Gingrich Wins South Carolina, But He Will Not Be The Nominee
All the cable networks have called South Carolina for Gingrich, and CNN’s exit poll suggests that he is going to trounce Romney by more than ten points. According to the same source, 55% of respondents said that they decided their vote in the last few days or today, and Gingrich handily won both groups, and he edged out Romney among those that decided earlier this month. 65% said that the debates were the most important or an important factor, and Gingrich also led Romney among both groups by 44 and 23 points respectively.
One small consolation for Romney is that he will nearly double his 2008 showing. The bad news for him is that he will apparently not match the 2008 results of McCain or Huckabee. Gov. Haley’s endorsement may have made a small difference, as Romney’s result was better among the majority that approved of her performance, but Gingrich won both pro- and anti-Haley groups by comfortable margins. It’s worth mentioning that the 2008 field at this point still included seven active candidates, five of whom received some substantial support. While the dropout candidates were still on the ballot today, there were just four candidates actively campaigning in the week before the primary, and that allowed more conservative voters to coalesce around one anti-Romney candidate.
As a politician with connections in Georgia, Gingrich may have had some advantages in South Carolina that the other candidates didn’t have, but that isn’t much of an explanation. I suppose there was bound to be some backlash against Romney somewhere, but it’s a shame that it came in the form of elevating the government-expanding, warmongering lobbyist disgrace once again. What’s the message here? “We don’t like the rich moderate, so we’re voting for the disgraced hypocritical lobbyist instead”?
Romney can be a dishonest demagogue, but Gingrich is the one who thinks (or pretends to think) the “Kenyan anti-colonialist” theory about Obama makes sense. Many Republicans are unenthusiastic about Romney, but far more people nationwide can’t stand Gingrich. Romney has a record of trying to have things both ways on many issues, but as far as I know he has never been on both sides of a major issue within the same month. Gingrich has that unfortunate distinction. Gingrich isn’t going to be the nominee. The Republican primary electorate can’t be that stupid.
P.S. Not that very many people seem to be noticing, but Ron Paul seems to have once again tripled his percentage of the vote compared to 2008.
Second Update: At this time four years ago, McCain had a narrow four-point lead over Romney in Florida according to the RCP average. As of today, Romney has an 18-point advantage in Florida according to the same measure.
Third Update: Many more Republicans turned out to vote this cycle than last. McCain, Huckabee and Thompson received about 330,000 votes in 2008, and Paul received a little over 16,000. Gingrich, Romney and Santorum have so far received approximately 438,000 510,000, and Paul has more than quadrupled his vote count.
12 Responses to “Gingrich Wins South Carolina, But He Will Not Be The Nominee”
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Never underestimate the stupidity of Republicans, Daniel.
On a more serious note, I too am disgusted by the message being sent here. Apparently, evangelicals really don’t deserve respect if they’re so easily taken in by empty slogans and outright lies. Embracing Gingrich? Give me a break.
Ron Paul aside, the primary season has largely been an exercise in, “Vote for me, I’m no different on policy from the other candidates, but I’m different because I can win.” In no small part as a result, there appears to be a substantial population of primary voters whose preference turns on who they believe can beat President Obama – and a lot of them have questions about Romney.
Gingrich has a gift for using indignation to his benefit – he comes close to the ‘definition’ of chutzpah as a guy who killed his own parents asking the judge to take mercy on an orphan, but in Gingrich’s form he would be lecturing the judge about how outrageous it was to even bring up the homicide. It’s theatrics, it doesn’t seem at all likely to save him in the long-run, but for now it’s working.
The message, in my opinion, is, “We’re concerned that Romney will lose the election and so we’re (still) looking for an alternative.”
Oh yes, that sums up Gingrich quite well. His ability to faux outrage served him well in his early years, and was also one of the reason his colleagues came to hate him.
“We’re concerned that Romney is not electable, so we will support a guaranteed loser instead”.
“Gingrich has a gift for using indignation to his benefit – he comes close to the ‘definition’ of chutzpah as a guy who killed his own parents asking the judge to take mercy on an orphan, but in Gingrich’s form he would be lecturing the judge about how outrageous it was to even bring up the homicide. It’s theatrics, it doesn’t seem at all likely to save him in the long-run, but for now it’s working.”
