GOP Debate: Romney Needs Gingrich to ‘Newt-ralize’ Santorum

COMMENTARY | Mitt Romney lost a crucial opportunity during the Feb. 22 Arizona Republican presidential debate by not engaging Newt Gingrich enough. That would have delivered the former Massachusetts governor’s current rival for front-runner, Rick Santorum, a one-two-knockout punch.

That is not, however, how the debate went down.

At first, Romney appeared to seize this strategy, deftly turning a verbal sparring match with Santorum –on debt ceilings and earmarks — over to Gingrich, by mentioning the 6,000 earmarks passed during the Speaker’s term. The accusation allowed Gingrich to step in to answer, but Santorum quickly re-engaged and brought it back to Romney.

Gingrich re-inserted himself, setting the debate’s tone. What followed was a Santorum/Romney face-off, with Gingrich acting as referee and Ron Paul as Romney’s ally against Santorum.

Recent polling shows Romney alone is unable to take the competition; he needs help before Santorum widens his lead. According to a Feb. 22 Quinnipiac University poll, Santorum leads the GOP field nationally, with 35 percent of the vote. Only 26 percent of Republican and independent voters favor Romney. Those numbers only hold up if Gingrich and Ron Paul are candidates.

Paired down to a head-to-head, Santorum takes 50 percent of the vote to Romney’s 37 percent.

Numbers shout that Santorum’s candidacy is bad news for Romney. In a primary that has been shaped by debate performances, media attention after the final debate before Super Tuesday is crucial. That focus is going to be on the most interesting stories and soundbites, where a heated Romney-Gingrich exchange would have been beneficial.

Except for Florida, these forums have been Newt Gingrich’s sweet spot when matched against Romney. Wednesday’s debate showed a pleasant and thoughtful Gingrich. Most fiery exchanges were between Romney and Santorum–not what the Romney campaign needs.

Given interest swirling around Santorum and his recent outspokenness on religion and social issues, there should have been plenty of opportunity to talk himself out of the lead. Again, that’s not what happened.

All four candidates chose to blast President Obama on birth control. That plays to the conservative base, but obliterated opportunity to make Santorum a fringe candidate.

Santorum finished the debate marginally better as a candidate than he went in; highlighting his growing–but not unshakable–confidence and providing some damage control for the past week’s comments. Which keeps Romney in the position of needing to step up from being the ‘vanilla’ Republican candidate. He could have used Gingrich to accomplish that.


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