Peter Huck: There's nothing new about Newt's comeback

Newt Gingrich . Photo / AP

Opinion

It's a banality that there are no second acts in American life. But Newt Gingrich, one of Washington's consummate political survivors, and now a surprise hot possibility as the Republican presidential candidate, just months after his campaign imploded in June, hopes to buck that maxim.

This week, Gingrich vaulted to the front of the Grand Old Party presidential pack. Less than a month before the Iowa caucus, seen as the first electoral signpost of who might become the Republican nominee, Gingrich topped a New York Times/CBS News poll, ahead of his main rival, Mitt Romney.

"He was all but left for dead three months ago," says Isaac Dovere, deputy political editor with Politico. "But there is a desire among Republicans to have someone go up against Romney."

The surge showed Republicans and Independents, who will vote in the Iowa caucus, favoured Gingrich at 31 per cent, way ahead of Romney at 17 per cent, Ron Paul at 16 per cent, Rick Perry at 11 per cent and Michele Bachmann at 9 per cent.

Throughout the summer, conservative stars - Bachmann, Perry, Herman Cain - streaked across the primary cosmos, flaming out amid scandal and gaffes as the next rival blazed on to primetime.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll has Gingrich with 33 per cent in Iowa, with Romney on 18 per cent. Gingrich has roared to the lead in three states - Iowa, Florida and South Carolina - which have early primary elections that can make or break candidates, and is closing on Romney in New Hampshire.

Suddenly Romney, hyped by GOP grandees as the "inevitable" nominee to take on President Barack Obama, was on the defensive, confronted by a wily opponent with years of experience politicking inside the Beltway, and the likely standard bearer for conservatives after Cain's immolation in a sex scandal. The race is expected to toughen up as the frontrunners go after wealthy donors and Cain's base.

In a Mitt versus Newt contest, Romney has to decide whether to take the offensive or to hold back and hope that Gingrich proves another nine-day wonder who will self-destruct. It is a nail-biting challenge as Gingrich has been rocked by past scandals, only to survive.

Romney's advantage is his campaign, with a war chest of more than US$32 million ($41.44 million) and a network of volunteers. Gingrich's original presidential push crashed in June, when key aides and state aides quit, leaving him US$1.2 million in debt. He is low on funds, with just US$4 million, and volunteers.

It doesn't help that Gingrich has a weakness for luxury - including Tiffany & Co jewellery for his wife - but the inward cash flow is accelerating, at US$10,000 an hour, says his spokesman. If Gingrich wins the early primaries, he may persuade donors to open their pockets and party fixers to abandon Romney.

So far his "Rebuild the America we love" TV campaign is pushing hallowed conservative buttons of small government, low taxes and strong defence, without any pesky specifics.

Besides the visceral rejection of Romney by many primary voters, Gingrich also benefits from name recognition - he has been a political player for the past generation - and some triumphs as Speaker in the House of Representatives from 1994 to 1998. He played a key role helping the GOP win the chamber for the first time in four decades, pushing through several policy wins, such as welfare reform.

But the early caucuses are a tough call. Volunteers are crucial to getting out precinct voters, a costly exercise. Romney has an organisation. Gingrich does not.

"Iowa and New Hampshire are elections where people are used to deep engagement with candidates," says Dovere. "Obama won Iowa because he spent months figuring out how to organise. Hillary Clinton couldn't compete. That may happen in Iowa this time. Gingrich may have the popularity. But unless he can turn that into a voting organisation I don't know how he can be the nominee. That said, it's been a very strange Republican campaign, that may work for Gingrich."

And while Romney is derided by voters as bland, Gingrich is a loose cannon, able to channel anger from the GOP base that eludes Romney. Romney offers the GOP, and Obama's strategists, a safe pair of hands. Gingrich is unpredictable. During a television interview this week, Gingrich suggested that, but for legislation he helped enact in the 1990s, Romney would never have become rich. Asked if Gingrich had ever made that case before, the candidate said he had just thought of it. Such off-the-cuff reasoning is anathema to the more deliberative Romney.

This may not be a bad thing as the GOP contest comes down to Mitt versus Newt. "Republicans want someone who can snarl at the President," a Democrat said recently. "Newt's snarl is more genuine than Mitt's."

Unlike other anti-Romney aspirants Gingrich's history is well known, dampening negative residue from past scandal.

Despite the gulf between his family values mantra and his colourful private life - he maintained a mistress, Callista Bisek [later his third wife], while hounding President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinksy scandal - his US$500,000 bill at Tiffany's, gaffes like his claim in May the GOP favoured "right-wing social engineering", plus a US$300,000 fine for House ethics violations, Gingrich seems bullet proof.

Both potential nominees can feel like yesterday's men. Gingrich, 68, arrived in Congress in 1978, when Jimmy Carter was President. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is 64. But Gingrich has momentum and radical form, which plays well with some in the Tea Party era.

In 1994 as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Gingrich championed the GOP's "Contract with America," and led the charge of Republican Young Turks against Bill Clinton, riding high as the first Baby Boomer president.

But by 1998 Gingrich had quit, rebounding to build a business worth almost US$150 million from books, speeches, consultancy fees, think tanks, a political non-profit and other ventures. He earned US$2.5 million in 2010.

He touts himself as a thinker. Critics say Gingrich sprouts ideas without regard to practicalities and is not as smart as he thinks. But he is an agile debater, a big asset in a campaign that has seen 17 GOP stand-offs, with at least three more scheduled this year. Gingrich's smarts and his ease with an audience, whereas Romney remains aloof, look good on television. Gingrich's spectacular comeback from the political wilderness is being compared with Richard Nixon's in 1968. It is driven by a skeleton team, including his wife, Callista, almost no money and his ability to feed off the anything-but-Romney base. Gingrich is a stubborn slugger. But a Mitt versus Newt slug fest will have to engage independent voters, a challenge usually met with heavy media ads and deep pockets. Gingrich's best hope is to score knockouts in the early primaries. But a long race may favour Romney.