WSJ Goes Into Full GDS Meltdown

Gingrich Derangement Syndrome is causing a complete melt-down among many of the Republican elite, but few can match the meltdown we see on the pages of the WSJ today from Brent Stephens.  I will not link to this piece of excreta.

Mr. Stephen's has become so overwrought at Gingrich's victory in South Carolina - and Romney's weaknesses exposed - that it has led him to pronounce that "Republicans deserve to lose."  As to those idiot voters in S.C., Mr. Stephen's has this to say:

That's my theory for why South Carolina gave Newt Gingrich his big primary win on Saturday: Voters instinctively prefer the idea of an entertaining Newt-Obama contest—the aspiring Caesar versus the failed Redeemer—over a dreary Mitt-Obama one. The problem is that voters also know that Gaius Gingrich is liable to deliver his prime-time speeches in purple toga while holding tight to darling Messalina's—sorry, Callista's—bejeweled fingers. A primary ballot for Mr. Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining election, not a Republican in the White House.

The arrogance and the disdain just drip from the pen of Mr. Stephens.  God forbid that we, the voters who actually own the Republican Party, should think contrary to him.  To the extent that Mr. Stephens requires some reminding of that fact, let's cue up the appropriate non-verbal response.

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Gingrich, Communications & The GDS-Suffering Republican Elites

. . . for years now, I have been screaming that the failure to communicate and respond to these endless [leftwing] attacks was the greatest failing of the Bush Administration - and Republicans generally in all situations. I am convinced that McCain lost the election because of his failure to aggressively attack Obama in the debates and the failure of the entire Republican Party as a whole to respond to the left's outrageous charge that the right was responsible for our financial nightmare. . . .

Having watched the current crop of Congressional Republicans for years now, I am under no illusion that, come 2012, they will be able to effectively communicate. The backlash we see against Obama's policies and vast overreach today has come from the bottom up, with the Tea Parties and social networking. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Congressional Republicans. That does not bode well for the right come 2012.

That said, as I look out at the field of potential candidates who could possibly communicate effectively - those with the necessary intelligence and aggressiveness to actually call the left on their falsehoods and change our national paradigm - the only one I see today who foots that bill is Newt Gingrich. . . .

16 July 2010, Wolf Howling, Looking Ahead: Obama, 2012 & The Biggest Republican Weakness

Gingrich won South Carolina by 12 points and, going into Florida, he now leads the polling by 9 points. Hysterical dysentery has now afflicted those many Republican elites suffering full blown cases of GDS (Gingrich Derangement Syndrome). The disdain they feel for the voters - i.e., the rank and file Republicans and independents who voted in the S.C. primary - and the grass roots Tea Party movement literally drips from their mouths. It appears that before the Conservative rank and file can take back our nation from Obama, we will first have to take back our party from the Republican elites.

As so many people are today pointing out - Gingrich roars. And when he unapologetically does so with passion and eloquence in defense of conservative values, when he does so in shredding an ill thrown race card, when he does so in calling the media out for their bias, that is what the base of the party wants above all else. It is clear that the base understands that it is precisely what the party has been lacking. And it is clear that the base also understands that progressives - who have, over the past century, changed our nation in so many ways - will continue making fundamental changes to our nation until we can get someone who roars in defense of conservative values.

This is not a sudden catharsis, at least for me. I have been pointing it out as the single greatest failing of Republicans almost from the first day I started this blog. For but a few examples, see:

-  Advice On How To Lose The 2012 Election
-  Looking Ahead:  Obama, 2012 & The Biggest Republican Weakness
-  A New Cold War In America
-  Losing the Message Wars
- Republicans Ponder The Abyss

For the past eight decades, Republicans in government, with the exceptions of Ronald Reagan and then Newt Gingrich, have been fighting a rear guard action, accomplishing little more than minimizing the ever continuing advance of socialism / progressivism in our government and in our society.  As to Reagan as President and Gingrich as Speaker, they actually pushed back against the advance and managed conservative victories.  They did so because they vocally, passionately and eloquently were able to challenge the falsehoods of the left while promoting conservative ideals.

