With the Republican presidential nominating contest having taken another hairpin curve, it's time to check in with Power Line. What do the boys make of it?
Here is John Hinderaker last Thursday evening, analyzing the CNN debate wherein Newt ripped John King a new one:
Newt Gingrich fell short because he didn’t dominate. Newt is very smart, and is a master of the one-liner. But tonight, while he performed well, he failed to outshine his competitors. Mitt Romney, in particular, was just as effective as Gingrich, at times more so, as when he accepted responsibility for being successful. My guess is that Romney won the South Carolina primary tonight. We will soon know whether that prediction is correct.
I'd say he underestimated the fat prolix little wanker named Gingrich. He appears to have known it himself the next day, Friday, when, revisiting the previous evening's debate, he wrote:
. . . for the moment let’s just focus on the allegations by Newt’s second ex-wife that hit the press this week. Apart from all the other good reasons why Gingrich will never be President, Marianne Gingrich’s sensational allegations snuffed out any possible hope that Newt can beat Barack Obama in 2012.
[Snip]
Newt makes matters worse by trying to have it both ways. He won’t discuss Marianne’s claims; instead, in last night’s debate he lashed out at the media for publicizing them and at John King for asking about them. The audience of rabid Republicans ate it up. But at the same time, Gingrich implicitly acknowledged how devastating his ex-wife’s stories are by asserting that they are “false.” By calling her a liar, he put her allegations into play. Which claims, exactly, are false? Presumably not everything she said in the ABC interview; then, what? Anyone who seriously thinks that Gingrich can run against President Obama in the fall without both 1) being dogged by such questions, and 2) being turned into a laughingstock, is, in my opinion, delusional.
I love the dismissive reference to "rabid Republicans" and the final epithet, "delusional," which is also the title of the post. John, these are your people! He turns to the question of electoral viabililty:
It is painful to contemplate the extent of the GOP wipeout that would follow a Gingrich nomination. Would Newt carry a state? Wyoming, maybe? South Carolina? The Republican Party could kiss its hopes of retaking the Senate goodbye, and likely would lose control over the House, giving Obama carte blanche to devastate the country for another four years.
Oh, my! Having miscalculated Newt's appeal to South Carolinia Republicans, he is now off his tether on a related matter. The concentration of delusional wing-nuts in the general population, and their geographic dispersion, is sufficient to put Newt over the top in perhaps a dozen states. But, at a high level, I think John's right: if Obama were to carry 38 states, that would be ten more than four years ago, which would put him well north of 400 electoral votes--a landslide for the incumbent during bad economic times. What can be said about an opposition party capable of such a feat? Moreover, Gingrich would likely be toxic at the top of the ticket. He corroborates the misgivings of swing voters regarding the Republican party. But, then, which of the-Republican presidential candidates doesn't?
John is silent on the obvious weaknesses of Romney. The poor guy is flummoxed by the utterly predictable call for him to release his tax returns. He's a manifest trimmer who will never be able to explain why, if Romneycare was good for Massachusetts, Obamacare must be repealed to save the republic. He's a Mormon and a past supporter of abortion rights. According to exit polls in South Carolina, Gingrich defeated Romney, 45% to 9%, among the quarter or so of the electorate who said that the religious beliefs of the candidates mattered a lot to them. Since these are John's people, maybe he could explain the appeal of swingin' Newt Gingrich to the good Christian ladies and gentlemen of South Carolina.
John is up with a new post today, "Congratulations, Newt," that's somewhat mellower in tone, like Shakespeare in The Tempest. Not that he's gone entirely soft on Newt:
So, congratulations to Newt, and on to Florida. Let’s just pray that Barack Obama’s second term didn’t start today. If Gingrich does get the nomination, this may turn out to be a year in which Republicans more or less ignore the presidential race, ceding Obama his second term, and focus instead on trying to hold the House and, if possible, picking up a seat or two in the Senate, along with doing the best we can in state races where the wipeout at the presidential level doesn’t swamp all efforts to elect Republicans.
I'm not sure that the details jibe with what he said yesterday about how Republicans, if they nominate Gingrich, can "kiss hopes of retaking the Senate goodbye." Since there are currently just 51 Senate Democrats, plus two independents who caucus with them, it seems that someone able to contemplate the Republicans picking up two seats could muster one more ounce of optimism. It's not as if his calibrations are uniformly, meticulously fine.
But, you know what? I'm going to put in a good word for John. He's distinguishing himself from the Gingrich enthusiasts, who, I agree, are delusional. Moreover, if the only sin is to bore, then John and all the rest of the brawling R's are as favored by God as they imagine.
