OUR VIEW: Gingrich shows refined skills on campaign
Surging Newt Gingrich has fashioned his rise to the top of the Republican heap on a curious combination of tactics: disdain for the mainstream media and complete dependency on the mainstream media.
Gingrich's single best moment of the campaign thus far came last week in South Carolina when CNN's John King, moderating that state's pre-primary debate, opened with a question about Gingrich's ex-wife's allegations that he had asked her to agree to an open marriage. Gingrich hit it out of the park: "To take an ex-wife and make it, two days before a primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine." And the audience roared.
But King's mistake wasn't asking Gingrich that question -- it was, after all, the big news at that moment -- it was asking him about it right off the top. Gingrich's less-than-tidy personal history (three marriages, admissions of adultery and an ethics scandal) will be and probably should be issues for voters.
Questions that focus on ethics and morals are legitimate and need to be asked of every candidate in every race for every office, and the mainstream news media are the ones to ask it. That might sound self-serving, but voters need to ask who or what is better suited: the partisan media of radio, television and Internet blogs? Paid advertisements financed by presidential campaigns or, worse, super-PACs? The truth is, although Republicans in particular like to cite liberal media bias (and the timing of King's question does nothing to dispel that perception), the mainstream media is still the best arbiter of the political noise machine that we have.
The irony of Gingrich's perfectly placed shot to the jaw is that the Georgia conservative can, should and will use the mainstream media to the best advantage he can. He cannot hope to match Mitt Romney's campaign war chest -- at least not anytime soon -- so he must play the mainstream media for all it's worth, which is a lot. He must rely on his ability to create headlines, and, of course, on Romney's emerging tendency to put his foot in his mouth. And he must portray the media as an enemy as best he can.
Gingrich has adroitly played that hand thus far. Romney and the others are learning fast. No need to feel sorry for any of them.