We can see much the same happening today in some of the states. Take New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for example.  He is a darling of the right today - despite the fact that he is a RINO's RINO on so many conservative issues.  But on the two intertwined issues most effecting NJ, the economy and the power of unions, Christie is firmly on the conservative side of the fence.  And he has been just a shining success in bluest of blue NJ on those issues.  Why?  Because he is an incredibly effective communicator who is vocal, passionate and eloquent in the effort to promote fiscal sanity and an end to the power of NJ's massive public sector unions.

But today, the many Republican elites suffering GDS are telling us that the ability to communicate does not matter and that the voters in S.C. were just dumb.  They now are trying to frighten the base into voting for Romeny by saying that a Gingich nomination will mean that we lose not just the Presidency, but the House and the Senate down ticket.  Let's take a look:

The voters in their infinite wisdom have just given a huge boost to perhaps the only GOP candidate who could shift the spotlight from President Obama to himself, alienate virtually all independent voters, lose more than 40 states and put the House majority in jeopardy.

Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post

. . .  with Newt Gingrich you get the name calling for the president — very popular with the tea party crowd in South Carolina, not so popular with independents. He won’t put a fence on the border and wants amnesty for illegals. He took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac. But you know, he attacked Paul Ryan’s plan on Social Security. So with Newt Gingrich, you throw out the baby and keep the bath water… I think South Carolina is going back to their Democratic roots.”

Ann Coulter, Fox and Friends (via Gateway Pundit)

. . . Let’s just pray that Barack Obama’s second term didn’t start today. If Gingrich does get the nomination, this may turn out to be a year in which Republicans more or less ignore the presidential race, ceding Obama his second term, and focus instead on trying to hold the House and, if possible, picking up a seat or two in the Senate, along with doing the best we can in state races where the wipeout at the presidential level doesn’t swamp all efforts to elect Republicans.

John Hinderaker, Powerline

On the heels of Newt Gingrich’s trouncing of Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary, Republican Party brass are privately expressing deep concerns that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s high unfavorable rating in national polls could prove catastrophic to the so-called “down ballot”–the House and Senate races under the presidential race–and may even threaten the Republican Party’s control of the House of Representatives.

GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who previously served as Sen. John McCain’s senior campaign strategist, told MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow that if Mr. Gingrich wins next week’s Florida GOP primary, there will be “a panic and a meltdown of the Republican establishment that is beyond my ability to articulate in the English language. People will go crazy.”

Wynton Hall reporting at Big Government

What these GDS-afflicted prophets of Armageddon are relying upon are polls showing that, at the moment, Gingrich has a lot of negative name recognition. Wow, no kidding? It's not like Gingrich suffers from two liabilities - the MSM of the past two decades and now the GDS afflicted right.

Does anyone reading this remember Gingrich's speakership in the mid - 90's, the balanced budgets, the welfare reform, the Contract With America, the good economy, the low jobless rate? I do. And I vividly remember a few other things. The left of the era hated Gingrich with a passion that would not be seen in America again until Sarah Palin came onto the national scene. The MSM of the time was not just as left wing as today, but they had a near complete monopoly on the news. There was no alternative media. They demonized and demagogued Gingrich unmercifully. Indeed, I kid you not when I say I remember the day I looked up the definition of the word "demagoguery" in the dictionary. I had heard the word used by Rush Limbaugh in an interview with the Speaker in response to how the left and the entire MSM was portraying one of his acts.

Update: It appears that my memory of that time - the intense partisan war against Gingrich, the bull shit ethics complaint, and the total war of the MSM declared on Gingrich is accurate. Byron York of the Washington Examiner takes us on a walk back through that time here.

As to when Republican members in the House led a coup against Gingrich, I have no inside knowledge. I do know this. What we got after Gingrich left was a disaster. We got a House that was, for the next decade, nothing more or less than Democrat-lite. There were zero conservative accomplishments, there were zero balanced budgets, but there were huge increases in spending. So was the problem Gingrich's leadership, or the fact that Gingrich took Republicans out of their comfort zone and brought a lot of bad press at the time? I have always believed it was the latter based on what I saw at the time and afterwards.

