The 2012 GOP presidential primary race has been a wild ride for sure. Over time, there have been many different theories that certain candidates were in the race only to sell their books, or to try and position themselves for a cabinet position in the administration of whoever wins the nomination, or that certain alliances between candidates have been formed.
For the most part, all that has been mere speculation. But more and more evidence seems to be building that proves that Newt Gingrich is no longer campaigning for himself, but is working for Mitt Romney and the republican establishment.
Let’s review the situation and evidence:
At this point in the race 12 states have held their primaries/caucuses.
Out of those 12 states Newt Gingrich has lost 11.
He has lost 9 in a row.
He has finished dead last in 4 of the last 7 states.
He has a losing win/loss record with every other candidate:
Gingrich 1 Romney 11
Gingrich 3 Santorum 9
Gingrich 5 Paul 7
Every other candidate had beaten Newt more times than Newt has beaten them. *these stats are updated below since more states have now voted.
Newt has zero momentum going into Super Tuesday, and no opportunity to regain momentum before then. He is polling in distant 3rd and 4th places in all states except his home state of Georgia which he is currently leading, but he is not even certain to win there.
So it is abundantly clear that there is no reason for Newt Gingrich to stay in the race at this point since he has absolutely no chance of winning the nomination, and little chance of winning more states/delegates, if any.
Now the questions have to be asked, why is Newt still running? Wouldn’t he better serve himself to gracefully drop out and endorse another candidate like Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Jon Huntsman did when it became apparent that they had no path forward? If Newt were to do that, he would be seen as a uniter and would be a likely cabinet pick for nominee.
But continuing to stay in the race and campaign against the two candidates, of whom one will be the nominee, seems to be something that will put him at odds with the GOP and future administration. Newt can certainly be a loose cannon at times, but he is anything but dumb. So what’s his angle? What’s in it for him?
At this point all Newt staying in the race serves to do is continue to split the conservative “non-Romney” vote, and give Romney a far better chance of wrapping up the nomination. Polls clearly show that if Newt were not in the race that the vast majority of his supporters would then support Rick Santorum, and with the combined numbers Santorum would easily defeat Romney in most of the remaining states. Consider the results of Michigan where Santorum came within 3% of dealing Romney en effective death blow in Romney’s home state. Newt received about 7% of the vote there, so if he had not been in the race and a majority of his vote had gone to Santorum, Romney would have lost.
But perhaps splitting the non-Romney vote is the very reason that Newt remains.
It’s a fact that prior to Rick Santorum winning 3 states in a day back in early February, Gingrich’s campaign was $600,000 in debt. Since then, he has lost 7 states finishing 3rd in 3 of them and 4th in the other 4. Having such poor finishes in state after state only compounds the problem of revenue in a campaign. More recent FEC reports show that his campaign has as much as $1.73 million in debt.
So Newt was campaigning with no funds and no way of generating enough momentum to begin raising big money as fast as he needed it. That was until his biggest donor, billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, after having indicated a few days earlier that he would not be donating any more money to Newt’s campaign, changed his mind and announced another $10 million donation to Newt’s super PAC. Sources close to Adelson are quoted as saying that Adelson’s reason for doing this was not to help Gingrich win, but rather to use Gingrich and his super PAC as a means of continuing to split the conservative vote, and of tearing down Santorum to help insure that Romney becomes the nominee.
When a person like Adelson gives a total of $21 million to a candidate, there is always a quid pro quo involved. The candidate becomes little more than a puppet carrying out the wishes of the puppet master.
Before all this happened it seemed that Gingrich and Santorum had been rather close friends and had their own sort of “alliance” between them. But in recent weeks Gingrich has launched a series of nasty comments and is even running negative “robo calls” against Santorum in a couple states. To Santorum’s credit, he has been the only candidate who has not engaged in negative attack ads. Santorum has taken Gingrich on in the debates, but that’s what the debates are for. What’s also interesting is that Gingrich seems to have stopped his negative attacks against Romney.
So why this sudden change of heart for Gingrich? Is it because Mitt Romney and Ron Paul taught him a lesson in some of the states like Iowa and Florida about the necessity of going negative against your top opponent? Is it mere desperation because Newt thinks he can somehow get back in the race if he eviscerates Santorum? Or is it really that Newt has found a way to keep his name in the media for a while longer and continue to line his pockets out of his campaign by working for the puppet master?
Just in the last few days we’ve learned that Newt has been sent a second warning from the FEC regarding his campaign “reimbursing” himself, his wife, and others close to him. And that’s just the actual campaign money that has to be reported to the FEC. What about all the millions Adelson and others are giving to his super PAC which has no FEC oversight? Newt has had a clear pattern over the last 30 years of using his political ventures for financial gain and has left a long trail of bankrupt and indebted organizations which he started and then abandoned.
So is Newt Gingrich working for Mitt Romney? I suppose there’s no way to prove that beyond a doubt here and now, but last time I checked 2+2 still equals 4. There’s no question that Newt is being used by the likes of Adelson and the republican establishment to help Romney win the nomination.
I would urge every remaining Newt Gingrich supporter to do some soul searching before Super Tuesday. I’m all for supporting the candidate of your conviction until they are fairly defeated. For the record, I supported Michele Bachmann until she dropped out of the race after her loss in Iowa. But we have now reached the critical stage of the race. It’s time for conservatives to finally come together to stop Mitt Romney.
Super Tuesday will likely be the deciding moment as to who the nominee will be. There is no chance that Gingrich will get enough delegates to win the nomination, or even be a contender at a possible brokered convention.
So as a Newt Gingrich supporter, ask yourself, do I really want to risk my one precious vote giving it to someone who is being used to assure that Mitt Romney wins the nomination? Or do I want to take a stand against the establishment and vote for someone who has a chance of beating Mitt Romney?
*UPDATE:
Since this was posted, 12 states held their primaries/caucuses so I’ve added the results to those states to Newt’s horrible win/loss record thus far.
At this point in the race 24 states have held their primaries/caucuses.
Out of those 24 states Newt Gingrich has lost 22.
He has lost 20 of the last 21
He has finished dead last in 10 of the last 19 states.
He has a losing win/loss record with every other candidate:
Gingrich 2 Romney 22
Gingrich 4 Santorum 20
Gingrich 11 Paul 13
Every other candidate had beaten Newt more times than Newt has beaten them.
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