Newt tries to ask, “Am I our next Reagan?”

December 4, 2006 – 8:17 am

After winning the Virginia Conservative Convention Straw Poll, Newt Gingrich did a fundraiser for the organization. Robert Bluey of the Human Events reported the event. At the event, Newt went on the attack against Bush:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich last night offered a grim outlook for the final two years of the Bush Administration, saying at best it would resemble President Gerald Ford’s administration and at worst President Jimmy Carter’s.

Those are choice examples for that crowd because the inevitable question is, "Who is our Ronald Reagan?". This question means different things to different people. I spent the weekend with a bunch of College Republican activists. For them, Reagan could communicate and inject hope. For the Romney backers in the crowd, "our new Reagan" was just that, even if he purports to be a moderate. For Human Events, Reagan was a conservative warrior. But everyone wants a Reagan. (interestingly, WaPo had an interesting comparison piece in which Bush is compared to Hoover. I think that there are important points about this comparison)

Of course, the real point is that Newt wants to run, but knows that he can neither raise the money nor buy into the staff. He would have to co-opt the conservative groups (who haven’t been purchased to wooed by Romney). BlogPI details some of the difficulties with this strategy. It probably depends on Newt performing well in straw polls over the next year, especially Ames. For example, Newt won the November GOP Bloggers Straw Poll (with Giuliani and Romney a close 2nd and 3rd)

Imagine if Newt comes in first at Ames or second behind someone unacceptable to the Conservative Movement. All of a sudden, he has a rationale for a candidacy. There are three catches:

  1. Romney or Brownback cannot capture the conservative base. I don’t believe that either one is possible. But if either one gets big enough or stays too small, the base gets fractured.
  2. McCain can’t capture enough to make it impossible. Once people buy into a candidate, it becomes very hard to get them to unbuy. And for these people, Newt will have to demonstrate that he is electable to get them to switch. We are not convinced about Newt’s electability at all. Indeed, a significant strategic goal is to duck the electability question entirely.
  3. How does Newt raise $100m between September and February to compete on February 5th? Newt would have to put together a finance team and that would look like a real campaign. This is where compression of the calendar kills Newt.

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Real Conservatives for Newt?

November 30, 2006 – 9:35 pm

Political Insider has a little blurb about Newt being the real candidate of the right. I’ve mentioned this a couple of times before here and here.

It is very interesting. At today’s American Democracy Conference, Rich Galen said:

There is zero downside no matter what he decides to do. Newt has always been inclusive to the point that it hurt him when he was Speaker…. Newt has the advantage of being able to be a presidential candidate until he decides he’s not a presidential candidate." Newt "wants to be able to frame the debate over the presidential nominating process.

Is he really running?

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Gingrich taking the right flank?

November 13, 2006 – 8:01 am

A couple of weeks ago, the Virginia Conservative Convention was supposed to pick George Allen as the conservative front-runner in their straw poll. Obviously, that didn’t happen. But something quite interesting did happen. They picked Newt Gingrich instead (results below), and Newt even doubled Mitt Romney, who, somewhat implausibly, has been trying to position himself as the conservative candidate in this nomination fight. But it appears that people didn’t buy it.

Instead, Newt’s combination of record and ideas are offering conservatives a way forward right after the election. People are thinking “Bush lost Newt’s majority, and Newt can bring it back.” Now, is Newt electable in a general? I seriously doubt it. And, in the end, I do not believe that Newt is electable in a primary. But conservative activists love him.

Now party people don’t like Newt that much. But if Newt successfully takes the crown of “movement conservative”, then Romney is in deep, deep trouble.  Romney will lose votes to Newt. If the scrum contains Newt, Romney, Giuliani, and McCain, then Romney needs to be very, very worried. And if the party people get afraid of stopping the conservative movement candidate like Newt, then Romney is not going to be a reasonable place to settle.

Very, very interesting.

Results:

Votes	Percent
Newt Gingrich	45	31%
Mitt Romney	21	14%
Sam Brownback	18	12%
John McCain	18	12%
Mike Huckabee	11	8%
Rudy Giuliani	10	7%
Duncan Hunter	6	4%
Bill Frist	4	3%
Chuck Hagel	2	1%
George Pataki	2	1%

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How does 2006 change the issues for 2008, Part 1: The people

November 10, 2006 – 10:31 am

Another question about the 2006 election results is: Who survived and lost and what effect does it have on 2008?

