voters seem to have forgotten about all that.What Newt is trying to do--and it may work with the R's--is to suggestthat he represents truly apocalyptic change because of his cerebraland visionary ideas and approach. Also, Newt says he wants 7Lincoln-Douglas style debates with Obama lasting at least 3 hourseach. That wouldn't happen, of course, but by suggesting it, he iseffectively asserting that he would do well in such marathon debates;and a lot of R voters are understandably worried about whether some oftheir candidates could debate Obama without completely embarrassingthemselves. My perception is that the R's think Newt could handleObama.Going back to his apocalyptic change thing, I think the R voters dolike to see this election--or at least would like to see it--as amajor, pivotal, Manichaean struggle of good vs. evil. Gingrichplays to that feeling. Romney does not. Gingrich would like theR's to see Romney as a competent technocrat--a manager, sort of aRepublican Michael Dukakis. If he can pull that sort of appeal off,he may be forgiven his previous moderate positions more so than Romneyhas. So, my bottom line is--still probably Romney for thenomination, but this may get very interesting, particularly the Newtthing.Obama is now beating all of them 6 or more points in head to heads.I think his strategy of (very mild and subtle) "class warfare", callsfor higher taxes on the top bracket, attacking the intransigence ofthe R's in Congress, etc., is a winner. A big danger to him,though, would be if the American economy--bad as it is right now--gotworse. A Europe meltdown might cause that to happen. If theeconomy gets substantially worse in the next year, he would be very,very vulnerable. If it stays about the same, I think he pulls itout.