Newt Gingrich: Master Debater.
Such seems to be the impression driving the Gingrich
boomlet in the Republican presidential contest — as if, by virtue
of his supposed debating ability, Gingrich will be the man most
likely to defeat Barack Obama next fall.
It’s a myth, on multiple levels, as we shall
see.
Yet the power of the Gingrich surge does show, again, a
lesson taught well by neo-Nazi David Duke when Duke was ascendant
in Louisiana politics two decades ago: When considering a candidate
for office, almost right up until they enter the polling booth and
sometimes even in the booth itself, most voters rely more on what
they see and hear themselves in real time than on facts, history,
logic, or learned experience. If a speaker/debater “connects” with
them, a lot of voters will actively siphon out all evidence against
the speaker, in effect by adopting the “hear no evil” posture of
one of the three infamous monkeys. Until powerfully disabused of
what they consider a “first-hand” impression (first-hand because
they “experienced” it by watching it on TV), many citizens will
become the polling equivalent of jury nullifiers, becoming ever
more obstinate in their positions. In this case, the position most
dear to them is that they want to see somebody stick it to Barack
Obama, face to face, and pummel him (politically speaking) into
oblivion.
With Duke’s appeal to working-class white Democrats for
nearly three solid years, what mattered was how well he parried the
attacks from the hated media while making a case for low taxes and
welfare reform — and it didn’t matter what they saw reported about
his continuing Nazi or Klan ties because they didn’t see it for
themselves when he spoke on camera like a more approachable,
blow-dried heir to Barry Goldwater. It was only in the last three
weeks of his campaign for governor, when TV ads helped push through
the message that a Duke governorship would cause businesses (and
jobs) to flee Louisiana in droves, that all of the other
accumulated evidence against Duke could finally be processed, and
result in his landslide defeat.
Something similar is happening with Gingrich and the image
of the Master Debater. People see Gingrich handle himself well in
eight-way debates (an easy task when no other candidate has even
bothered criticizing you all year because you seemed so
irrelevant), and they imagine that he’s the one to take the fight
to Obama. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that he has always been not
only anti-conservative on cap-and-trade, but has lied about what
his position was. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that he said the
profiteers at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be criminally
investigated even though he was one of the profiteers — and that
he, again, apparently has been prevaricating about what he did for
Freddie. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that he has always been wrong
on a health-care mandate, wrong on ethanol for all the years he’s
been paid to be wrong on ethanol, wrong on entitlements and on Paul
Ryan’s budget, wrong on amnesty for illegal immigrants, wrong as
wrong could be on ethical issues and behavior aplenty, wrong on the
TARP bailouts, wrong on liberal candidate Dede Scozzafava, wrong in
the past on the Fairness Doctrine, wrong on leadership, weak at
actual negotiating (actually, “melting”)
against Bill Clinton, weak at actually running a government, and
about as personally trustworthy as Joe Isuzu: He’s gonna
pummel Obama, yesiree, and then all will be well!
Perish the thought.
First, Gingrich isn’t all that good one on one. Clinton
made mincemeat of him. Michele Bachmann rocked him on his heels
with the mildest of assaults on amnesty. And his own former wife
(number two) says he loses his cool when tweaked about personal
things like his ample and undisciplined girth. Yeah, he’s great on
his feet — until he implodes, at which time he drags everybody on
his side down with him.
But that’s not the important part. The important thing is
this: Even if Gingrich’s debating invincibility weren’t an utter
myth, the notion that debates next fall will be tremendously
important is a myth, and a much bigger one. The deal is
this: General-election presidential debates rarely make a
big difference. What makes a bigger difference is unpaid
(establishment) media (Gingrich will get crushed), organization
(Gingrich will get crushed), paid media (Obama’s $800 million
campaign will crush him), and the voters’ sense of whether they
would mind seeing and hearing the candidate on their TV screens for
the next four years (not bloody likely, based on the Gingrich
persona’s long-established propensity to wear out its welcome and
become grating after a few months).
