ON A day that was not kind to Newt Gingrich, he travelled to a place he hopes will help get him back in the saddle next month: Ohio.
Defeated in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and Missouri primary, Mr Gingrich is campaigning for two days across Ohio, which does not vote until Super Tuesday – March 6th – but is a place he feels he can win. A strong showing in this state, with its 66 delegates, would help him claw back from disappointing showings in Florida and Nevada and play into his strategy of trying to regain momentum in conservative southern states and working-class battlegrounds that hold contests on Super Tuesday or later.
At a Tuesday morning speech at a chilli restaurant in Cincinnati, Mr Gingrich suggested he might even be leading the race here, though it is far from clear where he actually stands against Mitt Romney, particularly since the contest is so far off. “We need your help to make it a bigger margin,” he told the crowd of about 200.
Then in Dayton he made a pocketbook appeal to hundreds of people who packed in, standing-room only, at a meeting hall. Noting that opponents had mocked him for proposing to colonise the moon, he suggested that his lunar gambit would be a lucrative shot in the arm for a region where aerospace remains a dominant industry. Square in his sights were the more than 200,000 scientists, engineers, mechanics, assemblers and aerospace workers who live (and vote) in and around Cincinnati and Dayton.
The debate over space, he said, is about “whether or not the bold, visionary, exciting, job-creating future that secures our national security” is “the right path for a strong, prosperous America.”
He added: “And this is the right town to have that discussion.”
He used his lampooning by the troupe of Saturday Night Live over his moon-colony proposal to start his talk – “funny show” – and offered one of his favoured chestnuts about US entrepreneurial resilience, the story of the Wright brothers, who lived in Dayton. Then he toured Hawthorn Hill, home of Orville Wright.
His local-economics approach worked with Brenda Newman, who waited in line for two hours to attend the rally with her husband, Rickey, who was laid off seven months ago. “He’s going to work for us and give us hope,” she said of Mr Gingrich. But whether his late-in-the-race strategy will succeed for his campaign is an open question. The campaign’s plan is to hold out until he can make his appeal on more favourable turf, particularly when more red-meat southern voters who view Mr Romney’s social policy positions with greater scepticism become a larger segment of the voting.
“We’re getting out of Mitt Romney’s comfort zone,” both on the issues as well as geographically, said Mr Gingrich’s spokesman, RC Hammond.
Mr Gingrich can take some hope in a few early southern-state polls as well as in his performance in South Carolina and the Florida Panhandle, the conservative part of the state, where he won all but a handful of counties despite being soundly defeated by Mr Romney in the statewide tally. His campaign is looking forward to Super Tuesday contests in places like Georgia and Oklahoma, and later in Texas. But to make it through those races – and do well in Ohio – he needs money, another category in which he is trailing not only Mr Romney but also Rep Ron Paul of Texas. Nationally “there is a feeling of inevitability about Romney”, said one senior Republican official in this state. “But Ohio is wide open, and I think any of the top four candidates could come in here and sneak away with a handful of delegates.”
Crucial for Mr Gingrich, this official said, is how much help he will be able to get in Ohio from his super PAC. "I think it all comes down to resources." – ( The New York Times)