And now when it comes to negative press, it has been the GDS Republican elites who have picked up where the far left MSM dropped off near a decade ago. As I wrote in Decemeber:

The last two months of flame throwing against Gingrich [by the GDS-afflicted Republican elites] has left me wondering whether we can yet pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Precious little of what is coming from the right leaning pundits has been reasoned criticism. To the contrary, its largely been overheated hyperbole of the ilk used by the left to demonize and delegitimize Sarah Palin.

So when the GDS afflicted right now tells us that a Gingrich nomination would be catastrophe because he doesn't have positive name recognition, that is like the boy who murders his parents then asks the Court for mercy because he is an orphan.

So how are we to evaluate Gingrich's negative name recognition from some earlier national polls when matched up with the most recent polls and with the results of the SC election? First this from Gallup:

The latest Gallup polling shows Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney each trailing President Obama by exactly the same tally — 50 to 48 percent. . . .

. . . Gingrich, in particular, improved versus Obama in the swing states: While he trailed Obama by 6 points overall at that time, he led Obama by 3 points in states that are likely to be hotly contested — a swing of 9 points.

The Gallup poll is not limited Republicans, and it certainly seems that Gingrich is at least as popular as Romney. And then there was the S.C. open primary, where Gingrich not only won running away, but also took the independents.  I am just not feeling the hate . . .

In sum, all of prophecies of total Republican annihilation coming from Republican elites who hold the actual voters in utter disdain is nothing more than fearmongering. Their total immersion in GDS suggests that their problems with Gingrich run far deeper than merely wanting to see the Republican party - or conservativism, for that matter - succeed, and their total disdain for the Republican base shows arrogance unbound. Indeed, it leaves me speechless, though still with a desire to communicate clearly with the GDS-afflicted Republican elites. That said, let's cue the non-verbal response.

Update:  Doug Ross has also addressed the down-ticket argument with a rather amazing historical fact from Rasmussen. You literally have to go back in time to 1860 to see a scenario play out where an incumbent president loses the White House but his party wins "control of either house of Congress from the other party."

Update:  Linked at Larwyn's Linx.

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Gingrich Derangement Syndrome

While Bush Derangement Syndrome only effected those on the left, the right now has its own analog, Gingrich Derangement Syndrome. GDS apparently afflicts select right wing pundits, most everyone at NRO, and John Hinderaker at Powerline:

So, congratulations to Newt, and on to Florida. Let’s just pray that Barack Obama’s second term didn’t start today. If Gingrich does get the nomination, this may turn out to be a year in which Republicans more or less ignore the presidential race, ceding Obama his second term, and focus instead on trying to hold the House and, if possible, picking up a seat or two in the Senate, along with doing the best we can in state races where the wipeout at the presidential level doesn’t swamp all efforts to elect Republicans.

Now that is a full blown case of GDS.

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Lessons From South Carolina

. . . Newt Gingrich’s rise has a lot to do with Newt Gingrich’s debate performance. But it has just as much to do with a party base in revolt against its thought and party leaders in Washington, DC. The base is revolting because they swept the GOP back into relevance in Washington just under two years ago and they have been thanked with contempt ever since.

Adding insult to injury, the party and thought leaders now try to foist on the base a milquetoast moderate from Massachusetts. Newt Gingrich can thank Mitt Romney and more for the second look he is getting. Base hostility will now be exacerbated by Mitt Romney’s backers now undoubtedly making a conscious effort to prop up Rick Santorum to shut down Newt Gingrich. . . .

People are mad as hell they are about to be stuck with another boring, moderate, uninspiring choice that has at best a 50/50 shot at losing to the worst president since Carter. They are flocking to Newt not because they think he’s a great guy, but because right now, he’s the only one fighting for conservatism and GOP voters are looking for a vessel to channel their anger with Obama and their complete disappointment with the GOP establishment which is now embodied perfectly by Romney. They want a conservative fighter because most conservatives look back at Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain and see only the ones taking a conservative path against the Democrats actually winning.

Eric Erickson, Newt Gingrich Wins. What It Means. Red State, 21 Jan. 2012

Newt Gingrich just won the South Carolina primary running away, 40% to Romney's 28%. The exit polls explaining Gingrich's win are a gold mine of data for both Gingrich and Romney going forward.

