* _OPINION_
(http://online.wsj.com/public/search?article-doc-type={Commentary+(U.S.)}&HEADER_TEXT=commentary+(u.s.)
* NOVEMBER 9, 2011
Why Gingrich Could Win
Herman Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory
testimony from a woman who showed up in person, with detail.
*
By _DOROTHY RABINOWITZ_
(http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=DOROTHY+RABINOWITZ&bylinesearch=true)
Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in
several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the
Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The
former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem
to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world
apart from the usual that the political season brings.
"Substance" is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that
candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to
describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds
attending these forums—in their expressions, caught on C-SPAN's cameras, in
the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich
talk begins. Their disengagement—the tendency to look around the room, chat
with their neighbors—vanishes. The room is on high alert.
The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom
Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had,
not
surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in
their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she
had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy
narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth
abortion—a history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul
offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located
support for his views on the dollar.
There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious
themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American
freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, "because stupid people are
running America." The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else's remarks would
ignite the huge response his talk did.
He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most
important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012,
Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our
universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and
bureaucracies.
He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected,
something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little
effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every
turn.
The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing
descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the
convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.
Mr. Gingrich predicted, too, that late on Election Night—after it was clear
that President Obama had been defeated along with the Democrats in the
Senate—the recovery would begin, at once. His audience roared with pleasure.
No other Republican candidate could have made the promise so persuasive.
Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would
challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. "I think I
can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of
private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class
warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total
confusion
in the economy."
When it came time to answer questions from a panel of journalists, he was
asked first about energy, one of those vital subjects that don't tend to
yield lively commentary. How would Mr. Gingrich's policies differ from those
of the current administration?
Mr. Gingrich launched into a lethal thumbnail description of the Obama
administration's energy policy. The president, he said, had gone to Brazil and
told the Brazilians he was really glad they were drilling offshore and that
he would like America to be their best customer. "The job of the American
president," Mr. Gingrich told the panel, "is not to be a purchasing agent
for a foreign country—it's to be a salesman for the United States of
America."
The former speaker of the House is a dab hand at drawing listeners in, for
good reason—he showers them with details, facts and history in a degree no
candidate in recent memory has even approached. Audiences have a way of
rewarding such trust.
No one listening that night to candidate Gingrich's reflections on the
menace of radical judges from Lincoln's time on down could have ignored the
power of his fiery assessment—including the Dred Scott decision, others by
courts today that threaten our national security, and much in between.
The Iowa contest ahead is all important for Mr. Gingrich. The same is truer
still for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Ms. Bachmann has been
looking increasingly aware that her hopes are fading. Mr. Santorum now seems
to
inhabit a world so nearly exclusive in its focus on family and family values
that it's hard to imagine him a successful contender for the presidency of
a large and varied nation of Americans with other concerns, the non-family
kind included.
Then there's Congressman Ron Paul, who last weekend let it be known that if
he doesn't like the views of the person who wins the nomination, he won't
support the Republican candidate. This is a good reason—one of many—for
Mr. Paul to retire himself from further debates. It's a certainty, to put it
mildly, that he's not going to be the nominee.
It would be passing strange to have as a candidate for the presidency of
the United States an envenomed crank who regularly offers justification for
the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the annihilation of 3,000 Americans. It
was an act, Mr. Paul explains in these exculpatory sermonettes, to which the
terrorists were driven by American policies. Mr. Paul may get all the fond
buddy treatment in the world from his fellow debaters, but few Americans
outside of his devoted army of isolationist fanatics will forget these views.
That leaves Mitt Romney, and Messrs. Perry, Cain and Gingrich heading the
list of competitors for Iowa. Mr. Cain's prospects were good until this week
brought accusatory testimony from another woman—one who showed up in
person, with plenty of detail. Charges of lies, financial motives and
conspiracies notwithstanding, it's hard to see how Mr. Cain weathers this
disaster.
No outsider can know what actually did or did not happen. But all the
snorting in the world about Gloria Allred, the accuser's attorney, isn't going
to
change the impact of this highly specific accusation.
Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard
fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak
to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican
debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection.
There's no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential
election ahead, or any other one.
His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing
that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich's qualifications
all 'round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest
with Barack Obama.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
--
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