In last night’s debate in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich once again showed why he is the one-on-one leader amongst the GOP candidate field.
It was clear last night, when the stage lights went down that Newt won the evening but in a debate, there is something perhaps even more important to be said.
Newt won the crowd.
Will this boost Gingrich’s poll numbers less than a week before the South Carolina primary? It would be difficult to make a case against it. Will it be enough to win South Carolina? Probably not, but it could very well put him in second place.
Gingrich’s strong and maybe strongest point is his ability to shine on the debate stage. In fact, last night, in a campaign debate, Newt received the first standing ovation from the assembled crowd since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
The race for 2nd place in South Carolina is now between Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Although there are now 5 still in, the race for the nomination is in reality between Romney, Gingrich and Santorum.
Rick Perry is starting to make some strides but a lack of financial backing and a too little too late better performance in the debates will not be enough to sustain his candidacy much beyond South Carolina.
Ron Paul will continue to the end, gathering delegates here and there but the guy just isn’t nominatable. With the delegates he does garner, Paul will most likely try to make a power play at the convention, throwing his numbers behind a candidate to push them over the top.
Paul is vying for the position of king maker.
While independents and undecideds continue to look for the “not Romney,” that race is clearly between Gingrich and Santorum.
While history shows that no GOP candidate has won the nomination without winning South Carolina, this is a campaign of firsts. No candidate has ever won both Iowa and New Hampshire before. Romney did, or at least it appears he did. The final results from Iowa will be announced most likely today and no later than tomorrow and those numbers have tilted back and forth between Romney and Santorum.
Never before has the GOP field been so packed and it’s arguable that never before have the independents played so much a key role 
in the outcome.
While many polls continue to pit Romney against Obama in a who could win if the election were held today scenario, the real question which should be asked, is which way will the independents go?
History shows that those who are undecided, and many independents lean away from the incumbent which does not make the path toward victory an easy one for Obama in 2012. Given that, to whom in the GOP field will they turn?
At this stage of the game, that so many remain undecided, one must look toward the Tea Party for answers.
Those who ascribe to the Tea Party are continuing to vet the candidates, looking for several things. Who can beat Obama? Who will change the way Washington works? Who will set our foreign policy back on track? Who has a workable plan for the economy? Who is most likely to fix the budget and deficit mess?
If Tea Partiers are still looking for the candidate most apt to walk on conservative water, they should stop looking as that candidate isn’t in the race. Instead, they should look for the candidate most likely to block the liberal tsunami coming their way in the last 6 months before the election.
That candidate would be the one who has taken the most criticism over the longest period of time and withstood it. It will take a battle-hardened candidate to win in November.
Romney’s years in the public eye have been mostly without such harsh opposition.
Santorum has taken his share but lost his last election by 17 points leaving him as a long shot to take on and defeat the liberal campaign machine.
Gingrich, on the other hand, has changed the way Washington has done business. As Speaker, he engineered the conservative revolution in the ’90s as well as balancing the budget for 4 straight years. Gingrich has had more than his share of criticism over the years while he served and after. Now, many who served with him are speaking out against him.
Is this a bad thing?
No.
These are the very “business as usual” folks whose long standing Washington ways must be changed. For those who continue to view Gingrich as a Washington INSIDER, consider it is the INSIDERS who hold the most distaste for him.
Gingrich is not politically correct; he’s politically direct. Gingrich isn’t trying to make friends; he’s trying to defeat his opposition.
If last night’s debate highlighted anything, it’s that Newt is at his very best when he’s attacking liberal policies and rhetoric and at his worst while attacking the opposition within his own party.
If Gingrich can finish, at the least, a strong 2nd in South Carolina on Saturday, it’s a two-man race heading into Florida for the undecided vote. Anything less than a strong 2nd on Saturday, it will require a disastrous fall for Romney not to get the nomination.
Later today, The National Patriot will look at the wildcards in the 2012 race to the nomination.