Gingrich:

The exit polls, shown here and excerpted in relevant part in the post below, show that Newt won virtually every demographic and on virtually every major issue. He won across all income levels, including blue collar and white collar types. The numbers show what are Gingrich's winning messages.

Jobs and the Economy:

This was the big issue from the exit polls - critical to 63% of the voters, and Gingrich beat Romney among those voters by 8 points. I found that surprising. What it says is that the electorate responded to Newt's economic experience while in Congress more so than they trusted Romney to be able to translate his business experience into a successful economic plan.

Given the centrality of this issue and the success Gingrich has had with it, Gingrich needs to make this issue number one going forward, not just on the stump, but in a majority of advertisements. He needs to emphasize, at every opportunity, the fact that government does not create jobs, the private sector does. The mission of government is to create a positive playing field for business - and in that, he can legitimately claim that his incredibly successful experience at the federal level is far more significant than Romney's as governor, and of a different nature all together than Romney's private sector experience.

Budget Deficit:

This issue was central to 22% of the voters, and Gingrich crushed Romney among these voters, 45% to 23%. Obviously the fact that Gingrich actually balanced the federal budget during his Speakership weighed heavily on that issue. That said, Romney has pointed out that he balanced the budget as Governor of Massachusetts. What Romney neglects to say - and that Gingrich should be bringing up - is that Mass. law requires a balanced budget. Romney is taking credit for doing nothing more than complying with the law. Gingrich's achievement while as a Speaker was orders of magnitude tougher - a point Gingrich should emphasize.

On The Morality Issues:

Deeply religious and conservative South Carolina has put to rest any questions about whether Gingrich's past moral failings are going to be a drain on him. They aren't. Gingrich captured the vote of women generally (38% to 29%) and of married individuals (41% to 28%) in SC. Moreover, he captured as much of the evangelical vote (44%) as Gov. Huckabee did when he ran in SC in 2008.

Electability:

On the issue of electability, the 45% of SC voters who voted in light of that issue judged Gingrich more electable versus Obama than Romney by 51% to 37%. It seems clear that their decision was based on the debates and Gingrich's willingness to, one, eloquently and passionately burn the race card while defending conservative values (Juan Williams), and two, to take on the press for their bias (John King).

Listening to Fox News tonight, the talking heads who oppose a Gingrich nomination are taking the position that debate performances will matter very little in the general election. In essence, just because Newt is such an effective communicator and defender of conservative values, it has little to do with electability. That is patently false.

Gingrich needs to address this for two reasons. One, this is his single greatest strength. As Eric Erickson notes in the passage quoted at the top of the page, conservatives more than anything else are hungering for a person who can do what Gingrich does. Two, Newt needs to push back against this meme that his communication skills matter only a little. To the contrary, they matter tremendously.

John McCain lost the 2008 election because he ceded the major issues to the Obama narrative. Outrageously, over half the nation still thinks that the subprime crisis was caused by Wall St. greed. Bush failed to reform Social Security because the left was able to demagogue the issue. The Bush presidency was crippled because of Bush's failure to directly challenge the left's despicable campaign to loose the Iraq war. The base understands this. The ability to communicate may well be the single most important skill for any conservative nominee for President today. As Erickson says, look back at Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain, the only ones who have won have been those that unapologetically and vocally embraced conservativism. Newt needs to emphasize precisely that.

Independents

Self-identified independents broke for Gingrich 31% to 25%. It would seem that he doesn't have anywhere near the problem with independents that his critics would like us to believe. There is no real lesson here other than keep doing what he is doing.

Going Negative On Bain

The majority of voters in S.C., 64%, had a positive view of Romney's experience as a venture capitalist with Bain and, of those people, they broke almost evenly between between Gingrich and Romney. As to the 24% of Republicans that had a negative view of Romney's experience as a 'vulture capitalist,' 50% went for Gingrich, 3% went to Romney. Thus it would seem that Newt's going negative on Bain did make a real difference.

That said, I wonder how much of a backlash there may well be later in the campaign if Gingrich keeps up this attack on Bain and, by extension, capitalism. Gingrich has enough strengths, as mentioned above, that he really should lay off the Bain issue.

