A Week is an Eternity in Politics

 

A truism in Westminster politics has traditionally been that a week is a long time in politics. In the modern world that must seem like a gross understatement; for those involved in the Republican race a week must seem like an eternity.

Only a week ago Mitt Romney's position seemed unassailable and bloggers (yours truly included) were describing how the race could be over shortly after the South Carolina primary. Well, after a week which has seen Mr Romney retrospectively stripped of his Iowa victory (it was announced that Rick Santorum had received more votes); stumble over his response to questions about his tax returns; and been completely overshadowed by Newt Gingrich in the debates the situation is less certain.

Last week, of course, culminated in a clear victory to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina with Mr Romney second. Instead of the expected third win in a row, Mr Romney now needs to accept that the first three states have been awarded to different candidates. Mr Romney has clearly still performed the best of the candidates when the three different votes are considered cumulatively (he has two second places to Mr Gingrich's fourth and fifth place) yet Mr Gingirch's victory in South Carolina seems to have closed off the chance of an early closure to the contest. Victory has given Mr Gingrich's campaign a significant shot in the arm and donors will now look at the former Speaker as a credible candidate, thus opening their wallets.

For all that this weekend may have been a "game-changer" though, it is still difficult for this onlooker to look past Mr Romney. Naturally, it would have been better to more or less finish matters of this week, but the campaign has always had the structure and the funding to last the long course. Of the states coming up Florida (with its wealth of retired North Easterners) is far less red-blooded than South Carolina, and Mr Romney was successful in his last campaign in Michigan (where his father had his political power base) and Nevada. The former Massachusetts governor has therfore a huge opportunity to catch up the lost momentum in the coming weeks.

Further, recently history shows that Mr Gingrich' s capable of producing some impressive spikes in support, which quickly drop back to earth (as spectacularly happened just prior to Christmas when Mr Gingrich momentarily lead national polling). Mr Gingrich's pugnacious posturing went down well in the famously prickly world of South Carolina politics but is likely to be received less favourably elsewhere. Whereas South Carolina saw Mr Gingrich's attack on the media - when asked about comments from his (second) ex-wife that he wanted an open marriage - as a long overdue rebuff to a liberal media agenda, others will question whether this is not hypocritical from one of the main proponents of impeachment of former President Clinton. And whereas last week it was Mr Romney who squirmed over personal matters when the focus was on the tax rate the multi millionaire paid, worse historic personal incidents could jump up and bite Mr Gingrich. After all, Mr Gingrich was the first Speaker of the house to be disciplined for an ethics violation (he was fined USD 300,000 with both Democrats and Republicans largely in favour of the outcome).

In short, Mr Romney is still the frontrunner and, despite the shock outcome, Mr Gingirch's campaign faces an uphill battle. However, this week's events mean that the fight for the Republican nomination will be protracted and, quite possibly, bitter. Having being hit by the sledgehammer that is Mr Gingrich, Mr Romney will need to sharpen his rhetoric and things could turn very feisty indeed. There is, after all, plenty of material for Mr Romney to deliver the necessary blows, and if he can produce the necessary incisiveness Mr Gingrich will have difficulty in lasting the pace.

There is though one person who will have celebrated this weekend's result almost as much as Mr Gingrich. With both candidates looking to bring up as much historic dirt as possible, the Democrats will have a lot of their normally laboriously background research done for them and the agenda will have been well and truly set for the forthcoming presidential race. The leaks from the President's camp are that he would relish running against Mr Gingrich, whom his team see as divisive and tainted by past indiscretions. Once again, it seems that campaigning chance has fallen on President Obama's side and the prospect of long and nasty fight for the Republican nomination must be music to his ears.