Romney's Barbarossa

Conservative scribes for the GOP establishment read more and more like bunkered propagandists promising the party faithful an early, decisive conclusion to the wintry Gingrich Front -- their only path, they well understand, to the later, greater victory.

[Newt] might go on, as he promised. But, really, how many Republicans will follow him? Fewer and fewer, I suspect.

Or fewer and fewer, Jennifer Rubin hopes. One can never be sure, since Miss Jennifer habitually conflates her wishfulness with analysis.

Over at the Times, Ross Douthat is more confident this morning in the establishment's sweeping obliteration of Gingrichgrad:

If he keeps going now – and there’s every reason to think he will – he’ll be pinning his hopes on a deus ex machina. Every realistic path leads only to defeat.

To which the giddy nonbelligerent can only remark, Of course it does. But that's not really the issue, is it? The issue, rather, is how Pyrhhic Romney's victory will be; or, put alternatively, how delightfully successful Gingrich's defeat will be.

Douthat asserts with a near wave of dismissiveness that "The anti-Romney vote isn’t as big as Gingrich likes to think it is" -- which is probably true. But it's also not as small as Douthat would like to think it is -- which is incontrovertibly true. E.J. Dionne assists:

Republicans who call themselves very conservative voted by better than 4 to 3 for Gingrich. Gingrich won by a similar margin over Romney among strong tea party supporters. The staunchest opponents of abortion ... went to Gingrich by an even bigger margin.... Romney was far weaker among white evangelical Christians than with other voters. This constituency appears to have split narrowly for Gingrich over Romney.

And who are the most unforgiving and least compromising folks on Earth? White evangelical Christians, the very conservative, the tea partying, and the single-issuers -- the GOP's essential base, without whom the nominee's "realistic path leads only to defeat."

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

Two months ago, the conventional wisdom was that Newt was only in it for the money and notoriety. Then his polling went up in Iowa and he became a contender. That was layered atop his original movtives, but that did not replace them.

If Mr. Adelman and his Neocon/AIPAC friends are willing to kick in say $50 million to Newt's campaign, Newt can become the face of the heart-and-soul of "true conservatism" in the GOP. I am sure that Newt could leverage that into several trips to Tiffany's.

for this reason, I say Newt is in for keeps - or until Mr. Adelman has had enough fun.

[dr.e]

I sense a personal animus that Gingrich has towards Romney. Is it so deep that he will run on a third party ticket?

[mdblanche]

Deep personal animus towards Romney seems to be common among his primary opponents both this time and last time.

[Peter G]

If a Field Marshall's baton won't get Newt to do the right thing perhaps the governorship of a nascent moon colony will.