WORLD VIEW:Republican voters can be a fickle bunch, as Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have found
WHEN THE conservative Washington Examinerthis week endorsed the candidacy of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination it gave what will have been a welcome fillip to his campaign and bucked the prevailing Anyone-But-Mitt mood in the party.
Noting what many observers feel about the unexpected lead of the current front runner, maverick ex-speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the paper warned “he is like an exploding cigar, waiting to be lit”.
Despite the latter’s 10 point average lead in the polls – one on Wednesday gave him a 17-point margin – the Republican race, in truth, remains fluid and unsettled. Only a third of Romney’s supporters back him strongly; only 29 per cent of Gingrich’s do so. And the indications, notably from a Gallup tracking poll, that the Gingrich tide is receding a bit, are likely to have been reinforced by Thursday night’s TV debate (see Lara Marlowe; page 11) in which Gingrich was the focus of sustained attacks from all the other candidates over his suspect conservative credentials. A poorer than expected showing in Iowa on January 3rd could disrupt the momentum of his entire campaign.
Widespread perceptions of Gingrich's ultimate unelectability against Barack Obama remain his critical weakness. Surveys from the NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, AP/GfK and Reuters/Ipsos all show Romney running better than Gingrich in general election matchups against Obama.
The NBC/WSJ and AP/GfK polls show Gingrich trailing Obama by 11 per cent and 9 per cent in the general election, respectively, while Romney trails the president by just 2 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively. And among potential voters Gingrich's personal approval ratings have got worse as he has risen in the primary polls. "Gingrich's popularity is a Republican-only phenomenon," the Washington Postwarns. "And close to half the country is already negatively predisposed towards him."
Nothing, however, could better illustrate Gingrich’s vulnerability than the graph above, the story of the amazing swings and fickleness of Republican voters in the campaign so far. (It is based on aggregated polls from the RealClearPolitics website, on which, unless otherwise stated, the data for this article is drawn.)
The graph looks a bit like a hospital monitor attached to a patient in a coma who suddenly wakes up in June and whose vital signs then go berserk. Until then the only significant trends were the consistent, flat lead of Romney, running at between 19 and the 25 per cent he seems unable to break, and the long-run steady decline of Gingrich from 14 to 4 per cent, written off by most observers, including his entire election team which resigned.
Since June, however, the race has become the most extraordinary roller coaster, candidates vying to take on the mantle of an anti-Romney alternative that conservatives, Tea Party supporters, and evangelicals so desperately crave. Then spectacularly crashing.
First, maverick businessman Herman Cain led the also-rans, then at the end of June, briefly, Texas governor Rick Perry. Late July saw Tea Party favourite Senator Michelle Bachmann top 14 per cent at the head of the pack, then came Perry’s real surge in early September to 31 per cent, passing out Romney briefly but by as much as 12 points. Then, burn, as Cain had his day – up to 26 per cent in late October, ahead of Romney – but blown out of the water by charges of sexual harassment.
Enter Gingrich, like Lazarus rising from the dead, and now some 10 points ahead of the field. But he too has “baggage” – dubious lobbying connections and cash, one-time adulterer, policy U-turns, controversial positions on issues like immigration – which the Republican faithful have so far turned a blind eye to. So far.
The race is also complicated by the vagaries of local politics. In the Iowa caucus, the first of the primaries on January 3rd, Gingrich is ahead, but coming up fast, and now level with Romney, is the Texas libertarian Ron Paul, so far a candidate who has been able to enthuse only a tiny albeit almost fanatical following. One local poll puts him just a single point behind the front runner.
By far the most consistent and ideological anti-government-intervention candidate Paul even opposes such programmes as Medicare and welfare as well as federal income tax. It is inconceivable he could appeal to middle ground voters in the general election. But conservative Iowa voters have a logic all of their own.
Of the past five contests without an incumbent Republican president, however, the Iowa winner has gone on to receive the nomination only twice.
In New Hampshire (January 10th) Romney leads, with Gingrich closing some 10 points behind. In subsequent primaries in South Carolina and Florida, Gingrich’s strong appeal to the South is manifest – he is scoring 41 and 43 per cent respectively, almost double Romney. All the rest are also-rans.
Which all makes for a mesmerising Republican contest, waiting for the cigar to explode, an exercise in self-flagellation that is bringing much joy to Democratic hearts.