WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — If South Carolina voters missed Newt Gingrich’s dominating debate performance earlier this week, they needn’t look far to be reminded of it — and then reminded of it again.
In campaign stops across the state Tuesday — and in a new ad dubbed “The Moment” – Gingrich repeatedly touted his showing at the Myrtle Beach GOP debate, generally regarded as one of the strongest of the 2012 election cycle, as proof that he was uniquely qualified to challenge President Obama.
But Gingrich went further, calling on two candidates competing with him for conservative, evangelical voters in Saturday’s primary – former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Texas Gov. Rick Perry – to drop out of the race so that Gingrich can go head-to-head with the front-runner, Mitt Romney.
“I’m the only conservative who realistically has a chance to be the nominee,” he said in Florence. “So any vote for Santorum or Perry, in effect, is a vote to allow Romney to become the nominee, because we’ve got to bring conservatives together in order to stop him.”
Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are splitting the ranks of South Carolina conservatives seeking an alternative to the more moderate Romney, effectively allowing the former Bay State governor to maintain a comfortable lead in the polls here.
But analysts say that while his debate performance will certainly give Gingrich a bump in the Palmetto State, one strong showing does not ensure a transformation among voters who have a track record of picking the party’s presidential nominee.
“Expectations have run away a bit for Romney,” said Tucker Eskew, a Republican consultant, who directed South Carolina communications for former President George W. Bush in 2000. “It’s not a slam dunk [for Romney]. But the challenge for Gingrich is to turn a good night into five solid days — they have miles to go before they can sleep.”
Gingrich was noticeably more upbeat than he had been in recent weeks on the trail. He appeared feisty and irritable as his campaign absorbed embarrassing defeats in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The former House speaker playfully took aim at both Obama and Romney with a bluntness that was pure red meat for Republican primary voters.
When an audience member suggested that Republicans have to bloody Obama’s nose, Gingrich responded: “I don’t want to bloody his nose. I want to knock him out.”
Gingrich, who represented neighboring Georgia in Congress, was on friendly turf in South Carolina. Lexington County GOP Chairman Rich Bolen, who formally endorsed Gingrich Tuesday, said he thinks Gingrich can still pull off an upset against Romney even though Gingrich’s personal baggage – he’s twice divorced – could put off voters in the heart of the evangelical south.
“South Carolina has a 50 percent divorce rate just like everywhere else in the country,” Bolen said. “There’s a certain tolerance for those things that there didn’t used to be — even here.”
But some critics dismissed Gingrich’s pugilistic style as bordering on cocky, even belligerent.
“It’s an enormous amount of hubris for someone who lost their first two races,” said Santorum, who rejected Gingrich’s call to drop out. “I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to suggest that anybody gets out of this race.”
