Gingrich-Obama Debates: Bring 'Em On!

Apparently Republicans, in South Carolina at least, think Newt Gingrich would be a more formidable general-election candidate than Mitt Romney. Their justification for believing so, all objective polling evidence to the contrary, is their belief that Gingrich is such an amazing debater that he'll just destroy Obama in that forum. Partly this is also due to their belief that Obama is just a dimwit who's only ever gotten anywhere through affirmative action. Newt plays to this a whole frickin' lot, with his whole "I'll challenge Obama to a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates" schtick. But here's the thing: this whole idea is massively wrong. Newt can get massive applause lines playing to the insane Republican audience, but he's not actually that brilliant a debater. Obama, on the other hand, is extremely intelligent, and I imagine is currently barely containing his glee at the prospect of getting to debate Newt Gingrich. He'll run rings around him. Newt's just said so many things where the public, including non-crazy non-Republicans, is just so against him, that Obama will have an almost-too-damn-easy time pinning him to them in the fall.

But please, nobody tell the Republicans. Let them keep deluding themselves into thinking that Obama's a pathetic wimp, and that all he needs is a good standing-up-to from Newt to expose him for the fraud he is. Let them believe that just long enough to nominate him.

No, Infidelity Doesn't Mean Newt Would Be A Good President

Keith Ablow, a so-called psychiatrist who appears on Fox "News" saying silly things, is at it again. This time his claim is that Newt Gingrich's history of infidelity and wife-leaving ought to improve our estimate of how good a President he'd be. Essentially his argument is that hey, three whole women have been way attracted to this guy, so he must be pretty awesome. Now, let's set aside some of the basic logical problems here: I'm pretty sure a lot of people we just would not want as President have been pretty popular with the ladies. Ablow is using "number of wives" as a proxy for "number of women who've been deeply attracted." This is a mistake. I'd bet you anything that far more women have been attracted to Barack Obama throughout his life than were in Newt Gingrich's first fifty years of life, and probably in Gingrich's entire sixty-eight year life. The difference is, Obama decided he was interested in one of those women, and has stuck with that decision for the past nineteen years, while Newt's changed his mind twice (at the marriage level; who knows how many mistresses he's had). Why should deciding to take advantage of a higher proportion of the female opportunities offered him make us think Newt would be a good President?

(Not that it necessarily ought to make us think he'd be a bad President, although the specifics of the way he's left his wives does make it seem that he's kind of a jerk.)

On Newt's "Open Marriage" Request

Apparently the second Mrs. Gingrich (of three) gave an interview, to be aired later tonight as a palate-cleanser from the Republican debate (yes, another one), from which the so-called "bombshell" headline is that Newt asked her whether she'd be okay with an open marriage. This would be around the time when he was cheating on her with the third and current Mrs. Gingrich, an indiscretion he says he's sought forgiveness for from god, etc. etc. But I can't see why this would be that much of a bombshell: don't we already know he was, you know, cheating on her? That's old news, right, and fully priced into everyone's opinions of Newt already? Isn't it kind of de minimis at worst, and arguably not even a negative, if he also, you know, asked permission to cheat? I mean, for me anyway it's an emphatic positive (although the part where, on being told "no," he goes ahead and cheats anyway is not so hot): having clandestine affairs without telling your spouse/partner is a genuine wrong that you've done them, whereas asking if they're okay with your having an affair and then, with permission, having said affair is not a wrong at all. Perhaps it'll sound all San Francisco-y to South Carolina Republicans, but I still think that it's just not categorically different than the existing body of Gingrich sex scandalousness.

Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but I'd be a bit surprised.

Romney Handicap vs. Generic Numbers

Typically in calculating the Romney Handicap I've used Obama's margin over Romney minus his net approval rating in PPP state and national polls. But here's a national AP-Gfk poll that asks, first, whether Obama deserves re-election (he does not, 52% to 43%) and second, whether people would vote for Obama or Romney (Obama 47%, Mitt 46%) and for Obama or Gingrich (Obama 51%, Newt 42%). That's a handicap of ten points for Mitt compared to the generic re-election numbers, and eighteen (!) for Newt. I'm pleased to see this, because those numbers are both very similar to the largest numbers I was getting from the PPP data, but for both candidates the gap has narrowed a wee bit over the past few surveys. In any event, neither of these guys are strong candidates. If the Republicans had a replacement-level candidate (which is admittedly not as low a bar as in baseball), they'd be leading by a whole frickin' lot right now.

