How Will Gingrich's Comments Affect the GOP Race?

The impact of Newt Gingrich's now reverberating Meet the Press comments about fellow Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare fix -- "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering," and "I, I think that, I think, I think that that [Ryan's plan] is too big a jump" -- will be evident next Tuesday when we report the latest update on Republicans' views of Gingrich and other potential GOP candidates.

Comments, gaffes and characterizations have a way of sticking to candidates when they reinforce pre-existing images. Gingrich's image to many is a very smart individual (he has a Ph.D., after all) who has, as they say, occasional issues with "message discipline."

His comments on Meet the Press took about 15 seconds. He was basically making an assessment of a particular proposal to fix Medicare, the type of assessements political candidates are supposed to make. Commentary about the comments continues to linger in part because Gingrich was criticizing a fellow Republican -- in particular one who has high visibility as a person willing to propose radical solutions to entitlement problems.

Gingrich's comments also continue to linger because they appear in some minds to reinforce his pre-existing image as a politician who speaks his mind first, and then considers the implications second. There are other examples of this same phenomenon. Was Michael Dukakis weak on defense in the 1988 presidential campaign? His opponents used video of him riding around in a tank with a silly looking helmet on to reinforce that image. Was George H.W. Bush elitist and out of touch with the common person in the 1992 campaign? His supposed surprise when he encountered the fact that supermarkets had scanners reinforced that image. And so on.

At any rate, the percentage of Republicans who recognized Gingrich and who had an unfavorable opinion of him (24%) before Sunday's Meet the Press appearance is high, but no higher than for Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, and Gary Johnson (and of course Donald Trump). How many will have an unfavorable opinion at the end of this week? Tune in next Tuesday to gallup.com to find out.

Meanwhile former Utah Gov. and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is visiting New Hampshire and looking very much like a presidential candidate. Unlike Gingrich, he has a very strong need to increase his visibility. At 25% name identification he is not at all well-known. In fact, only his fellow former Four Corner State Gov. Gary Johnson is less well-known among those candidates we track. Huntsman also has a very low Positive Intensity Score. As Politico writers Alexander Burns and Kasie Huntsay "Huntsman remains a political cipher." The coming weeks will tell us if Huntsman, a distant cousin of Mitt Romney, will be able to increase his visibility.

I can't find any evidence that Sarah Palin is on the brink of an announcement about running for president. Some observers are convinced that she will not run. By our calculations at Gallup, she is tied as the best positioned candidate we track, although she is not a clear front-runner. She essentially ties Mitt Romney when we recalculate our March and April trial heat numbers without Huckabee or Trump. Her Positive Intensity Score is now higher than any of the other better known candidates -- that is to say, Romney or Gingrich.

A lot of pundits point to Tim Pawlenty and Mitch Daniels as potential candidates who will challenge for the nomination. Both have name identification problems at this point among the broad Republican pool, Daniels' more severe than Pawlenty's. Daniels is recognized by 35% of Republicans; Pawlenty by 48%.

I can't say this enough: We are in a very unusual time when it comes to GOP candidates. Since 1948, in all but one instance in which there was not a Republican incumbent in May the year before an election, the front runner for the GOP nomination had already been established.

Just as a refresher course, let's look back in history. The numbers below are support for the candidate among Republicans at about this point in the election cycle. In each instance, I've bolded the eventual winner of the Republican nomination.

May 2007: Rudy Giuliani at 32%, John McCain 24%

May 1999: George W. Bush at 46%, Elizabeth Dole at 18%

May 1995: Bob Dole 51%, Phil Gramm 12%

April 1987: George H.W. Bush 34%, Bob Dole 18%

May 1979: Ronald Reagan 41%, Bob Dole 13%

April 1967: Richard Nixon 43%, George Romney 28%

April/May 1959: Richard Nixon 63%, Nelson Rockefeller 20%

May 1951: Dwight Eisenhower 30%, Robert Taft 22%

March/April 1947: Thomas Dewey 51%, Harold Stassen 15%.