Battle of the nerds? Professor Gingrich vs Professor Obama. 2012 shaping up to be a textbook election. Newt prevails in debate.

by Etse Sikanku on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 8:14am

Yesterday’s presidential debate did nothing to stop the changing tides of the Republican race. On a day when Mitt Romney needed to halt the surging Newt, it was the former who came out of the debate bruised by an awkward $10,000 bet with the lowly polled Rick Perry. Mr Gingrich put up a strong and measured performance last night. If nothing dramatic happens between now and January it should be safe to say that Mr Gingrich will end up being Barack Obama’s opponent in 2012.

Let’s face it: Mr Gingrich is a smart man. He reminds me of the wonky kid in graduate school who constantly provides flashes of brilliance and revelation spiced with other “aha moments” during class seminars. For the entire night Newt turned even the most vicious attacks into strong defenses. On the accusation that he’s a career politician he said to Romney: “The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is because you lost to Ted Kennedy”. Ouch. On his Palestinians are "invented" denunciations he retorted: “I will tell the truth, even if it's at the risk of causing some confusion, sometimes with the timid." Somewhere in his answer he managed to invoke the legacy of Regan: "Reagan believed the power of truth, restated to the world, reframed the world," Gingrich said. "I'm a Reaganite. I'm proud to be a Reaganite." How do you pull that off? In just one answer, he managed to call Romney timid, embolden his conservative credentials while appealing to the Jewish vote.

Granted, such responses might not fly well in a general election where independents hold sway but the Republican crowd is a very different one. This race might be over quicker than we imagined. Gingrich is currently leading in all the early nominating states of Iowa, South Carolina and Florida with the exception of New Hampshire. All Gingrich needs to do is to hold steady through the holiday season. If Romney loses in New Hampshire or even wins by a smaller margin than expected, he’s toast. Gingrich will take the momentum into the next two states where he’s polling highly and Romney may never be able to get in even before Super Tuesday. As it stands I don’t see any of the other candidates upending Newmentum so the Obama machine might just as well start preparing for a long and tough slog with Professor Gingrich who if he wins will become America’s first Phd president since Woodrow Wilson.