Why the charges are bouncing off Newt

Jonah Goldberg:

Newtzilla is back. 

Six weeks ago, during the last Newt Gingrich surge, I wrote here that “conventional weapons are useless against Newtzilla. . . Everything bad about Gingrich — the flip-flops, the wives, the ego — is known. Once voters have convinced themselves they can overlook that stuff, it’s hard to change their minds simply by repeating it.” 

For a while, it looked like the relentless artillery fire from Mitt Romney’s “super PAC” had felled the gray-maned leviathan in the cornfields of Iowa. But as anyone who has studied the oeuvre of Toho Studios (makers of more than 25 Godzilla films) knows, this is what usually happens to the heroic creature in the second act. 

Godzilla always seems to be vanquished by King Ghidorah (aka Monster Zero) or some other nemesis, only to come back at the end, his atomic breath destroying all who stand in his way.

Newtzilla is a different kind ofkaiju (Japanese for “strange beast” or “giant monster”) but not that different. Like Godzilla, he has remarkable healing powers, allowing him to recover from charges that he wanted an open marriage and that he parasitically fed on Freddie Mac. 

His own version of atomic breath is quite formidable. Just ask CNN’s John King and Fox News’ Juan Williams. He draws power from the popular resentment of the GOP establishment that he has been part of for decades and the widespread burning desire to make the press corps — conservative media included — march around the public square in dunce caps. 

That the GOP elite is desperately trying to stop him only makes his support grow. 

For most of the primary season, Gingrich insisted voters should support him because he’s a great debater and can defeat President Obama by challenging him to three seven-hour debates — or is that seven three-hour debates? It was tactically smart but also a bit silly. Obama can always decline. Also, beating a president in a debate doesn’t automatically translate into beating him in the Electoral College. 

Newt’s changed the argument. “People actually misunderstand what’s going on,” he explained Saturday night after his South Carolina win. “It’s not that I am a good debater. It is that I know how to articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people.” 

That’s the great thing about Gingrich: He can make describing himself as the divine manifestation of the vox populi sound self-deprecating. Still, he’s basically right. He’s managed to transform into a spokesman for all of the rank and file’s frustrations, insecurities and grievances as well as their hopes and ideals.

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The negative campaign is not working this time just as it failed Newt with his Bain attacks on Romney.  While the charges are more substantial, they are bouncing off Newt the way they bounced off Reagan when presented with a stark choice of supporting conservatism or liberalism.  Romney is going to need a positive message or Newt is going to be the nominee.