Newt Gingrich ... Mitt Romney's new BFF? (Chris Keane/Reuters)
Look who's attacking who:
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is hunkering down in the trenches of the Southern battleground for Super Tuesday with a robocall attacking Rick Santorum for being a “big labor conservative.”
This is the first paid advertisement against Santorum from the Gingrich campaign. The call is set to begin Friday in Oklahoma and Tennessee and will reach 150,000 households in each state.
You can't blame Newt Gingrich for trying to go where the votes are—polling shows Rick Santorum leading both states by a wide margin with Gingrich and Romney in a close battle for second. So obviously there's a big difference between attacking Santorum in those two states and attacking him in Ohio, where his lead is much more tenuous. If Gingrich were to cut into Santorum's lead in Ohio, he'd almost certainly be gifting the state to Mitt Romney; the net impact in Tennessee and Oklahoma could be that Santorum still wins but Gingrich manages to move into second place, ahead of Mitt Romney.
At the same time, Gingrich has attacked Santorum over both his JFK speech comments and over Santorum's allegedly pro-labor record (ha!), and it's hard to imagine that Mitt Romney is anything but pleased about Santorum getting hit from two sides. And even if Newt doesn't directly attack Santorum in Ohio, Mitt Romney must be thrilled about his presence on the ballot, siphoning not-Romney votes away from Santorum.
If Romney does end up having a big Super Tuesday, he'll owe Newt (and his sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson) a debt of gratitude. But this has been a topsy-turvy primary, and while it's unlikely that both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will have unexpectedly strong nights on Tuesday, if they do end up outperforming—and even dealing Romney some third place finishes—Mitt won't be nearly as thankful.