Evitable*
In yesterday's podcast, as listeners will recall, our guests, Ross Douthat of the New York Times and Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review, both confidently insisted that Mitt Romney would capture the GOP nomination. Mitt remains, in short, inevitable.
While we were talking, pollsters were asking Republicans questions. And just look at what the pollsters learned.
The CNN/Time poll that was published late yesterday shows Gingrich ahead of Romney--very substantially ahead--in three of the four first primary states. Those would be Iowa (Gingrich 33, Romney 20), South Carolina (43-20), and Florida (48-25). And in New Hampshire, Gingrich has trimmed Romney's lead to single digits (Gringrich 26, Romney 35).
As for the latest Qunnipiac poll, also published late yesterday, just take a look at the Christian Science Monitor's headline:
A Gingrich-Obama matchup? It's getting tighter, polls show
Newt Gingrich looks increasingly competitive against President Obama in three key battleground states, new polls show. And likely Republican voters in those states prefer him to Mitt Romney.
Ross and Ramesh may yet be proven right, of course--and if Romney does turn the race around, Newt's challenge will almost certainly have made him a better (meaning tougher, and, yes, more conservative) candidate.
But Mitt, inevitable?
That argument is gone.
*With apologies to Bill Kristol, who, seeing all this coming, used "Evitable" as the headline for his editorial in last week's Weekly Standard.
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Evitable*
Romney is starting to remind me of my drive in golf. Do everything right and still slice the darned thing.
Aug '10
Re: Evitable*
Darn, I thought you were channeling In The Loop. (mild language not safe for work)
Oct '10
Re: Evitable*
Agree with Ramesh that it seems highly unlikely that Newt can go to the general election next year without scoring some sort of colossal self-defeating own goal. He's also going to very limited by his weak campaign organization.
As for Mitt ;li/oijodfeoiwraj;ladvsf ...sorry, Peter, I fell asleep on my keyboard just thinking about the Romney campaign.
Dec '10
Re: Evitable*
If I had surveyed the political landscape a decade or more ago to predict who might be running favorably now Romney would not have been on the radar. Fiscal conservatives are a dime a dozen, so he gains zero notoriety there. If he had defeated a government takeover of healthcare (even at the state level) rather than authoring it and having it named after him as a memorial he might have been onto something. His failure to catch on this year started a long, long time ago.
May '10
Re: Evitable*
Every time I see that picture of Newt, what I really see is this:
Showing my age again, ain't I?
Re: Evitable*
EJHill: Every time I see that picture of Newt, what I really see is this:
Showing my age again, ain't I? · Dec 8 at 12:04pm
The fact that I laughed shows mine.
Dec '11
Re: Evitable*
I think Gingrich is a couple weeks from becoming inevitable (at least in Iowa). http://bit.ly/vHJOKQ
Jun '10
Re: Evitable*
That's what Romney needs to do...start smoking. Prove...just once in his life...he took a risk.
Oct '10
Re: Evitable*
In Romney's defense, he's taken on all sorts of risks during his professional career. In his political life, he's taken risks by running for office several times and still coming back after losing some of those races. He's taken risks by proposing and passing major legislation such as his health care plan. His professional life at Bain was all about assessing investment risks and in some cases he won those risks and in other cases he lost. That's the nature of running a firm like Bain. He certainly took on a risk when he agreed to save the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Whatever his flaws as a candidate are, risk aversion isn't one of them.
Aug '11
Re: Evitable*
Does Newt play golf? I think this time I'd like a president who doesn't golf.
May '10
Re: Evitable*
So far, we've had polling leads for Newt, Perry, Bachmann, Cain.... I'll believe all of this when I see it after the first actual primary. I recall Murphy's counsel about prior year polling.
It does remind me a little bit of the local fans who predicted that Donovan McNabb would lead the Vikings to the championship, based on..... well, they really wanted it to be so.
Dec '10
Re: Evitable*
Independent women, and many other women will not vote for him. Doesnt that matter?
Jun '10
Re: Evitable*
Only winning the election matters. 50% + 1 is best.
Apr '11
Re: Evitable*
Larry Koler
Only winning the election matters. 50% + 1 is best. · Dec 8 at 5:34pm
Independent women are handy for getting to 50% +1 in Ohio.
Apr '11
Re: Evitable*
Neither Clinton nor Obama played before they got to the White House. I think I'd be in favor of President Newt taking some exercise. As it is, he plays golf, but not very seriously. He took it up after being kicked out of the House, and feels that if he was a golfer earlier, he'd have been a better Speaker. Or, at least, that's what he told a golfing journalist.
Dec '10
Re: Evitable*
Wow. That podcast was otherworldly. What's wrong with the Republicans? 2006... 2008... What's wrong with the Republicans? And no one even made a single peep about the Republicans' fabulous performance in 2010. And maybe tried to apply any (any?) tidbit of success from 2010 to this election.
Apr '11
Re: Evitable*
Because Republicans didn't perform so fabulously with O'Donnell, Angle, etc. For example, even many voters who despised Harry Reid and thought he was doing a terrible job still voted for him because Reid successfully carried out the same strategy Obama will use on Newt next year. Newt is not necessarily the equivalent of those candidates, but he's a bit too close for comfort.
Feb '11
Re: Evitable*
If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.
- H. L. Mencken
Dec '10
Re: Evitable*
wmartin
Because Republicans didn't perform so fabulously with O'Donnell, Angle, etc. For example, even many voters who despised Harry Reid and thought he was doing a terrible job still voted for him because Reid successfully carried out the same strategy Obama will use on Newt next year. Newt is not necessarily the equivalent of those candidates, but he's a bit too close for comfort. · Dec 8 at 9:41pm
Um, I thought the Republicans had some kind of record increase in members of Congress, state governors, etc... Will anybody on here look for success clues in these successful races, or is this a defeatist discussion forum? Haven't been to Ricochet for a while and thought I would check for some snappy center-right analysis that can be used in this 2012 election. I think it was a mistaken impulse.
Apr '11
Re: Evitable*
I listened to the podcast yesterday and I think there is one thing that was kinda sorta mentioned but is probably one of the biggest reasons that Newt is where he is in the polls and that is because he is "not Mitt"