Whew! What a relief! The GOP establishment is finally exhaling. It looks as though Romney will beat Gingrich in Florida and can get back to running a respectable frontrunner campaign with little serious opposite. A call was made to the cavalry and the cavalry came last week—Coulter, Drudge, Dole, Delay, Scarborough came through. Gingrich was denounced by nearly every commentator, talk show host, blogger, former and current GOP official. And it looks like it worked. Gingrich practically rolled over and played dead in Thursday night’s debate.
So the GOP’s Gingrich nightmare is over, right?
NOT SO FAST!!!
Let’s assume Romney beats Gingrich by a good ten point in Florida on Tuesday. So what does that mean? Given Florida’s proportional delegate allocation it means that Gingrich will have almost as many delegates as Romney will, and both will seem equally far off from having the magic number needed for the nomination. (oops, scratch the previous sentence. Florida is winner-take-all--in violation of GOP National rules and they were penalized because of it)
Gingrich is smart enough to realize that he can and will keep running no matter how many conservative leaders, office holders and pundits line up against him. There are only two names Gingrich has to worry about regarding his campaign. The first name is Sheldon. And the second name is Adelson. As in, Sheldon Adelson, the eccentric billionaire who has given Newt $10 million so far, via Newt Super PACs.
As long as Sheldon continues to write multi-million dollar checks to fund Newt’s TV ad campaign, Newt can run competitively in every single state. Why would Newt quit? It’s not like Newt has a real job to go back to. And if you are a megalomaniac who sees himself as the only thing that stands between the world and another Holocaust, then it is your duty to keep running for President!
The Republican establishment is deluding itself into thinking that their Newt problem will now quietly go away. A huge percentage of GOP voters have tasted the bloody, raw, red meat Gingrich spews from his mouth at most debates and they love it—in fact they are addicted to it.
Romney doesn’t serve the voters red meat; he serves over-boiled Spam. Ron Paul serves bologna and Rick Santorum serves, obviously, a foot long, tofu dog.
But only Gingrich serves the vicious, bloody, “Obama is a colonialist…he’s the food stamp President…Obama is a communist” rhetoric that the GOP electorate is clamoring for.
Romney and the GOP establishment are suffering from the delusion that Republican voters want a candidate who can defeat Obama. Gingrich understands that what the GOP base really wants is someone who will deport Obama back to Kenya—And Gingrich is just the man for the job.
Prediction: we will be seeing and hearing a lot more from Newt Gingrich for the next 6 months, or more.
From www.americanlp.org