A few weeks in, it’s safe to say that the surge of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been different from the rise other Republican candidates have seen. Generally, the fuel to the Newt boom combines electability (in the eyes of GOP voters) with both a brash demeanor and the most attractive of all qualities in this year’s Republican race, not being named Mitt Romney.
But what is driving the new affection on the part of Republican primary voters for the idea that one of the most reviled politicians from 1990’s Washington could now be their savior in the 2012 presidential contest?
“Romney isn’t tapping into the anger [that Republicans feel],” Dr. Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion told TPM. “In the debate, Romney used the word ‘sober’ to describe himself against Gingrich being a bully. But a bully may be what the Republicans are looking for.”
But are GOP voters poised to make a fatal choice? Gingrich represents the desire on the part of many Republicans who are spoiling for a fight with President Obama, the large number of voters who define themselves as very conservative or Tea Partiers or both. Romney is the moderate, safe option that does better in general election polling nationally and in swing states, providing Republicans with a competitive shot at victory. Newt, the numbers show right now, does not provide them with that shot. He provides them with a chance to express their anger.
Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, spoke with TPM about the general priorities that voters may have going into the 2012 election. Brown said that in a polarized electorate like the one that exists now, candidates head to their respective bases to shore up support, then fight over independents in the middle, who most often make their decision based on which candidate is closer to their ideological center. But numbers aside, Brown said 2012 might be special.
“I think there’s a reasonable argument to be made that this election is going to be different,” he told TPM. “Independents will be moved by competence and not ideology. In the end, independents will choose based on who they think can fix the economy.”
And in theory, this could be where Republicans are getting their wires crossed. They perhaps recognize that a competent candidate is necessary given the challenges the country’s economy faces. But simple managerial skill is not enough in the current political climate — partisans want a fighter too.
Enter Newt Gingrich, the ‘Competent Bully.’
Gingrich is a former Speaker of the House of Representatives and clearly knows policy. Whether one disagrees with his ideas or governing philosophy, it’s difficult to argue that he doesn’t have ideas. But he also has a well-earned reputation as someone who can play in the dirt, which clearly makes him more attractive to many Republicans than Romney.
What’s worse for Romney is that Gingrich might be displacing the type of competency that GOP voters are looking for. “Republicans are evenly divided on whether a Washington insider or outsider is best-suited to be president,” wrote the Associated Press on their recent poll on the GOP race out on Wednesday. “That’s a problem for Romney, who cites his private-sector experience as the biggest difference between the two front-runners for the GOP nomination.”
The disconnect was best enumerated by the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out Tuesday, which showed Newt soaring within the GOP race at 40 percent, a seventeen point lead on Romney, yet getting trounced in the general election 51 – 40. Surely the matchup against President Obama would become closer over time were it to come into being. But while the Competent Bully may provide Republicans with an outlet for their anger, the archetype may not find the country as a whole so agreeable.
