Republican Dreamers

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary tonight going away, leaving Mitt Romney in the dust, for now. Rick Santorum lags in third place, thanks to some pretty incompetent counting out there in Iowa.

(Math lessons for Iowans, anybody?)

All of this stuff interests a political analyst like me because we are accustomed to assessing how candidates grow or shrink under the withering media glare we all, in large or small ways, combine to generate.

In my view, what happened in South Carolina says a lot of good things about the Republican Party, and also some very revealing things about the leading candidates. Start with Romney.

Here is a very rich man who has been successful in business, which is a good thing. He also, uniquely among all GOP hopefuls, served as governor in a very liberal state as a Republican and got some significant stuff done, which is another good thing.

He appears to have led an exemplary personal and family life, with no affairs or divorces or other of the typical problems that dog many charismatic politicians, and even though that is a third good thing, therein may lie one of his essential problems.

He lacks charisma.

Americans like their political heroes to be real people. We are less concerned about their flaws than their ability to connect.

Romney blew his lead by appearing to be insensitive to the plight of normal people with some offhand comments about money. To him, earning some $370,000 a year in speaking fees is chump change, because he earns far more than that simply off his investments.

Romney's error, and this may well prove fatal, was not comprehending (or not being well-enough prepared by his staff to express) that what to him is chump change is to most of the rest of us to be the difference between being able to take care of our families or not.

That is Romney's problem. He does not seem to know what being an average American is actually about. He's very clearly among the one percent. Which would not be a problem except for the impact of the Occupy movement.

We may actually be witnessing the prospect of a real fight for the Republican nomination that could go on for some time.

If I were an Obama strategist, therefore, I would hope that a wounded Romney makes a comeback in Florida, which is a much larger media market, where advertising dollars will matter. Gingrich may have trouble generating enough money fast enough to challenge Romney there.

But Newt has all of the momentum.

There are other factors in play.

My sense is that if Romney releases his tax returns, presumably with no damaging surprises, and use his financial advantage to deploy the right media strategy, he may be able to regain his lost momentum.

But my deeper sense is that Newt has taken over this thing, for now.

It is still too soon to say we're looking at Newt vs. Barack. The GOP race remains open, to a degree we have not seen very often during recent election cycles.

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