The Des Moines Register has a comprehensive piece today about all the terrible things that could happen to Newt Gingrich between now and the caucuses, but the real news of the morning was the interviews that Romney gave Fox and Gingrich gave CBS–together, they represent a perfect distillation of what the Republican presidential race is all about. It is, in the end, what it has always been: a choice between pragmatism and passion.
Romney did very well, I thought, in the interview with Chris Wallace–so well that you had to wonder why he’d been ducking the press for all these months. And Wallace, for his part, did an excellent job asking questions that demonstrated the substantive differences between Romney and the rest of the field. On taxing and spending, especially, Romney emerges as far more moderate than Gingrich and the others. He refuses to lower taxes on the wealthy; his capital gains tax break for the middle class is minimal, but not unattractive. His rhetoric on this issue–the rich are doing just fine; I’m concerned about the middle class–is well-constructed for a general election campaign. Furthermore, he proposes closing no federal departments or agencies, no nuclear assault on the federal bureaucracy, although he is proposing significant spending cuts across the board (and especially on poverty programs that Republicans hate, like food stamps and Medicaid). But even when discussing his cuts, Romney sounded reasoned and reasonable, not punitive. He is, without question, the strongest candidate that Republicans could run against Barack Obama.
But how do Republicans feel about reasoned and reasonable this year? Gingrich is betting that the base is pretty feisty at the moment, which is why he has suddenly decided to emphasize his assault of the federal judiciary, the topic that took up more than half his interview with Bob Schieffer this morning. Gingrich was in very good form, reasonably proposing, and defending, a decidedly radical course of action, while pushing hot buttons–”radical” secularization, the cross, the ten commandments, school prayer–that have been annoying religious conservatives for decades. In the end, despite persistent effort, Schieffer couldn’t lay a glove on him. The second part of the interview, about Gingrich’s ties to Freddie Mac, also went well for the former Speaker, even if his rationale for associating himself with the federal mortgage-lender remains prohibitively ridiculous.
Gingrich has higher highs and lower lows; he talks the conservative talk, but doesn’t walk the walk; he’s a Washington insider who talks like an outsider. Romney sails along moderately, presidentially. It’s a classic head-heart choice for the Republican party, the small-c conservative against the conservative radical. In the past, there is no question who would have won–Romney, hands down. But given the primacy of Boss Rush and the fever swamp of populist resentment that has been breeding in the party, it is possible that even so imperfect a vessel as Newt Gingrich may prevail because his passion resonates in a way that Romney’s reason doesn’t.
I’ll be curious to see what the local post-debate Iowa polls look like. We should know a bit more this week.
