Steve M. is worried that Gingrich’s extreme clownishness is not so much damaging Romney as it is making him look reasonable and presidential by comparison. There’s something to that. Before I talk about that, though, I’d like to attempt to ease Steve’s mind a bit by pointing out that the Gallup poll he cites is a bit of an outlier. When Rasmussen is showing a five point lead for Obama in a head-to-head with Romney and an approval rating north of 50%, you can be sure the president is doing better than a dead heat with R Money (his rapper name).
Here’s where I think Steve is correct. When Newt goes on and on about how Romney is pro-choice (he’s not), pro-taxes (he’s not), pro-ObamaCare (he’s not), and whatever else he is or is not, it makes Romney look more moderate than he really is. Calling him a “Massachusetts moderate” over and over again actually helps Romney with the general electorate. Romney’s chances against Obama are not being hurt by attacks from his right.
But they are being hurt when Gingrich talks about Bain Capital or accuses him of being a flip-flopper with no principles. When Newt calls him a liar and dishonest, he leaves a few marks on Romney’s character. Romney wants to run as a successful job-creating businessman with airtight moral values. And he’s got some fatass Georgian demagogue out there saying he’s a deceitful rip-off artist. At least Little Rickey Santorum understands that the proper way to attack Romney is on health care. Santorum wants to win the nomination, but it’s not worth risking the total destruction of the probable nominee. The swing-voters aren’t going to vote for Obama because of RomneyCare, but they might vote for him because they think Romney is some combination of Ebenezer Scrooge, Henry F. Potter, and Scrooge McDuck.
And some criticisms have a lasting sting. Jon Huntsman called Romney a “perfectly lubricated weather-vane.” There are some insults you just can’t take back. For a different take on the impact of Gingrich, John Batchelor has one of those lame no-one-on-the-record pieces at The Daily Beast. His anonymous Republican sources are not enjoying the spectacle.
“…If Newt is the candidate, he’ll lose badly. If Mitt is the candidate, he’ll lose slightly less badly … So what you have is an almost complete guarantee that if these are the candidates, Barack Obama will be reelected.”
Or, with more punch:
I asked a veteran Republican member of Congress what this year looked like from Capitol Hill following the President’s workman-like State Of The Union address. “A year from now, the president will make the same speech, and the House leaders will still think what they’re doing matters, and the Senate will still be where everything goes to die. No change except I’ll say, ‘Mitt who?’”
So, yeah, there is some upside for Romney in looking relatively sane and presidential compared to the Newtser, but his main rationale for being the president is getting pretty tarnished. He’s not inspiring much confidence.
I hope Newt stays in to the bloody end and then gives a nasty speech at the GOP convention that insults everyone and their mothers.
