As more people take a second look at Newtmentum, I may as well jump ahead to the next round of scrutiny. Nate Silver evaluated the former Speaker’s strengths and weaknesses the other day. My take on Gingrich’s campaign is loosely based on his structure. Keep in mind that elections are mostly about the economy, so any analysis of Gingrich as a candidate is about his performance at the margins compared to his GOP rivals.

Fundraising and Campaign Infrastructure. Silver notes that Newt’s fundraising has been abysmal, but notes “the money sometimes follows the polls.” Sure enough, the campaign says it has raised $1 million since Sunday, which will help the campaign erase its debt of nearly $1.2 million. Fundraising can be a virtuous circle or a vicious cycle, but it is some sort of comment that a man who was the first GOP Speaker in over 40 years, founder of a raft of groups to support him and his ideas, and the go-to policy man after the 20o8 blowout has fared so poorly on this front. Indeed, it’s notable that American Solutions folded after Newt threw his hat into the ring; it remains to be seen whether a new version can raise money as a Super-PAC.

Silver also notes Newt’s general lack of campaign infrastructure, caused in part by staff defections over the summer. Perhaps it’s ironic that many were former Rick Perry advisers who likely left with an eye to joining the Texas governor’s campaign, given how Team Perry has fared. However, the fact that Perry has stumbled does not mean that the staff was not justififed in leaving Gingrich. Rather, the mass resignation was a reflection of Newt’s management style, which has long been an issue. As Speaker of the House, he did fairly well for the first two years, then was the target of an aborted coup. Recriminations after 1998 midterms — during which Newt thought the GOP would gain 30 seats without messaging or strong GOTV efforts and proved unable to properly balance conservative and moderate factions — would lead to the Fall of the House of Newt. In a historical context, the summer’s campaign chaos may say something about not only the Gingrich candidacy but also any possible Gingrich presidency.

Ideology and Electability. Silver opines that ” Gingrich’s overall ideological positioning isn’t bad given the mood of the Republican electorate” and fairly close to that of Perry, representing” something of a sweet spot for the Republican primary electorate.” Silver also believes Newt “might ultimately run a net of about 4 points worse than someone like Mitt Romney nationally.” Silver is likely wrong about almost all of this.

Silver seems to think Gingrich merely holds a few positions out of step with the conservative grassroots of the GOP. However, Newt’s voting record was more moderate than later House Speakers Hastert and Boehner. He has never been a traditional conservative on any axis, and the commentariat has not been alone in noticing. Thus, Gingrich has engaged in a rolling series of flip-flops, on (among other issues) Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, universal healthcare (including anindividual mandate), Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, education, and the cap-and-tax scheme for carbon emissions. (For immigration hardliners who didn’t like Perry calling them heartless, note Newt used the same word for them in the first GOP debate this year.) He also will likely be shown to be on both sides of the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played in the housing bubble (his involvement with the GSEs goes back further than commonly known, too). In short, Newt is not Romney, but he’s not exactly NotRomney, either.

Silver thinks Gingrich’s ideological position might cause him to do 4% worse than Romney. Even if Gingrich was as conservative as Perry, I think Silver overestimates the effect of ideology on the outcome of the election (and will blog on that further soon). That disagreement aside, it is notable that Gingrich is perceived as more conservative than his actual record and positions have been. His revolutionary rhetoric and takedown of Speaker Jim Wright had the establishment media painting him as an extremist before he ever took the Speaker’s chair. When considering Obama’s two playbooks, it generally would be difficult for Obama to attack Romney as both a serial flip-flopper and an extremist — but the Dems would likely have an easy time convincing swing voters Newt was at least an extremist. Thus, a Gingrich nomination arguably carries the risk of a Perry or Cain nomination with the casual voter, but with the risk of a not-much-better-than-Romney presidency for the right in terms of likely policy outcomes.

And that is before you get to personal issues, of which Newt has more than a few. Time spent discussing them — and in some instances debunking them — is time not spent exploiting Obama’s miserable failures, so the establishment media will rummage through that baggage more zealously than a rogue TSA agent. All told, Newt’s public image is such that, over the summer, polls showed somewhere between 42 and 63 percent of voters would never vote for him. I think those numbers may be overstated, but he is sufficiently well-known that any charm offensive is unlikely to change minds outside GOPers and leaners. Indeed, Newt’s favorables and positive intensity were declining even among Republicans and GOP leaners over the course of the campaign.

The current Gingrich surge is supposedly fueled by his debate performances. If that was really true, he would have surged much earlier, as Newt is nothing if not a nimble debater. Moreover, the two themes in those debates that resonate with GOPers are telling. First, Newt’s earlier performances featured a lot of trying to stop candidates from attacking each other. That made him seem like a team player, or someone who didn’t want to follow the establishment media moderator’s agenda. But you know who this benefits? More moderate candidates like Romney… and Gingrich.

Second, there is a lot of love out there for Newt’s ritual attacks on the debate moderators. It plays well with conservatives, but one wonders how it plays with swing voters. After all, the casual voter avoids politics most of the time in part because it’s confrontational. And the casual voter may not share the right’s view of media bias (they likely have no opinion on the subject). Thus, Gingrich’s fencing with the press will remind them why they don’t like politics and reinforce the negative image the Dems and media will be pushing if Newt becomes the front-runner.

Silver concludes that Newt’s “chances of winning the nomination are weaker than his polls alone would imply.” On that much, we agree.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
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