Gingrich: The rise of the hoi polloi

It is hard to over-estimate the importance of the South Carolina Republican primary. It was the second earthquake to hit the East Coast within the last six months — but this one could have far greater aftershocks.

The epicenter is the Republican Party. With its future now radically altered, it could have profound implications for the nation.

This could rank with California in 1964, North Carolina in 1976 and New Hampshire in 1980. Barry M. Goldwater in the Golden State, Ronald Reagan in the Tar Heel State and Reagan, again, in the Granite State, all ran as insurgents at crucial times for the GOP. All won major victories over moderate opponents, changing the party’s future — and the nation’s.

At the Republican convention in 1960, Goldwater was not happy with Richard M. Nixon’s nomination. The Arizona senator stormed at conservatives to “grow up,” stop complaining and get to work to take over the party. Four years later, they did.

Goldwater had been deeply concerned about the then-vice president’s recent concessions to New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller. Goldwater felt that “Tricky Dick” had displayed weakness by going to New York essentially to kiss the ring of the leading GOP moderate. It was dubbed the “5th Avenue Compact.” But Goldwater acidly labeled it, “Munich of 5th Avenue.”

This indeed undermined Nixon’s presidential effort. Some staunch conservatives, who might once have favored the longtime red-basher Nixon, decided to support Democrat John F. Kennedy instead — because he portrayed himself as more anti-communist.

When Goldwater ran in 1964, the nomination race came down to the key California primary against Rockefeller. Rocky had money and California’s cosmopolitan culture on his side. He had the TV networks and the newspapers. He didn’t, however, have the voters. Goldwater won a stunning victory that propelling him to a win on the first convention ballot.

By 1968, Nixon had learned his lesson. He had also convinced leading conservatives, including William F. Buckley, to support him over then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. But Nixon’s White House years helped convince conservatives not the trust the GOP establishment — and establishment supplicants like Nixon.

In 1976, Gerald R. Ford, advised by Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld and others, pursued Nixon’s liberal policies. He seemed to almost push Reagan into challenging him in the primaries, hurling personal insults at the Gipper.

Reagan lost the first five primaries. By North Carolina, he was $2 million in debt, reeling and opposed by virtually everyone in the GOP establishment. And I mean everybody.

In Raleigh, N.C., Reagan received a telegram signed by numerous GOP officials, telling him to get out of the race. Paul Laxalt was with him and Reagan exploded, telling Laxalt that the Republicans who signed the missive “could go [do something to] themselves,” according to Laxalt.

Reagan did not withdraw. Instead, he mauled Ford there — winning more than 53 percent against the incumbent president. It was in North Carolina that the Reagan whom Americans would come to know and love stepped forward. He ran a populist insurgent campaign against the establishment Ford & Co.

The 1980 New Hampshire primary is also a storied race. Reagan issued his famous line, “I am paying for this microphone.” But the really stunning moment was when he crushed George H.W. Bush by 27 percent. This big win changed the future for the GOP.

The Palmetto State primary on Saturday was no less stunning. Though some of the elites insist Gingrich is an insider, he has never been considered one by outsiders. He always challenged conventions and threatened the status quo. He has run an insurgent campaign — eschewing elites, raising the rhetoric and storming the country club.

His South Carolina strategy was broad, wide and deep. Gingrich defeated the elites’ arguments by capturing the votes of Republicans who decided he had a better shot than Romney at defeating Obama. Gingrich won pluralities of all women — laying to rest the argument that he can’t appeal to them.

On primary day, I traveled with Gingrich as he met with hundreds of voters. None of these voters seemed to pay any mind to the Washington know-it-alls. If they did – it was to show them their backside.

Romney’s very persona helps Gingrich. The former Bain Capital chief is the elitist heir to Rockefeller and the malapropistic heir to Ford and George H. W. Bush. Watching Ford speak extemporaneously was like watching a drunk cross an icy parking lot — and the same can be said for the exuberantly monosyllabic man from Massachusetts.

Gingrich, like Goldwater and Reagan, is running as a strongly populist outsider. His future is still unclear, however.

Insiders insist the former speaker lacks discipline. But they always come up with a world view based on their own expense-account perceptions.

After all, how could a former grade B actor with premature orange hair (as Ford once described Reagan) have become one of the greatest U.S. presidents?

On the other side, conservative outsiders never trust the GOP insiders. Sometimes they tolerate them – but, right now, they despise them. In cases where this happened before — California in 1964, North Carolina in 1976 and New Hampshire in 1980 — —it became a badge of honor to vote against the GOP establishment.