The Return of Conservatives Who Lie

This is sort of comforting, in an odd sort of way. From Newt Gingrich, when asked if there's anything he wouldn't do to be President:

“Sure, there are lots of things that I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t lie to the American people. I wouldn’t switch my positions for political reasons. It’s perfectly reasonable to change your position if facts change, if you see new things you didn’t see in the past. Everybody’s done that — Ronald Reagan did it.

“It’s wrong to go around and adopt radically different positions based on your need of any one election. Because then people have to ask themselves, ‘What will you tell me next time?’

He is, of course, lying. His various policy shifts from, say, 2007 to the present day on issues like a health-care mandate or a cap-and-trade scheme to address global warming has absolutely zero to do with seeing new things he didn't see in the past. Both were mainstream, conservative, market-based approaches to pressing national or global problems four years ago. Then Obama won an election, and tried to pass them both through Congress (batting 1-for-2), and now they're both evil socialism!!! So naturally Newt is now against them. That's the exact same move Romney pulled on those issues, and which Gingrich is attacking him for. So what's comforting about this? That he feels the need to lie. The words I quoted above could've been spoken by any liberal: we're all about changing our opinions when the facts change, and in fact frequently use that justification for apparent 'flip-flops' that conservatives try to accuse us of. Now we, admittedly, do a reasonably good job of living up to that ideal, or at least of trying to, something one cannot say of Newt. But at least he feels he needs to pay lip-service to the good, liberal ideal here. It's sort of like the kind of nostalgia one might have over 'compassionate conservativism': not that there actually was anything compassionate about George W. Bush's platform, but he felt he needed to say there was. Today, most Republican candidates go around trying to reassure voters that there isn't a tiny little speck of compassion in their policy positions. That's another area where Gingrich feels the need to lie, referring to his immigration policy (of allowing local citizen-boards to deport illegals on the basis of personal whimsical dislike, which is probably unconstitutional) as 'humane.' It isn't. But it's kind of nice he thinks that a humane immigration policy is still a good thing.

While We're At It, the Gingrich Handicap

See the original post on the Romney handicap. The Gingrich handicap is exactly the same idea, just for Newt Gingrich instead of Mitt Romney. Well, what do we find when we look at the Gingrich handicap? It's a lot bigger than the Romney Handicap. The recent PPP national poll found Gingrich polling three points worse than Romney, for a 12-point handicap. That's about the smallest gap anywhere. In the state surveys I classify as "recent," in which Romney displays about a 10-point handicap on average, Gingrich is spotting Obama a 17-point edge. That's enormous. Honestly, a 10-point handicap candidate is pretty awful to begin with, and should make us reconsider the idea that Romney's a strong candidate. But -17 is just abysmal. Note that Lyndon Johnson's approval rating around the 1964 election was probably well above the record 61% of the popular vote he received, i.e. Mr. Catastrophically Weak Candidate Barry Goldwater actually posted a negative handicap, by this metric, relative to President Johnson.

Getting back to Newt, there's a pretty broad band of states, both in recent surveys and in older ones dating back to last winter, where his handicap is in the realm of 17 to 23 points. Then there's a handful with a dramatically smaller handicap. Among recent surveys, that's Nevada (12), North Carolina (also 12), and Mississippi (7). Nevada and North Carolina are swing states, and pretty good places to be relatively strong (although there's the caveat that Romney's handicap in that NC survey was also anomalously low, and I suspect that may be random variation rather than anything else). But this is some serious unelectability. If we assume zero undecideds, then Obama's approval rating would need to be 41.5% in order for Gingrich to tie him nationally, under these numbers. If we assume as many undecideds as we see in the latest pollster.com trendlines, we'd need to see an Obama approval of 39% before Gingrich could start thinking about winning. I'm pretty sure the Obama people are counting on an approval rating greater than 39% on election day (not that they might not get it, but that if they don't it won't be surprising when he loses). If they nominate Newt, they're throwing this election away, unless something massively changes over the next year. Go for it, guys! It worked so well in the 2010 Senate races, after all.