Note that The Fix is back up with Presidential rankings… We think that he is too high on Huckabee.

A big one that people have talked about a lot is Tim Pawlenty from Minnesota. There is public and, even stronger, private evidence that he is strongly in bed with McCain. RCP mentioned this. As one of our few remaining Midwestern governors (IN’s Mitch Daniels — also for McCain, SD’s Rounds, MO’s Blunt — note that there has been speculation about his links with Romney, and NE’s Heinneman — probably not for McCain, given his last minute endorsement of Osbourne in the primary…), in an important swing state, and soon-to-be President of the RGA, Pawlenty will have a national network and influence to wage battle for McCain. (other governors who are openly or probably for McCain: UT’s Huntsman, AL’s Riley, and SC’s Sanford)

McCain has also been everywhere and talked to everyone. A lot of people don’t like him, but he’s gathered chits. Will it matter? Some. Enough? To be determined.

Giuliani also did well. He followed the McCain strategy of fighting hard to keep people in office. I still believe that without more organizational support, though, he will struggle for a strong candidacy. Look for celebrity hires here.
Romney, as head of the RGA, had a bad night. He cannot be blamed for that in most cases. But evidence supports the theory that he was allied with Nussle in IA and a DeVos victory in MI would have given Saul Anuzi an important defense in the fight to overthrow him. Romney’s presence in IA is still very impressive (I was there for a week and all I can say is “wow”). However, I think that he was damaged in NH. The people in NH, especially more populous southern NH, are conscious of the thumping that Healey got. One pro-Romney activist in NH told me about Romney, “I don’t know whether Kerry Healey’s devastating loss is going to put a nail in his coffin”. Eyeopener makes a similar argument.

Another winner is, of course, Newt. Newt is a compelling speaker. Newt has high name ID. He does not do well in the polls right now, but do people think he is running? His book tours, touting by Human Events, podcasts, etc. all give him an unorthodox campaign that could get some real wheels. A lot of people are talking about this possibility. I admit, I like Newt the thinker, but Newt the President? Or, perhaps even worse, Newt the Candidate?

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Hillary, high name id and familiarity, and running for President with a record

September 3, 2006 – 7:18 am

Today the Blogosphere is buzzing with the news that people are advising Hillary Clinton not to run for President. Some discuss her future as the Democrat’s Senate Leader. I have written earlier about some of this here and here. Why is she considering this? There are several theories:

  • She is too divisive. Her candidacy would energize the right like almost no one else. Note that this is a question about her electability. The Times of London article recasts this a little as a positive:

    “I would not be surprised if she were to decide that the best contribution she can make to her country is to forget about being president and become a consensus-maker in the Senate,” said a leading Democratic party insider. “She believes there is no trust between the two political sides and that we can’t function as a democracy without it.”

  • She misunderstood where the Democrats would be on the war. This has opened a gaping wound on her left flank. The Washington Times has an excellent story on the subject:

    • “She has to move to the left on the war,” said John Zogby, president of an international polling firm. She “risks losing a chunk” of the liberal vote if she doesn’t.”

    …

    “The anti-war crowd is going to have no choice than to bang on her record — to go after her,” said Republican strategist Scott Reed. “They’ve all been emboldened by this Lamont exercise.”

    When asked Friday about the war, Mrs. Clinton said, “I’ve been a constant and consistent critic. I’ve also tried to work within the fact that this president has made decisions and a series of strategic blunders. … I have a situation that I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to deal with.”

    Leaning against a pickup truck on display at the fair, the anti-war Mr. Tasini said, “People are furious about the war. It’s the precise reason she doesn’t want to debate me. She’s obfuscating where she stands on the war.”