In each case, history was made, just as it was made once again Saturday in South Carolina.

No one goes around calling themselves a Nixon Republican or a Ford Republican or a Bush Republican. But plenty now proudly call themselves Goldwater Republicans and Reagan Republicans.

Maybe some conservatives will one day be calling themselves “Gingrich Republicans.”

Craig Shirley is writing a political biography of Newt Gingrich. He is author of two biographies of Ronald Reagan, including “Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All” and his most recent book is “December 1941.” He is also president of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, which is working with the Gingrich campaign.

That's pretty much "conventional wisdom". On the other hand Barry Goldwater was nominated thanks very much to Orthodox Republican Money ~ donated by blue-hairs who clip coupons. Barry's wife was the principal stockholder of Borg Warner ~ and I believe also the principal bondholder.

I've referred to those folks before as "The Kenosha Crowd". Romney has his roots in that same tight class of owner/investors. (and no, they don't all live in Kenosha, or even the MidWest, but they exist).

Barry went out to campaign knowing that there was NO BROAD MIDDLE. There were NO INDEPENDENTS. There were, in his mind only two political poles in American politics ~ that we call Democrat and the other we call Republican. Each pole was made up of a number of factions ~ income level, class, education levels, ownership prerogatives, social beliefs, customs, geography ~ and occupations with union membership a subset of that structure.

He also knew that each pole was operated differently. If you wanted to climb through the chairs in the Republican party you could start as a precinct worker, then chairman, then to the county, to the district, to the state, and maybe even get selected for the national committee.

If, perhaps, you wanted to climb through the chairs in the Democrat party you could do pretty much the same thing but you'd need to simultaneously climb through the chairs in your own faction. Union guys didn't just jump into party politics. They had to go up through the union for example. In some groupings, e.g. lawyers, you'd need to do good deeds for various sorts of lawyer associations.

It's not terribly different now, although our newly arrived formerly Democrat Southerners and Roman Catholics might think some of those Democrat party organization and management practices might do those of us who are counted as Republicans a world of good.

Obviously we don't want to do things that way, so as a sop the TEAParty is offered as an alternative ~ an honest to goodness broadly based FACTION in tune with the ambitions of those who'd like to climb through the faction rather than through the party apparatus.

Back to Barry. Right as he was Lyndon Johnson was of the exact same perception as Barry. He realized that if he promised MORE CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS he could rip the black faction away from the Republicans, and he did so.

Even if Barry had kept the Rockefeller Republicans in his stable, Barry would have still lost.

By the time Richard Nixon came along it was doctrine that you win by protecting your voting base and ripping off a faction from the other party. Nixon chose to pull in white Southerners from the Democrat coalition. He succeeded. Later on Ronaldus Magnus took the opportunity to bring in church going Roman Catholics to the Republican coalition.

One of the dicta of the single member district driven bi-modal saddle our political picture has become is very simple ~ for every action there is a reaction. At the local level one party might over-dominate politics, yet at higher levels there is resentment elsewhere and those people will shift to the other pole if there is the slightest advantage to doing so. The consequence is you get a remarkably even balance between the aggregate voting power of one pole and that same power of the other pole.

You end up with LANDSLIDES with as little as 5% difference.

Politico doesn't read my stuff. I doubt they can understand it. They've been wrong many times this election year. I fully expect them to continue to be as wrong as they've been all along. If they're listening, did you know about Pelosi's "love chil"?

NOTE: During the Roosevelt Regime blacks were presumed to be voting for FDR ~ but, of course, they were being "voted" by precinct captains and ward-healers. By the time Ike came along it was pretty clear there was a Presidential wing among black voters ~ this was a fairly large faction and had enough votes to swing an election against a weak Republican ~ JFK's crowd had alienated them in the 1960 election, and later in the early '60s he dwadled ~ Ike had federalized the Arkansas NG at Little Rock high.

That election was virtually a dead heat ~ Nixon with his 5 o'clock shadow almost beat the Lord of Camelot ~ actually did if they'd counted the votes right. LBJ used a different tack in 1964. As did Nixon in 1968/1972, and everybody else from then on.

Today the faction Newt Gingrich will need to pull in are the 26 million unemployed, mostly young people.

Regarding this evening's STU speech, Obama offers citizenship to Illegal Aliens which means More Unemployment for Unemployed American youth.

That unemployed and young crowd is out there ready for Republicans to pick like overripe fruit hanging on a low branch! Obama is giving them the election.

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