After winning last night’s Florida primary, Mitt Romney is once again the presumptive favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination. The former Massachusetts Governor claimed victory following a relentless assault on former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who finished second in the winner-take-all primary. In order to win, Mitt Romney destroyed Gingrich.
‘Destroy’ is a strong word- but a strong word is needed to fully describe what happened in Florida. Mitt Romney’s campaign, along with the GOP party establishment, took a conservative statesman and ripped him to shreds. This is not to suggest Gingrich is innocent himself; the Speaker claimed Romney “eliminated kosher food for Jewish senior citizens,” prior to the primary.
Nevertheless, the strategy of the Romney campaign is noteworthy. It was Gingrich who originally intended to run a positive campaign back when the Speaker was surging in Iowa. The Romney campaign savaged Gingrich, leaving him for dead when Gingrich finished well below Romney and Santorum. The strategy is simple enough to understand: the campaign vastly outspent Gingrich, running a vast number of advertisements with the sole purpose of undermining the Speaker. At the same time, Romney’s allies hit the talk show circuit to bash Gingrich.
When Romney won New Hampshire, there was talk of a clean sweep leading to victory in South Carolina. The campaign outspent Newt Gingrich in South Carolina by a 2-1 margin.
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/romney-outspends-gop-pack-sc-137747
Unlike in Iowa, it didn’t matter. Newt won South Carolina, and everything changed. The former Speaker had an (albeit unlikely) path to the nomination. Coming off his victory, Gingrich even had a lead in some Florida polls, long considered a Romney firewall.
This was unacceptable to many of the GOP elites, and to the Romney campaign. The campaign poured money and recourses into Florida to denigrate Newt Gingrich. According to one source, the Romney campaign had a 65-1 advantage of Gingrich in ads run.
The Romney super-PAC outspent the other candidates by a 20-1 margin
Watching the returns, I heard several sources claim that the Romney campaign itself spent somewhere between 3-5 times as much as Gingrich. The advertisements had the desired effect, driving Gingrich’s negatives up. My own grandmother, who lives in Florida, endorsed Romney because Gingrich seemed unacceptable to her.
It’s perfectly legitimate to run advertisements in politics, even negative ads. Romney had a superior organization and fundraising ability, and he was entitled to use those assets to his advantage. But it does seem somewhat suspect that he would be so quick to outright destroy another Republican candidate. It would be different if it was a standard Republican versus Democrat election. It wasn’t. Romney and the GOP establishment backing him cannibalized one of their own.
It is also worth noting that this is the same establishment that supported John McCain, Bob Dole, and George H.W. Bush. All of these were also moderate-to-liberal Republicans who lost elections to Democrats. It could be argued that the last truly conservative nominee of the Republican Party was Ronald Reagan. Over twenty years later, even after the conservative resurgence of 2010, the party leaders are still doing everything they can to suppress potentially conservative nominees. The same thing happened to Mike Huckabee in 2008 (who bested Romney in Iowa despite also being outspent) and most of the conservatives in the race this time around.
As for the title of the article, the premise is simple. Using his vast resources, Romney may well carry the day. But if he expects to take down President Barack Obama the same way he did Newt Gingrich, he is sadly mistaken. Unlike Gingrich, Mr. Obama will head into the general election without having had to spend money on a primary fight. The president is expected by some to raise over one billion dollars in his reelection campaign, likely to dwarf whatever amount the GOP nominee will raise.
Turnabout is fair play. The recent gaffes Romney has committed- such as saying he is not concerned about the poor- will come back to haunt him when it is Mr. Obama’s turn to run an onslaught of negative ads against him.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/02/01/romney_im_not_concerned_about_the_very_poor.html
For now, the Massachusetts Governor should enjoy his victory while he can. The campaign isn’t over yet, and though Romney is the presumed favorite, it could still be a long struggle from here.
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