COMMENTARY | In the contest for the Republican nomination for the presidency, for a while it was all Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Then Herman Cain entered the race and became one of the leaders. Now Rick Perry has dropped back and has been replaced by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who has been gaining slowly but surely and compares himself to the tortoise in the children’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
I think it is possible that his strategy of isolating Romney and making it a two-man race may be flawed in its prediction of the “other” candidate. Despite leading in polls for quite a while, Romney has failed to break free and if Gingrich continues to gather support his main opponent may be Cain, not Romney.
A CBS News poll has Cain leading with 18 percent and Romney and Gingrich tied at 15 percent
What does Gingrich have going for him? In my opinion, he is the only one of the three who is experienced, knowledgeable, and conservative.
Romney has experience and knowledge, but no conservative credentials. He is the unrepentant implementer of RomneyCare in Massachusetts. After losing the presidential election to John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon said that a Republican didn’t have to be conservative to win but couldn’t win without the conservative vote. To what extent this will be true of the primaries is unknown. Whether conservatives will support Romney in the primaries is questionable.
Cain presents a conservative image but is short on knowledge (particularly in the area of foreign affairs) and political experience. It is difficult to know how much the recent allegations of sexual harassment will affect his support. It is hurting him, at least temporarily, according to the CBS News poll cited above, but he leads nonetheless.
In 1994, Gingrich proved himself a master strategist and a good tactician, using the Contract with America to bring about a Republican sweep in the national elections. Unfortunately, he also proved to be the wrong public face of that movement, sometimes giving way to petulance. This time around he has done a better job of restraining himself.
If Cain falters, Gingrich will be the strongest contender with conservative credentials, and I for one will vote for him.