NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Sometimes even Newt Gingrich is at a loss for words. For the idea-a-minute Republican presidential candidate whose campaign has been so troubled recently that some pundits have branded him “dead man walking,” one of those moments occurred Tuesday night when a petite woman introduced herself after a Tea Party town hall at the North Charleston City Hall. “I’m the coroner,” the woman said, “but I’m not here because you’re looking ill or anything.” Taken aback, Gingrich smiled, laughed and expressed mock relief. When the woman — Rae Wooten, the Charleston County coroner — declared his campaign “alive and kicking,” Gingrich said he was happy to have a clean bill of health, even from the coroner.
There’s a disconnect when Gingrich goes out on the campaign trail. After news reports that the former House speaker had run up (and paid) hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges at the luxe jeweler Tiffany’s, and then the mass resignation of his staff when the candidate left the stump to go on a European cruise, Gingrich’s poll numbers have fallen from near the top of the Republican field to near the bottom. But tonight in North Charleston, as in Gingrich’s other campaign appearances, nobody is bothered by talk about jewelry or campaign aides.
“It doesn’t bother me at all,” says Cheryl, a woman from nearby Goose Creek.
“If Newt has the money to spend at Tiffany’s, let him spend it at Tiffany’s,” says Joy, who lives in Mount Pleasant but is originally from Westchester, N.Y.
“Not at all,” says Ray from Charleston.
They’re not necessarily Gingrich supporters; they’re Tea Party activists looking for a Republican candidate to carry their message in 2012. It could be Michele Bachmann, could be Herman Cain, could be Rick Perry, if he decides to run. But for many of them, it could be Gingrich, too. “It’s not so much about the messenger this year as the message,” says Tim Callanan, chairman of the Berkeley County Republican Party.
Gingrich has been saying that a lot, without much result. “The only place where the media assault has mattered is fundraising,” he says in an interview after the town hall. “The depth and intensity of the media assault slowed us down for probably a month, and I think it will take us probably until October to recover.”
If there is any set of circumstances in which Gingrich could regain at least some momentum, it’s the debt-limit fight currently going on in Washington. It’s on everyone’s mind at the town hall. “We’re at a point now where I’m hard-line,” says Charles, from Charleston. “No increase in the debt limit, period. If you took a show of hands, it’s likely nearly everyone would agree with him.
Gingrich is the only candidate in the GOP field who played a key role in the government shutdown fights of 1995 and 1996. The shutdowns are remembered by much of the media and even many Republicans as a political disaster, but Gingrich reminds the crowd that they led to House and Senate Republicans winning re-election in ’96, and also to a series of balanced budgets later.
“Clinton eventually came to the realization he could only function as president working with us, because we’d never back off,” Gingrich says. Now, he adds, Republicans have to stand firm. “They need to have a different understanding of where they are strategically,” he explains. “It’s OK to have the temperature go up, and it’s OK to have the president attacking you with things that are patently falsehoods.”
When Obama says he can’t guarantee that Social Security checks will go out if there is no deal, Gingrich urges House Republicans “to pass a $100 billion cut with a $100 billion debt-ceiling increase, which takes care of all the Social Security checks in August. Say to the president, ‘OK, we’ve taken care of everybody who needs to get a check in August. Are you going to tell Senate Democrats to block it? Are you going to veto it?'” In North Charleston, it’s what the audience wants to hear.
There are a zillion reasons Gingrich almost certainly won’t win the Republican nomination. But there are also reasons people here take him seriously. They remember him as the man who engineered the historic Republican victories of 1994, and in him they see a House leader going toe-to-toe with a Democratic president. That’s what they want to see again, and it’s enough to keep Gingrich going, at least for a while.
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.
