With just 35 days to go before the Iowa caucuses, the Anybody-But-Romney coalition within the Republican party is switching into overdrive. The only problem is, it isn’t a coalition, and it hasn’t yet decided who the Anybody-But-Romney will actually be. Other than that, things are going well.
By this point in the campaign, conservatives, especially social conservatives, had hoped to unite behind a single candidate in their effort to stop the former Massachusetts governor. But they have watched, some in great dismay, as Newt Gingrich, and not a social conservative favorite like Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann, has become the latest Republican shooting star. Try as they might, many can’t reconcile themselves to the former speaker, but they don’t quite know what to do next.
“It’s the trust factor across the issues,” says one Iowa social conservative leader who is part of broad discussions to settle on a single candidate. “You’d spend more time defending Gingrich on all of these issues, from immigration to the individual mandate, than you would promoting the issues you want to promote.”
And that’s before social conservatives deal with what might be called Gingrich’s old baggage and his new baggage. The old baggage includes Gingrich’s marriage history and the sometimes rocky relations he had with fellow Republicans in the 1990s. The new baggage includes Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac, his unofficial lobbying on behalf of the prescription drug entitlement, and other activities that qualify him as a quintessential Washington insider. Some conservatives still can’t reconcile themselves to the old baggage, but even those who have are struggling to come to grips with the new.
Many outsiders have assumed that Gingrich’s latest controversy, his statement at a recent debate that he would allow some long-time illegal immigrants to live permanently in the United States, would kill his chances forever with Iowa conservatives. That might not be the case. “Gingrich is right that people are not interested in tearing families apart,” says Bob vander Plaats, head of the social conservative group Family Leader. “Our organization is saying, how do we prevent amnesty, how do we secure the border, but how do we have a process that is doable and honorable to everybody involved?” What that suggests is that if Gingrich fades, it will be the result of the totality of his candidacy, and not his specific stand on immigration.
The longer the search for consensus on a new candidate goes on, the more likely the effort will end in failure. “There’s no guarantee that there will be a decision,” says vander Plaats. The extended discussions also open the possibility of something completely unexpected happening, like a renewed interest in Bachmann. She’s fallen a long way since her victory in the Ames straw poll last August, but she’s gaining respect among conservatives for her determined effort to keep at it. And she’s become a better campaigner.
Meanwhile, in Boston, the Romney campaign can’t help wondering why Republicans are going to such lengths to avoid supporting Romney. Their latest problem is Monday’s decision by the New Hampshire Union Leader to endorse Gingrich. The worry, apart from the paper’s influence in Romney’s strongest state, is that the endorsement might affect the discussions in far-away Iowa, pushing some of those reluctant social conservatives toward Gingrich.
In any event, Team Romney is catching it from all sides at the moment. On Monday the Democratic National Committee released a tough new ad recycling charges of flip-flopping — “Two men trapped in one body,” the ad called him — in yet another sign that the Obama campaign is focused almost exclusively on Romney. To fight back, Romney’s press aides organized 12 conference calls — twelve! — in which various prominent Romney supporters denounced Obama.
But even in those calls, Republican discord came up. When former rival and now Romney supporter Tim Pawlenty spoke to reporters — he tried out a line calling Obama “the Barney Fife of presidents” — the first question was about the Union Leader’s endorsement. “Every candidate is going to win their share of endorsements,” Pawlenty answered, saying that Romney already has “more than his fair share.” That’s true, given that Romney has the support of New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, former Sen. Judd Gregg, and former Gov. John Sununu, but there’s no doubt the Union Leader decision stings.
But the biggest problem for Romney is that the talks in Iowa, and the paper’s endorsement in New Hampshire, are just the latest evidence that a lot of Republican energy is being expended in trying to avoid supporting Mitt Romney. That’s not good, no matter how they spin it.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com