  • Finally, Democrats don’t really seem to like her after all. (and the schedule has been given, in essence, to John Edwards)

It is interest to note that there are 3 or 4 other high name ID candidates in this race right now: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and John Edwards (who has to be considered the Democrat’s frontrunner now). A brief comparison of the GOP candidates with Hillary:

  • Newt Gingrich. He has the same electability problem. It is unclear how much the base actually likes him because familiarity with him has faded over time. And enough people have forgotten some of his apostasies and he has been able to flip on those issues (like immigration).
  • Rudy Giuliani. Clearly no electability problem. In the current set of candidates, the base seems to like him. But it is clear that the base has not been fully informed about his positions, especially with regard to red meat issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control. Will he be able to build enough of a relationship with the base before they find out about these apostasies? Or will he be able to change the subject in a way that they approve of, that this can be overcome? (this is the “security more important than moral issues” theory)
  • John McCain. Clearly no electability problem either. The base seems to be somewhat torn by him. And in many ways they are misinformed by him. In his case, the question will be whether he can overcome perceptions of him. In some ways, the time for McCain to stop embracing the President and start criticizing him from the right may be approaching, but he can’t do it until after the election. He has the advantage that the press will cover anything that he says.

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Newt as the candidate of the right?

September 1, 2006 – 12:06 pm

Update: WorldWideStandard has commentary on the content of the speech. Disclaimer: the author of the post used to work for John McCain.

Ralph Hallow wrote in today’s Washington Times about Newt Gringrich’s speech on the Freedom Cruise. Newt is clearly an ideas and big picture man. And his distance from the current administration has allowed him to get away with statements like this:

“I think if this regime [in Iran] is so dangerous that we can’t afford to let them have nuclear weapons, we need a strategy to replace the regime,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And the first place you start is where Ronald Reagan did in Eastern Europe with a comprehensive strategy that relied on economic, political, diplomatic, information and intelligence” means.”

I hear in this an implicit comparison with some of the comments from the administration — and John McCain — about keeping all options on the table. Hallow also points out that this is a change from his earlier position:

A nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.

I have two comments about this. First, Newt knows that Republican voters are souring on the Iraq war, but not the war on terrorism or some idea of a large-scale, systematic struggle with radical Islamists. In other words, he is doing the Republican version of what Mark Warner did earlier in the week. For the GOP it is reframe to terrorism and Islam and for the Dems, it is retreat and defeat.

Second, he is raising his profile as a possible alternative to the current field. Hallow also said:

Mr. Gingrich said he has not yet decided whether to seek the presidency in 2008. But during several panel discussions open only to the Freedom Cruise audience — about 160 donors to conservative organizations — participants made clear their antipathy toward Mr. McCain, the Arizona senator who currently leads in polls of prospective Republican presidential candidates. …

The conservative group also showed considerable affection toward Mr. Gingrich and a clear disinclination so far to coalesce behind any one of the other top potential 2008 Republican contenders, such as Virginia Sen. George Allen, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

A number of people have suggested that there is still an opening in this race, especially with Allen’s Macaca problems. Newt could make a run for this, if his past doesn’t get the best of him.

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Motivating Conservatives, Security, and the 2008 Presidential Race

August 29, 2006 – 9:56 am

RightwingNews has (yet) another summary of the case againset Giuliani for the conservative GOP primary electorate.

While we agree that there are many things that are damning in the eyes of the electorate, we think that, to some extent, people are asking the wrong questions. I think that Chuck Larson gets it right in his discussion of McCain on Fox yesterday:

But from my perspective, the most important issue, whether it’s 2006 or 2008, is going to be national security and the global War on Terror. And Sen. McCain recognizes that we must win this war for our own nation’s security.

Now Larson is one of the leaders of moral conservatives in Iowa, but in the 3 reasons he gives for supporting McCain, his first is fiscal, his second in moral issues, but he thinks that McCain’s primary advantage is the war and security. This jives with what the RNC is telling people about motivating the base in 2006:

Ranking at the top of what will motivate Republicans in 2006 is dealing with the foreign threats to our national security and supporting the President’s leadership in the War on Terror. … A huge 87% of the Base expresses extremely strong feelings about one or more of these issues. …

For these three global War on Terror message areas, 93% of the Republican Base holds
extremely strong feelings about one or more of them.

