Click here for the answer.

. . . or counterproductive, bear two things in mind:

1. The Senate still has a Democratic majority.
2. Americans elected Republicans to redress the excesses of the president’s policies not to rubber stamp them, or, to paraphrase that Democrat, “They won.”

The “South Carolina vote,” writes Tim Stanley in the Telegraph, “was really a referendum on [Mitt] Romney”.  Indeed.  The man who rescued the 2002 Olympics tumbled from a commanding lead in the polls last week to a resounding defeat last night.

The on-and-off again Republican frontrunner spent the last week playing defense.  He could have learned, like Newt, to turn attacks to his advantage.

For example, in the debate, when John King asked Romney about his tax returns, he should have responded that he will release them just as soon as Barack Obama releases his college transcripts, then ask Mr. King how extensively his network had covered the incumbent’s failure to release a great variety of documents.

He would have concluded by adding that he would release them in short order.  The takeaway wouldn’t be so much the release as it was his ability to take on the media.  And he would remind voters that Obama hasn’t been as transparent in office as his 2008 rhetoric suggested he would be.*

Romney also could have turned an attack into an opportunity if he had responded to attacks on his work at Bain by offering a robust defense of venture capitalism.

Those mistakes notwithstanding, Romney’s real problem appears to be something else, what one erstwhile Huntsman supporter called the former Massachusetts governor’s “connection problem”, as Byron York reports:

[South Carolina] Attorney General Henry McMaster, was also aligned with Huntsman until Monday, and he too chose Gingrich instead of Romney.  McMaster cited Gingrich’s performance in the two South Carolina debates as a prime factor in his decision, but he also expressed concern over Romney’s problem engaging voters. “I don’t know why,” McMaster said Saturday night.  “I can’t explain it, but there’s a little bit of a connection problem.”

With that problem in mind, let me conclude with a personal reflection.  Of the remaining candidates, I remain most likely to vote for Romney, but have yet to announce my support of endorse the former Massachusetts governor.  Four years ago, even after being impressed with his performance in the few snippets of debates I watched, I ended up pulling the proverbial lever for John McCain.

ADDENDUM:  Glenn has a good roundup of reaction to the results (this one too).

* (more…)

In congratulating Newt Gingrich on his victory last night, our friend Chris Barron, Co-Founder and Chief Strategist of GOProud, noted something significant about the former Speaker’s South Carolina success:

Tonight, we congratulate Speaker Gingrich on his victory in South Carolina. We are hopeful that in the contests ahead that Speaker Gingrich will run the type of positive campaign he promised earlier in the primary process.

It is clear that Speaker Gingrich’s poll numbers improved dramatically once he ended his unnecessary and unproductive attacks on Governor Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. As conservatives we should make it clear that we are the champions of free enterprise.

Emphasis added.  He’s right.  Newt surged not because of his attacks on Mitt Romney’s work in the private sector but instead because of his attacks on the media’s flacking for those who favor a larger public sector.

Polls show considerable popular dissatisfaction with the president’s policies, particularly his big-government initiatives like Obamacare.  They also show support for the broad conservative policies which have defined the GOP at least since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.  The best attempts of the media notwithstanding, conservative ideas are ascendant.

At the same time, the incumbent struggles to regain the footing he had four years ago, with his attacks on Republicans more redolent of class warfare demagoguery than reflective of the reality of his partisan adversaries’ policies, his own dismal poll numbers inflated by a compliant media, the administration’s spin reported as if it were news, its scandals treated as if they were the inventions of a right-wing cabal eager to destroy anyone trying to free the country from the control of a corporate elite.

If a conservative candidate, with a record of executive accomplishment, could take the fight to Obama, he could not rally the right, but appeal to independents as well.  The electoral map would not resemble that of the past few national elections, but would look more like the one in 1988.  Every state where Republicans did well in 2010, including such purplish “blue” states as Maine, Michigan Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, would turn “red.”

In the current contest, however, no candidate has emerged to take on Reagan’s mantle.  At the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein lamented, that “one of the miracles of America’s founding was that so many great men emerged at once and complemented each other with unique skills. But now, in a time of great crisis, we’re stuck with painfully bad choices.”

Over at Red State, Erick Erickson (with whom I don’t often agree) didn’t mince words when weighing in on last night’s results:

Newt Gingrich’s rise has a lot to do with Newt Gingrich’s debate performance. But it has just as much to do with a party base in revolt against its thought and party leaders in Washington, DC. . . . (more…)

As you can probably guess, I’m not as sanguine about Newt’s victory in South Carolina as is Bruce.  I think the most important issue in this election is defeating Barack Obama and replacing him with a president committed to making the kinds of reforms the Democrat has assiduously avoided for the past three years.   And don’t believe Newt is capable of the executive leadership necessary to accomplish the kind of bold reforms we need to get our economy moving and restore our national image.

We need a man who is not just decisive in his words, but also in his actions; we need someone who can exercise authority.

I thought Newt’s speech tonight showed both his strengths as a visionary and his weakness as a personality.  He offered a great defense of our system, generous tributes to his rivals and a strong critique of the incumbent.  But, he went on too long.   He didn’t need to attack the elite media.  Now, to be sure, if it weren’t for his attacks on the media in each of the two most recent debates, he wouldn’t have done as well as he did last night.

He won, in large part, because he dared take on an institution which has treated Republicans unfairly and all but maligned the conservative movement.   If they had afforded Barack Obama the same scrutiny they have given to each of the Republican candidates, he would be a backbencher in the U.S. Senate and America’s first female president would be campaigning for her second term.

Even as I have my doubts about my former boss, I had a conversation tonight which gave me some hope.  I saw a Democratic friend at a party tonight.  He told me Newt’s victory tonight meant “Game Over” for the GOP; Obama is going to be reelected.

Just shy of four years ago, at another party, as Obama was wrapping up the Democratic nomination, this same man told me that his fellow partisans had just handed the election to the Republicans.

Politics is a strange business.  Our forecasts often run awry — as President Tom Dewey will tell you. Jimmy Carter cheered as Ronald Reagan was wrapping up the Republican nomination in 1980.  That Democrat won six states in the general election that fall.

It’s too bad we don’t have a governor running this year who can rally the party’s conservative base.

UPDATE:  In his analysis of the results, Michael Barone contends that Newt’s. . . .

. . . victory in South Carolina was a victory not only over Romney and Santorum and Paul, but also over the news media, (more…)