The only one with command presence on that SC stage was Newt Gingrich. Santorum looked like a loser at a poker table trying to bluff a bad hand; Romney looked and sounded like a pampered son trying to debate other pampered children in Prep School; Paul has some fine libertarian ideas and principles, but no clue about the ethics or goals of Islam. The moderator spent wasted time in a make-up chair rehersing his moronic “gotcha” questions. The only Alpha male among them was Newt.
Why are you ignoring Ron Paul?
Second in the last poll, and received more votes than Gingrich, Perry and Santorum combined?
I believe that Gingrich is a chamelion. He will say whatever the people want to hear. he got into bed with Pelosi and Obama and has shafted American industry.
Ron Paul, on the other hand , has been consistent from day one. he would actually achieve change we can believe in, unlike this other sorry lot!
Be more even handed with your observations and have more than a cursory look at Paul’s policies.
In fact, I have written extensively about Ron Paul. To be fair, I have devoted more time exclusively to Paul that any other individual candidate. Here is but one such article.
http://www.thenationalpatriot.com/?p=3684
Gingrich Lacks Moral Character to Be President, Ex-Wife Says…
Bitter Marianne Gingrich Unloads, Claims Newt Wanted Open Marriage…
ABC DEBATES ‘ETHICS’ OF AIRING BEFORE PRIMARY…
NYT: Disagreement over timing of interview…
Greta Van Susteren: ‘I would hold it until after the polls close’…
AP: ABC TO AIR TONIGHT…
GINGRICH DAUGHTERS: ‘The failure of a marriage is terrible and emotional experience’…
Adviser: Marianne ‘very bitter’…
Video to air tonight: Gingrich to ex-wife Marianne:’YOU NEED TO SHARE ME’
http://www.drudgereport.com
We don’t need a Republican version of Bill Clinton, which is what you get if you nominate the cad, Gingrich. We need a man of integrity, and that man is Rick Santorum!
SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT!
This article is ridiculous. The candidate with the best chance to win against Obama is clearly Ron Paul – he’s won more than twice as many independents as Romney in New Hampshire, more evangelicals than Santorum in Iowa, brings in many times more young and first time voters then any other candidate, and even won 5% write in votes in the *democratic* primary in New Hampshire!
Those voters will ONLY vote for Ron Paul – they won’t vote for any of the other candidates, since the other candidates are all the same. Plus Ron Paul is only a few delegates behind Romney right now.
What we really need right now is for Gingrich, Santorum and Perry to get out of the race. It’s already down to a two-man race, Romney vs Paul, and the sooner Gingrich and Santorum get out of the race, the sooner Ron Paul can take on the not-Romney role and take the nomination.
Newt would make an excellent “Pitbull” as VP. He can be free to attack Obama while Romney stays above the fray. Romney can go after the moderates and independants needed to assure a win. It’s a fact that the electorate is evenly devided between the culture of personal responsibility and central government dependancy. It is the middle that will determin the outcome of this race. The news media is hard left since Obama’s election. They came clean post election stating they were no longer going to pretend to be unbiases. So we will need a “Pitbull” to make headlines the left will eat up. That is the only way to get our message out to combat the billion dollar Obama campaign. If Newt wins the nomination then we need someon like Romney to balance the ticket. Romney-Gingrich best ticket not as thrilled with Gringrich-Romney. I think either can beat Obama in a land slide.
Has no one figured out that the RNC and their control over the primary process is used to nominate the rino they want not the pick of the people? We should be having all the primaries on the same day everywhere. Mit has no mandate with a mere 1.5 of the delegates this is a landslide. If you always start the voting with a liberal state like New Hampshire you will always get liberal results. Remember Bob Dole and McCain. Nobody wanted them but the RNC pushed them down our throats with their primary process and we got Obama as a result. With the Chicago thugs in the game Obama will be reelected in the last free election in this country.
Why has no one called Newt to task on his participation in the jobs/nation killing legislation of NAFTA, GATT and WTO?
The off shoring of American manufacturing has done more to remove the middle class than any other single act of Congress in the history of our nation.
Yet no one says a word.
This is why I will not vote for NewNewtWorldOrder. I sincerely wish he was on OUR side.
I am in agreement with you and 2nd Mike Brown’s statement.
Great article Craig and I concur wholeheartedly!