And So It Comes To This

"This" being, of course, Romney vs. Gingrich. Hermain Cain is dead as a candidate, long live Herman Cain as a talk show host or something. Huntsman, Santorum, Gary Johnson, and a whole host of others were never appreciably alive. Bachmann is as lifeless as they are, though she at least had a heartbeat for a while. Ron Paul will get his usual 13% when all's said and done, no more, no less, because thirteen percent of Republicans actually agree with him; he's never been running to win. And Rick Perry, well, he cratered a while back, this latest miscue forecloses any possibility of a comeback, and, uh, I forgot the third thing. (Sorry, I think that's legally obligatory right now.) So we're left with Romney/Gingrich. Intrade has Romney at around 70% odds to win, and Gingrich around 13%, with the rest going to various others who are at this point basically demised. Personally I like Newt at those odds. Two national primary polls have been released that were in the field after this past Sunday: they show the Romney minus Gingrich margin at four points and zero points: that says toss-up. Off the top of my head I can't see why the remaining sixty to seventy percent of Republicans not currently backing one of these two would mostly break toward Romney; perhaps they will, but perhaps they won't.

In any event, Romney's finally going to have to fight. Notice how his strategy for dealing with Trump, with Bachmann, with Perry, and now finally with Cain has been to stand back, stay quiet, and let them immolate themselves. (Of course, his strategy for dealing with Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty, etc. has been to stand back, stay quiet, and watch them decline to run.) He can't beat Gingrich without getting into the ring. Unlike all Romney's other foes, Gingrich can talk. Coherently. About national policy issues. Hell, he's even kind of a wonk, though of course he's a wonk who's wrong about everything. This is probably good for the Republicans, because Romney would certainly have to fight against Obama and if they just nominated him by the acclimation of the corpses of rival campaigns strewed around him, they wouldn't know if he was a competent fighter. They still don't; presumably Gingrich will help us all find out. Obviously I hope Gingrich wins, since the American people already know that they violently dislike Newt. But at last we've found the real Republican primary. Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich: pick a side, we're at war.

Honestly, Guys? Newt Gingrich?

The answer may be yes. Not only is Gingrich moving up in polls, but Herman Cain's supporters continue to consistently name Gingrich as their second-choice. Given how awful Rick Perry's favorabilities have been of late, even with Republicans, I basically believe at this point that he's cooked. But Romney's not gaining any ground, and the re-emergence of Gingrich puts him in a tricky spot. Assume that at some point Cain implodes, and most of his support goes to Gingrich, setting up essentially a Romney-Gingrich match-up. Here's Romney's problem: Gingrich is perhaps the only person in the field who is more conservative than Romney, not an eccentric libertarian, and can talk coherently about policy. And Gingrich can do that! The things he says are very, very wrong, but he's in a different league than Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, even Rick Perry. Paired against any of those people Romney could say not only "vote for that guy and you'll just make Obama's life easier," he could say "that guy is flagrantly incompetent." And even in the Republican Party flagrant incompetence matters. But Newt Gingrich is clearly competent. He's not as electable as Romney, but that's a hard argument to make outright without coding it through incompetence of some kind. Gingrich's campaign originally collapsed due to some strange combination of lack of buzz and strange inept dysfunction, but now that he's back I think he's the most credible threat Romney's faced all year: a genuine conservative with stature, gravitas, and competence. He trumps Romney, matching him on his strengths and lacking his most glaring weaknesses. Once it becomes Romney-Gingrich, how exactly does Romney win?

(All stipulating that the serial sexual harasser cannot continue to survive indefinitely, of course. If I end up being wrong about that, hey, I won't be complaining.)

Gingrich? Really?

My father was of the opinion, from rather early in the Republican primary contest, that Newt Gingrich would be the nominee. When Gingrich's campaign crumbled into dust, and he sank to ~3% in the polls, he admitted he was probably wrong, though he wasn't yet ready to concede defeat. After all, John McCain's campaign crumbled to dust in the summer and fall of '07, but he made a comeback. Such things do happen. Well, according to the only pollster I trust, PPP, Gingrich is in third place now, at 15%, behind Cain's 30% and Romney's 22% but narrowly ahead of Perry's 14%. My whole logic as to why Romney will lose is that Cain's bubble seems very likely to pop at some point, and those supporters aren't going to Romney. Typically I assume that means they'll go back to Perry, which is where most of them came. But maybe not. His campaign still seems kind of moribund, and Gingrich is trending upward in the polls. At this point I will not be shocked if Gingrich ends up winning. I won't be shocked if Perry wins, either, or if Romney does manage to hold on. (I will be shocked if Cain wins, though. Genuinely shocked.)

Needless to say, I would be thrilled if Gingrich beats Romney. Romney was tied against Obama in that poll, with a net -6% favorability. Perry's got a -9 margin against Obama, and -34% favorability. Gingrich has a -11 margin, and -26% favorability. I don't think you can be elected President with the kinds of numbers Perry and Gingrich are putting up. I dare the Republicans to nominate anyone other than Romney; if they do, it'll be a fun year!