At some point (and I thought it would have been Thursday night), Romney is going to have to take the gloves off and deliver some well deserved blows to the pompous, overbearing Gingrich. I think Romney (or Paul or Santorum) missed a golden opportunity during Thursday’s debate when Gingrich, in responding to the opening question dealing with his marital infidelities, tried to wrap himself around the other three by saying the press had attempted to attack Gov. Romney (no, Newt, that was your SuperPAC), as it would Sen. Santorum and then Cong. Paul. One of three should have strongly asserted, “hold on Newt, you are the one they are attacking for marital infidelities, not us. I have been married 42 years to the same woman, Sen. Santorum has been married to the same woman for 21 years, and Cong. Paul has been married to the same woman for 50+ years. You have been married to three different women and cheated on the first two. How can the Republican Party, which purports to stand for family values, possibly nominate someone with your track record?” That would have certainly taken a lot of the luster off Gingrich’s response and possibly made the South Carolina voters stop and think. It also would have shown that Romney has the toughness to confront Obama in a debate.
I think Romney will be making a big mistake if he doesn’t rip into Gingrich at Monday’s Florida debate on the money he received from Freddie Mac and the millions he received from other large corporations interested in influencing Federal legislation after leaving the Speakership and entering the “private sector.”
I think the message is: We’d like our candidate to win, but not half as much we want a poster boy for our contempt of Obama and the media. Took a while to weed out the lightweights, but we’ve found our man.
“What’s the message here? ‘We don’t like the rich moderate, so we’re voting for the disgraced hypocritical lobbyist instead’?”
More like, “We don’t like the rich moderate, so we’re voting for the other rich moderate who is also a disgraced hypocritical lobbyist.”
Gingrich is rich by any standard. And, while I’m not going to sing Romney’s praises or by into his BS that anyone who questions his wealth is just envious, he at least did something to earn his money besides wallow in the cesspool of DC influence peddling.
And, again, while Romney’s an unprincipled chameleon in his public life by all appearances he at least seems to show some consistency and principle in his private life. I’m not one to care too much about people’s marriages, and their personal struggles or shortcomings. But Gingrich’s hypocrisy on the subject of conservative values is just too rancid to stomach.
If the standard is ‘electability’, how has Romney shown that since say Iowa? Electability means you can execute your strategy and campaign – and candidates that execute better generally win i.e. that is why we have President Obama and not President Hillary Clinton.
Romney has completely flubbed the issues around both Bain and his tax returns. A better candidate would have been prepared for these obvious issues. Some form of release the returns, have it be story of day for a few days, then move on is what you need to do. If there are increasing doubts about Romney’s electability it was self inflicted.
“Romney has completely flubbed the issues around both Bain and his tax returns. A better candidate would have been prepared for these obvious issues. Some form of release the returns, have it be story of day for a few days, then move on is what you need to do.”
I share your puzzlement, sandtu. After all, he did run four years ago and had four years to think about the tax return issue. I don’t know if he released his tax returns in 2008. I heard somebody say this morning (This Week?) that Romney refused to release his tax returns when he ran against Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994 and also when he successfully ran for governor in 2002. Since he got away with not releasing his returns on prior occasions, maybe he concluded that he could finesse the issue again. I guess he miscalculated.
Kristol is still doing it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/candidate-be-drafted-later_617478.html
Actually Romney was on both sides of the climate change issue on a single day, in November 2005, according to the Boston Globe.
http://www.achangeinthewind.com/2012/01/romney-112205-flip-flopping-on-climate-change.html
From the opposition research book compiled by John McCain’s staff back in 2008.
This is an example of why I lose so much respect for some in the Christian political movement. Here is the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) site devoted to castigating Ron Paul, a man who has been married for over 50 years to the same woman, for not signing their Defense of Marriage Pledge:
https://www.wrongonmarriage.com/
And here is the NOM press release congratulating Gingrich for his win in SC?!:
“We have had three different victors in state contests thus far — Rick Santorum in Iowa, Mitt Romney in New Hampshire and now Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. What all these states have in common is that they have picked candidates who have signed NOM’s Marriage Pledge. They are all winners and NOM supports each of them.”
http://www.nomblog.com/18307/
Having the National Organization for Marriage support Newt Gingrich over Ron Paul is like choosing grilled tofu over steak.
Peace be with you.
“Romney has completely flubbed the issues around both Bain and his tax returns. A better candidate would have been prepared for these obvious issues. Some form of release the returns, have it be story of day for a few days, then move on is what you need to do.”
Perhaps there’s some sh*t which he can’t paper over.
Somebody suggested that he hasn’t been tithing.