Cultural Values. … An impressive 86% of the Base has extremely strong feelings about issues dealing with cultural issues – second in coverage to only the global War on Terror.

In other words, the big issues are security and moral issues. Fiscal issues, immigration, taxes, etc. all come far lower in the priorities. (interestingly, the RNC memo does not mention immigration at all. There could be a number of explanations for that. One of the simplest is that it is an issue that the leadership is divided on or might make voters angry. Another is that people probably won’t vote on it)
What we really think that means is that candidates have to pass a litmus test for conservatives (is he with us on abortion and other issues?) and then security and other issues will differentiate the candidates. Moral issues get people into consideration, not pick the candidate. We think that the recent Hotline/Diego poll makes this clear. GOPers #1 issues are terrorism and Iraq. Dems are Iraq (against) and jobs.

Therefore, we think that GOP primary voters are going to be asking “Which acceptable conservative do we want to lead the war on terror?” What does this mean for 08?

  1. If caucusgoers and primary voters are informed about Giuliani, he is going to struggle a lot. Giuliani has been doing great in the polls recently. However, the recent Iowa poll noted that 2/3rds of Iowa caucus voters will not support someone who doesn’t share their position on abortion. Will that hold? And who will tell the story on Giuliani? Clearly that is what RightWingNews is trying to do. And why don’t people ask if they are familar with Giuliani’s position on abortion, gay marriage, etc.? That would really tell us about his level of support.
  2. Romney’s greatest problem is that he has no record on the War on Terror or foreign policy. None. Even if people like him on gay marriage or healthcare or management, I predict that they will have a lot of trouble seeing him as Commander in Chief. Sure he can run the country, but can he lead it? Northeast liberals elect Republicans because they can manage and their legislatures can slap them down if they try to do something too far off the reservation.
  3. Newt Gingrich passes both tests. But will GOP voters think he is electable?
  4. McCain is the winner in this framing. He is probably acceptable to most conservatives (and he is finding people who will say “trust us, he’s fine”) on moral issues and he is a clear leader on the War (and I don’t mean Iraq).
  5. Everyone else is an also ran. Although people who vote for the most morally conservative candidate will have a choice between Huckabee or Brownback. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Therefore, until Romney gets a national security reputation of some sort or polls indicate that Giuliani can overcome his issues with social conservatives, McCain really is the front runner… And Newt Gingrich is the powerful challenger.

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The search for the anti-McCain goes on: Attacks on Newt and Mitt

August 22, 2006 – 7:16 pm

Dan Drezner is saying that the next McCain is Brownback. One Redstate writer agrees, but another suggests Hagel. Of course, no one really thinks that these are viable 08 candidates. But the search for an anti-McCain candidate continues furiously.

One option seems to be Mitt Romney. But Gary Glenn, the chairman of Campaign for Michigan Families and the president of the American Family Association in Michigan.– remember that’s an early primary state and, rumor is, Mitt’s home after he leaves MA — doesn’t like Romney’s record. Hotlineblog has the details:

“Romney’s ten-year political career has occurred from his late 40s to his late 50s, yet he asks pro-family conservatives to naively believe that he’s just now figuring out his core beliefs.” … “According to the Associated Press, he has appointed at least two openly homosexual lawyers to state judgeships, one a board member of the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association. Imagine how that will fly in Republican presidential primaries in the South, the prospect of a president with a record of appointing homosexual activists to the bench.”

A conservative activist at Save The GOP says that he could support McCain but he doesn’t trust him on judges. One suspects that this is not going to enamour him to Romney…

Also today in Insight Magazine, Newt Gingrich suffers the worst possible. He gets compared to Clinton:

Mr. Gingrich is the conservative version of Mr. Clinton … Both are spoiled, self-indulgent and narcissistic baby boomers. Both are policy wonks (except that Mr. Clinton deals in liberal ideas and Mr. Gingrich in conservative ones). Both are men on the make, shameless opportunists obsessed with political power and influence. Both are superficial and hollow leaders, who fold when they encounter fierce opposition. And both are sexual degenerates who have mistreated women.

Yowsers. And, of course, last week, conservatives were explaining why Giuliani wasn’t suitable.

The search goes on.

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