As we pivot from South Carolina to Florida, there's a fascinating "heart versus head" analysis in the LA Times:
"It's a classic head versus heart battle," said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.
As Romney and Rick Santorum arrived in Florida on Sunday, the question hanging over the Republican contest — and a GOP establishment increasingly concerned about Romney's ability to close the sale — is whether the dynamics that emerged in South Carolina are irreversible, which would greatly complicate efforts to coalesce behind a likely nominee and pivot into the fight against President Obama.
Right now, one Florida poll (PPP, via Twitter) is very close and another (
InsiderAdvantage) gives Newt an 8-point lead:
Some in the polling world, such as the New York Times Five Thirty Eight blog, have questioned InsiderAdvantage for having "pro-Gingrich" results. Indeed it did. Insider/Advantage was one of the first to show Gingrich leading by double-digits last week in South Carolina while CNN and NBC's polls had Gingrich losing. Gingrich won by double digits.
What's going on here? Romney has a huge institutional advantage because he's already spent $5 million on advertising, early voting and get out the vote. But Newt is making the emotional connection that
Romney just can't seem to do.
With his breakthrough South Carolina win, Gingrich, who likes to cloak himself in the guise of the professor he once was, articulated the gut-level frustration of voters whose alienation from Washington and resentment of East Coast elites in government and the media have hardened in difficult times.
Exit polls show that they are deeply worried about the economy of a country that, to them, has been living far beyond its means and drifting away from its traditional moorings regarding same-sex marriage and other social issues.
A challenge for the former House speaker, who has gained and lost the lead before, will be to avoid coming off as so angry himself that he self-destructs.
Romney, by contrast, is under intense pressure to at least neutralize the turbulent emotions that Gingrich has been able to exploit and to convince voters that he is the best candidate to defeat Obama — an argument that national polling data support but that South Carolina voters decisively rejected.
Romney's weak performances in recent debates and longer-running inability to touch voters on a visceral level — what South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called his "passion deficit" — pose the most immediate threats to his status as the front-runner.
But it's more than that. When we had that issue with Kerry versus Dean in 2004, we had a head versus heart issue to address, and while passions were high, it never degenerated into civil war (Hillary versus Obama in 2008 was more a passion versus passion, and not comparable.)
And with the Republican electorate, the contest has already gotten nasty. We're talking civil war in the party, not just a minor philosophical debate. I don't see how the dark forces Gingrich is playing to get put back in the bottle. The GOP is about to be eaten by its own spawn, and it's a different electorate in the general. If you want to win by being a regional Southern party, well, there's other parts of the country that will respond to that message in a GOP primary but not in a general election.
The GOP is playing with fire, kids, and they're the ones likely to be burned.
Addendum: A new Rasmussen poll has Gingrich 41 percent, Romney 32 percent, adding to the sense of a Gingrich surge, with this key factoid:
Florida allows early voting, and Romney leads among those voters by 11 points. Gingrich leads by 12 among those who have not yet voted. Fourteen percent (14%) have already cast their vote.
Mitt bought himself an edge, but sans game changer at the debates, is it enough?