It's been a bad couple of weeks for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He started his campaign for president with several high profile missteps, some of which I've already blogged about. Just to review:
- In his first Sunday interview after announcing his candidacy, he attacked Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan and was subsequently crucified by the right.
- He got glittered.
- It was discovered that his wife has a $250,000 expense account at Tiffany's. So much for portraying himself as blue-collar.
Finally, all of these problems have come back to bite him, as it was announced on Thursday that senior members of the Gingrich campaign had resigned en masse, including his chief strategist, campaign manager and campaign chairman.
Since Gingrich had very little traction in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, few candidates already in the race will directly benefit from his campaign's catastrophic implosion. There is one Republican, though, who was probably very happy upon hearing this news: Texas governor Rick Perry.
It's almost astounding that Newt Gingrich, one of the greatest political strategists of his generation, was unable to hold his campaign staff together, even for a month. According to those who left, the main problem was that Gingrich was simply unwilling to put in the organizational work needed to mount a serious campaign. Instead he hoped to run a “campaign of ideas”: he thought he would simply show up to a few rallies and debates and would be so convincing that grassroots support would simply spring up from out of nowhere. So instead of campaigning after his disastrous start, he went on a two week Mediterranean cruise, which many sources claim was the last straw for the campaign workers. It seems that Gingrich was intent upon running a campaign that allowed him to do very little work to get elected. Amazingly, it failed.
But what does any of this have to do with Governor Perry? Since Indiana governor Mitch Daniels declined to run for president last month, Perry and his advisors have been very cautiously floating ideas about a presidential run due to what he perceived as the lack of a true conservative in the race. In the past, he has always quickly followed up any hints about the future with assurances that a presidential run is highly unlikely. In the past few weeks, though, there have been more and more whispers about a Perry candidacy.
There was still, though, one major hitch in Perry's plans. His two top political advisers, David Carney and Rob Johnson (who ran his extremely successful reelection campaign in 2010), had already signed on with Newt Gingrich's team after being assured by Governor Perry that he would not run in 2012. An aide to the governor was quoted as saying that without these two, he could not imagine Perry entering the race.
Luckily for Perry, Carney and Johnson were two of the senior aides who left the Gingrich campaign this week, making them available for a possible Perry campaign. Convenient for Perry, isn't it?
Still, this is no guarantee that Perry will run; he is still making up his mind, according to most sources. Even if he did enter the race, he would be far behind the other candidates in terms of early-state organization, which is vitally important at this point.
If he does choose to run, though, he could have a big impact on the race. He is a favorite among both fiscal conservatives and Tea Party voters, two important constituencies in the Republican party. He could potentially take support away from both Governor Tim Pawlenty and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in Iowa if he plays his cards right, instantly catapulting himself into the thick of the primary contests. It would take a lot of work on Perry's part (and would likely cost him support in his home state), but he could be the dark horse candidate that Republican voters keep calling for.
Of course, Democrats would immediately pounce on Perry for some of his more controversial positions. During the health care debate, Perry seemed to suggest that Texas would secede from the country if a federal insurance mandate were enacted; that's not exactly something you want on your record when you're running for president. He also has radical positions on immigration that the left would no doubt emphasize in swing states like Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Then there's the whole “he's the governor of Texas, look how that's turned out for us in the past” argument.
Whatever happens, though, it was all made possible by Speaker Gingrich's inability to run a successful presidential campaign. I'm sure that Governor Perry will be sending him a thank you card any day now.
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