What Gingrich Can Expect Going Forward

Gingrich has been the subject of the most concerted internal effort to destroy a Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater in 1964. With this huge Gingrich win in SC, expect the floodgates to open, making the left's efforts to demonize and delegitimize Sarah Palin in 2008 look like a measured effort in intellectual honesty. This is going to get real ugly real quick. Let's hope that Newt can withstand the inferno in the kitchen.

There is still at least one area in which Newt has yet to be truly pressed and which he needs to be fully prepared to address - the fact that he lost his speakership to a coup after three years. He needs to be prepared to answer that in the upcoming weeks.

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Mitt Romney

Romney collapsed in South Carolina over two issues. One, his horrid answers when asked about releasing his tax returns. He became not merely defensive, but stuttering and rambling over the issue. Clearly he has some worries over this. But the old adage is true - bad news does not improve with age. He needs to release his tax documents immediately or this is an issue that is just going to haunt him.

Two, Romney's campaign can best be described as defend and coast. He has clearly failed to make the case for his candidacy. Claiming divine right to the nomination based on "electability," he has played a defense to this point - just say the right platitudes and bromides and avoid mistakes. For example, for months Romney refused to appear on television talk shows - at least until it became clear that he would face a real challenge from Gingrich.

In probably the most telling example, both Romney and Gingrich have been presented with what they thought were unfair questions from the press. When Bret Baer asked Romney a question he thought unfair, Romney answered it with a forced smile, then waited for the interview to end before coming back to Baer and expressing his displeasure. When Gingrich was asked an unfair question by John King, in full view of the public, he took out a knife, emasculated King and then nailed his testicles to the podium before asking for the next question. Romney needs to quickly figure out that his acts earned the scorn of the base, while Gingrich's earned him a standing ovation and 40% of the vote in South Carolina.

The Economy & Jobs

Romney has been relying on the bald fact of his experience in business to claim that he could best manage the economy. While that by itself might be a winning message against Obama, it did not work in SC against Gingrich, who was part of one of the biggest expansions of jobs in our nation's history. Romney needs to explain why his experience in business would at least make him the equal of Gingrich. A few anecdotes might do the trick. Regardless, if he can't win on this issue, he has deeply serious problems.

Budget Deficit:

Romney is loosing to Gingrich by 22% on this issue. Romney needs to do a much better job articulating how he will reduce the deficit than he is doing. The program he proposes on his website is far more complicated than what Gingrich has proposed, yet Mitt hasn't made a simple, convincing case as to why his plan is more likely to succeed.

Electability

Romney needs to stop claiming inevitability and electability and start concentrating on all of the issues that undergird such claims. Indeed, any such claims in the wake of South Carolina will just be engender laughter.

Going Negative On Gingrich

The problem with hitting somebody unfairly is that, when they can, they strike back. Gingrich didn't have the funding or time to withstand a multi-million dollar negative assault in Iowa. He did in South Carolina and, though he was outspent by Romney 2 to 1, ran away with the primary. Going negative did not work for Romney in 2008, it likely won't work now with Gingrich having the financial muscle to punch back. Romney is going to have to become much more aggressive in explaining why he would make the best President rather than concentrating on why Gingrich shouldn't be.

Going Forward

This election is still Romney's to lose. He has a superior organization built up over four years, he has the largest war chest, and he is not merely the favorite son of Republican elites, but these same elites suffer full blown Gingrich Derangement Syndrome. The next several contests are in areas favorable to Romney, from Florida to Nevada. Nonetheless, if he continues to play defense and expects the nomination to be handed to him, he could yet pull defeat from the jaws of victory. He needs to start earning the nomination.

As to Ron Paul, he came in last place with 13% of the vote.  He is staying in the race just so he can impact on the plank of the Republican Convention. Santorum, who earned 17% of the vote, is in the race at least through Florida, though another low showing will likely see him exiting the race just because of a lack of funds. That is, he would be forced out unless some of Romney's money men prop him up to keep in the race and draining votes from Gingrich. I would not be overly surprised to see that.

Linked:  Larwyn's Linx

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