The GOP Goes MAD

The candidates go thermonuclear, but the party itself may get hit.

• By DANIEL HENNINGER

Whose idea was it to get in the way of the Republican Party's presidential smackdown with a State of the Union speech? Bring back the Grand Old Party Brawlers. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are locked in a death struggle. They'll survive, but will their party?
For nearly three decades, the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals cohabitated uneasily inside a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction without blowing each other up. MAD was insane, but the players were not. Campaigning politicians operate under no such rational constraint. We are hours away from the second Florida primary debate in which Newt Gingrich will give Mitt Romney a lesson in massive retaliation for the governor's Gatling-gun attack on the speaker last Monday night.

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Martin Kozlowski Traditionalists will dismiss the idea that the GOP is in the process of blowing itself up. Campaign politics has always been about the rough and tumble, old boy. It was ever thus.


Thus is over. With every turn of the election cycle, it seems the new, ever-expanding universe of modern media takes politics into unchartered hyperspace.
In 2008, it was Barack Obama's discovery that small Internet contributions could grow into a mighty war chest. In 2010, conventional wisdom laughed off the tea party movement until its members, pumped up by social media, powered Republicans at all levels of government to a deep, historic victory.
This year it's the debates. The early "debates" were a clown-car stunt, with pressure to add more clowns. The formats restricted the candidates to 30- or 60-second soundbites. Other than "oops," we learned next to nothing. But the debates drew viewers for the same, weird reasons people feel compelled to watch Tom DeLay on "Dancing With the Stars." But when the field trimmed to four candidates, with more time to talk, the televised debates became the central arena in which campaigns would rise and fall—and rise.
From Jan. 14 to Jan. 18, Mitt Romney's poll numbers rose in South Carolina, reaching an eight-point lead over Mr. Gingrich by the 18th. On Jan. 19, the candidates debated in Charleston. The Romney lead evaporated overnight. He lost the primary two days later by 12 points. A 20-point swing in three days.

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The candidates go thermonuclear, but the party itself may get hit.

By any traditional measure, Newt Gingrich should not be winning. But he is. Newt, the Silver Surfer, seems designed to compete in this new arena. The ex-Speaker is performing like a videogame character, outputting verbal zingers with a touchstroke to his frontal lobe.
Before this new reality set in, the Romney camp was running a traditional front-runner's campaign—careful and contented. He had money, organization and weak, even wacky, opponents. He was floating above the muck that the other, desperate candidates threw at each other. Pawlenty at Bachmann. Bachmann at Newt. Newt at Mitt. Santorum at Paul. Mitt just kept smiling.
Now Mitt's in the muck. Now we're in the muck. It's kind of fun for insiders. But for those who will decide the election, the appeal may be hard to see. With the Romney and Gingrich camps going thermonuclear on each other—Newt tarring Mitt with Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts—the fallout could damage more Republican infrastructure than just these candidates.
Many of the dark charges that Messrs. Gingrich and Romney are launching at each other are real, or real enough. Newt Gingrich has a serious Freddie Mac problem. It is also disconcerting that so many former, respected House colleagues are critical of his leadership and political character. Mitt Romney's inadequate answers to Rick Santorum's point-by-point critique of his health-care plan are (still) a problem. The Romney tax return screams "tax reform," but he only whispers the phrase. The Bain bonfire burned both Messrs. Gingrich and Romney—the former for doing it and the latter for letting it fester in public.
All this might have been survivable in the old era, after the nomination was secured and the "politics" evaporated. But new media magnifies and extends all the dark charges and bad odor. We are all marinating in it. It sticks. Republicans seem to think these primaries are a family fight. But independents, now perhaps 40% of the electorate, are also in the stinky marinade. The ABC-Washington Post poll just recorded Mr. Romney's unfavorable number rising 15 points in two weeks. It now matches Newt's awful unfavorables.
This isn't a complaint. It's the way it is. Large swaths of life are on a magical mystery tour through the new electronic universe—musicians, Hollywood studios, parents of adolescents. Presidential politics is along for the ride. But there's a new rule: No roadmaps allowed.
Ron Paul, the GOP's Mad Max, has figured out the new reality. They keep demanding to know if he'll go third party. Dr. Paul smiles. He doesn't need to go third party. He's already running a third party inside the Republican Party.
Maybe the insurgents are right. Maybe tumult is always healthy. Still, an ancient thought: Madison was right about faction, and new media, if nothing else, is dissolving everything into . . . faction. A Republican nominee will face the large task of picking up these pieces and reuniting the party. Everyone says the desire to defeat the man called "Obama" will take care of that. You think so?
A basic reality of MAD was that once you launched a nuclear missile, you couldn't call it back. Come the morning after Nov. 6, 2012, the Republicans may be asking, What happened?