Old guard Republicans are in a state of near hysteria over the prospect of Newt Gingrich being the Republican candidate against President Barack Obama.
They say he is unelectable because of his volatile personality and problematic past. The answer to this problem, they say, is the candidacy of Gov. Mitt Romney. He should be the Republican candidate because he is "electable."
As a consequence of this line of thought, failed Republican presidential candidates, Bob Dole and Sen. John McCain, have endorsed Romney. Do so, warned former Sen. Dole, "before it's too late."
Adding to the ominous atmosphere have been other Republican pundits and political figures, who, for various reasons, find Gingrich unacceptable.
Writing in the conservative American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. said Gingrich should be disqualified because of his "public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out." Apparently, Tyrrell has forgotten about his own divorce.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams took umbrage with Gingrich for not having supported President Ronald Reagan sufficiently back in the 1980s. This accusation was soundly rebutted by President Reagan's son, Michael Reagan, who ought to know.
Having served as a special assistant to President Reagan myself, I found the accusation puzzling, to say the least, if not downright eccentric. For a period in 1983-84, under assistant to the president, Ambassador Faith Ryan Whittlesey, I ran the White House Outreach Working Group on Central America, which was tasked with explaining the president’s policies there.
Gingrich was a ferocious advocate of those polices, even going to the Oxford Union debating society in 1985 to defend them. I also recall joining Gingrich in a TV debate with two atheists over the president’s school prayer amendment.
What more could he have done?
It is particularly ironic, however, to hear from failed presidential candidates, like Sens. Dole and McCain, about what it takes to win.
Back in the winter of 2008, I was a member of the Catholics for McCain Committee. Having served as President Reagan's liaison to the Catholic community, I thought I might have some helpful suggestions.
I warned then that "McCain cannot win in November without the Catholic vote, which is around 25 percent of the electorate. How is he going to get it?
"The worst thing he could assume is that it is going to fall into his lap because Catholics will have nowhere else to go. Some people with nowhere to go simply stay home. Or they may go elsewhere, as it appears they have already been doing."
As soon became evident, McCain did not have the faintest notion of how to court Catholic voters, nor did he appear to listen to anyone who could have told him how.
This was a grievous omission. It cost him the election.
In the past half-century, no Republican has won the presidency without the Catholic vote. This is particularly challenging since most Catholics are Democrats.
Ronald Reagan first succeeded in doing this because he made a morally conservative appeal across party lines to what came to be known as the Reagan Democrats, who were mostly Catholic Democrats.
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George W. Bush was able to maintain the margin of victory with the Catholic vote, as well. McCain did not even try. As a consequence, Obama won 53 percent of the Catholic vote and became president.
What is the relevance of this to the current primary? You would think that there is none, because the issue of who can appeal to the Catholic vote seems not to have been raised or discussed at all.
It should be, before it's too late.
Of the candidates left standing, it is Romney who is least likely to appeal to the Catholic vote because of his shaky background on conservative social issues. He has no record as a leader regarding the central issues of the family, the sanctity of human life, school prayer, and against pornography.
Newt Gingrich and Sen. Rick Santorum are both known for their record of passionate advocacy on these matters. Either of them could credibly appeal to the Catholic vote. Added to that, Santorum is a lifelong Catholic, and Gingrich is a relatively recent convert, whose marriage, despite his previous divorces, took place in the Catholic Church.
Romney's “electability” problems are exacerbated by his standing with the evangelicals. President Reagan forged an alliance between the evangelicals and Catholics on the moral issues mentioned.
Evangelicals are just as likely as Catholics to give only tepid support (especially in light of their suspicions about Mormonism), if any at all, to a candidate who does not have fire in his belly about the issues that animate them.
The Republican candidate not only needs Catholics and evangelicals who will vote for him, but who will each find 10 other Catholics or evangelicals who will do the same. This is not going to happen unless the candidate is able to galvanize these electorates.
The Republican Party establishment is tone deaf on this matter, as it has always been. It is still not quite sure who the Reagan Democrats were.
President Reagan's success was despite the Republican Party establishment, not because of it. This is equally true of Newt Gingrich’s stunning achievements in obtaining a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and then implementing his Contract with America. The party establishment did not think it could be done, nor would it have ever conceived of, on its own, anything like the successful Contract with America.
Success stories from Bain Capital will not serve comparably. In fact, nothing Romney has said so far shows any evidence of his ability to inspire these electorates, which certainly helps explain why he has been unable to win an absolute majority in any primary so far.
Of the candidates left standing, Romney is the least "electable." That is why he is the candidate of the party establishment, which long ago earned for themselves the epithet "the stupid party."
As the Gipper might say, there they go again.
Bob Reilly is a former senior Reagan administration official who has served in the Defense Department, White House and the U.S. Information Agency.
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