But let’s consider this subject completely apart from
Gingrich. The key question is, will strong debate
performances make a decisive difference in next fall’s
campaign?
Easy answer: No.
Only one general-election presidential debate truly
appeared to be decisive — and, for that matter, only one
primary-season debate had a similar effect, too. Both were won by
Ronald Reagan, who was unique. In Nashua, N.H., in 1980, he waxed
Poppy Bush and won a landslide because of it. Against Jimmy Carter
that fall, he entered the lone debate one week before Election Day
in a dead heat in the polls and ended up winning by a landslide.
But that was Reagan. People liked him, in heartfelt ways, and had
been liking him for 45 years. They couldn’t help liking him. And
they trusted, at a deep level, that he meant what he said, because
he spent 25 years saying the same things — rather than
mandating-or-non-mandating, cap-and-trading or non-cap-trading, as
political winds and personal financial payoffs shifted.
But other than Reagan, nobody has ever swung large voting
blocs — not just in the Gallup polls, but in the voting booths —
on the strength of debate performances. Sure, John F. Kennedy
arguably gained a small margin over Dick Nixon among those who
watched their debate rather than listened on the radio, but all
that accomplished was getting him close enough to lose if it
weren’t for his ability to steal the election in Illinois and
Texas.
Sure, G.W. Bush gained an ever-so-slight edge over Al Gore
when he coolly let Gore come off as overbearing and mendacious in
the last of their debates — but again, only at the margins, and
not enough to avoid a five-week Florida recounting
nightmare.
Bush v. Kerry? Nothing decisive. Obama v. McCain? Nothing
decisive. Reagan v. Mondale? Some great lines, but Reagan led by
landslide margins regardless. Clinton v. elder Bush? Well, Bush did
look at his watch, but that election was decided by the timings
(plural) of Ross Perot’s entrances into and exits from the race.
Clinton v. Dole? No difference. And while Gerald Ford certainly
hurt himself by claiming Eastern Europe wasn’t Soviet-dominated, he
was trying to recover from a 32-point deficit anyway: The debate
hardly told the tale.
All of those other factors — TV ads, grassroots
organizing, wedge issues, the economy, and especially a candidate’s
long-term likeability — make a much bigger difference in campaigns
than do debate performances. Nobody is going to slay Obama face to
face: He’s too cool. He may be bested on points, but he won’t show
his distress. He may lose at the margins, but nobody — especially
nobody with a history of extravagant and self-defeating utterances,
such as Gingrich — will destroy him in a glorious duel. If he is
to be beaten, the defeat will spring from the public’s ultimate
wisdom in overcoming an $800 million campaign, not from a
manufactured gladiator ring.
The key thing is, can a candidate against Obama,
throughout the long course of a campaign, build and carry out the
right narrative against him? Experience shows that Newt Gingrich
cannot. The truth is that Bob Dole didn’t so much lose the 1996
race to Bill Clinton — an outcome almost unimaginable even 13
months earlier — as that Newt Gingrich lost it. From behind
the scenes (in terms of public attention — remember that only
a tiny percentage of the public had even heard of Gingrich the day
before the 1994 congressional elections) Newt Gingrich could help
others in 435 House races frame a narrative against 40
years of Democratic rule; but once he was in charge of things,
front and center, all he did was step all over his team’s narrative
again and again. Framed by the Gingrich image of Republican
meanness, Dole never had a chance.
And then Gingrich did it to Republicans yet again in 1998,
so badly that he resigned in embarrassment.
And, as was shown by his recent-year stumbles in dealing
with Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Al Sharpton, Scozzafava, ethanol,
cap and trade, and the Ryan budget, Gingrich has not matured one
bit.
A leopard can’t change its spots. A grand wizard Kluxer
under his sheets (à la David Duke) can’t hide his wizardry. And no
debate can help Newt alter his lizardry.
