The Florida Contest

By Mr. Curmudgeon

You can almost smell the fear. Gov. Mitt Romney, formally the heir apparent for the Republican presidential nomination, is decidedly beside himself after losing by a significant margin to his rival Newt Gingrich in South Carolina last Saturday. The media and Romney’s well-healed supporters thought it couldn’t happen. Romney’s biggest fan, arch-conservative columnist Ann Coulter – who told the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference convention, “If you don’t run Chris Christie, Romney will be the nominee and we’ll lose” – recently praised GOP Iowa caucus-goers for giving Romney a big win and “avoiding giving the gold to Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul or some other sure-to-lose candidate.” After a recent recount, Romney’s stunning eight-vote mandate dissolved and Rick Santorum was declared Iowa’s belated winner.

As if that weren’t bad enough, according to the Rasmussen polling organization, “Less than two weeks ago, Mitt Romney had a 22-point lead in Florida, but that’s ancient history in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Following his big win in South Carolina on Saturday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich now is on top in Florida by nine [points].”

So much for all that media (conservative and mainstream) talk about Romney’s electability. It’s very clear the rank-and-file GOP voter neither trusts nor likes Romney. While his boosters point to their man’s accomplishments as a corporate raider, investor in offshore accounts and trailblazer for mandated medical death squads, others find them so offensive as to make his flawed rivals appear nearly angelic … even the Freddie Mac benefactor and adulterous former House Speaker.

The Anybody-But-Romney GOP race is scrambling toward the finish line, and the huffing and puffing Gingrich is in the lead. This has Romney supporters tearing their hair out: the values voters who believe his recent pro-life conversion is genuine and those who believe his corporate skills will magically transform America’s entrenched welfare state into a more efficient debt factory.

According to the Washington Post, Speaker Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor refused to comment on Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. “Their hesitance,” says the Post, “could be a sign that those leaders, aware of how unpopular Congress is in the public’s view – may not want to risk having a candidate be seen by voters as beholden to the party establishment.”

This being an election year, it behooves establishment Republicans to hide from other establishment Republicans. Why? Because establishmentarians fear voters might recognize establishment Republicans as, well, establishment Republicans.

Romney, GOP House and Senate leaders and even the media recognized that the protectors of the status quo aren’t very popular in today’s America. So, it should come as no surprise that the Republican primary process is so fluid. When a party offers nothing but establishmentarians, it falls to the discerning voter to choose the lesser evil among the Progressive dwarves.

When pressed to answer questions regarding his meager 15% tax bite, offshore investments and tenure at Bain Capital, Romney comes off looking like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights – just the trait Obama is looking for in an opponent; a rematch, as it were, with Senator John McCain.

When Newt Gingrich is assailed by the press for his seemingly insurmountable moral failings as a husband, he turns the tables on nationally renowned media-types, makes them look foolish and small, while simultaneously driving home the point they’re all in the bag for Obama. That makes Gingrich more than your average politician … it makes him one of America’s great magicians.

And with 1 billion dollars to burn, Obama will flood the airwaves with campaign ads so vile they’ll curl the tentacles of intelligent extraterrestrials when the signals reach the outer rim of our galaxy. That means the Republican nominee, whoever he is, had better be able to match wits with a community-organizing street fighter from Chicago.

When backed into a corner, Republican House and Senate leaders cower, compromise and assume the fetal position. That certainly was Gingrich’s pattern when he held Boehner’s job. But it looks like Gingrich may have learned from his mistakes. And unlike Boehner and Romney, who keep a healthy distance from the Tea Party, Gingrich has reached out.

Attending a meeting of the Staten Island Tea Party last December, Gingrich said the coming presidential contest is “the most important election since 1860,” adding, “Eight years of Barack Obama will come close to breaking us as a country. It really matters that we win.”

If Gingrich is surging in the polls, it might have more to do with his ability to channel America’s rage, its contempt for the press, and his passionate call for voters to remove Obama from office in 2012. That passion is sorely lacking in the words and actions of his fellow establishmentarians.

“He’s gone from pillar to post, almost like a pinball machine, from item to item, in a way which is highly erratic and does not suggest a stable, thoughtful course, which is normally associated with leadership,” Romney said of Gingrich during a stump speech in Tampa, Florida.

It appears Romney’s strategy is to campaign against mental agility and to suggest that his inability to keep up is a sign of leadership.

And that’s just what Obama wants to hear.