Steps and Missteps: Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry
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So, Newt Gingrich, in an interview with ABC News, asserted that he is “going to be the nominee.” It was probably true until he said it. This is “bad Newt:” way too much in love with his own cleverness for his own good. Sure: an outside observer could well look at the current match-up and say that it’s Newt’s race to lose, if everyone continues on form. But by flashing his cockiness, Newt is not continuing on form. He hasn’t come across cocky in the debates, but instead earnest and positive. His claim that he will be the nominee came by way of explaining why he isn’t going to switch to negative attacks on his fellow Republicans: their style of doing so has failed for them, while his style of being positive and substantive, and focusing on Obama, has worked. He didn’t need to explain it in these “inside baseball” terms. He ought just to have asserted that he was going to stick to his approach, without including the arrogant assertion that he was going to win. It is also, by the way, a foolish confidence to have. The momentum of a nomination race can change with the results of one primary. No one is in a position on December 1st of 2011 to assert that they will have the delegates come summer of 2012. Again, bad Newt.
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Almost as if to contrast with Gingrich taking himself so seriously, today Rick Perry came out with a new TV ad that uses his worst moment of his campaign as its opening; i.e., the moment in a debate when he couldn’t remember the third of three federal agencies that he was promising to shut down. After running that clip, he comes on screen and supplies the answer: “Department of Energy.” He then concisely lays out who he is: not a slick debater, but someone who you can count on to go and “clean house in Washington,” achieve a “balanced budget amendment,” a “flat tax,” and institute a “part-time Congress.” It’s simultaneously funny, charming, and substantive. Perry’s ads have all been good. I don’t know exactly how much money he has left and how far it will carry him, but he spends it well.
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The race isn’t over. Newt Gingrich might get lucky and his foot-in-mouth moment today might not become a huge story. But it shows the side of him that is self-destructive. Rick Perry has shown that he deals well with adversity. He’s been written off before in his political career—his opponents have never rated him highly—but he’s always come back to win. Holidays or not, December looks like it will be an interesting month in this contest.
