The Power of Winning

Dick Morris has it mostly right in his Nov. 14 column warning Rudy and the world that he “might be in trouble without an Iowa win.”

While I’m not sure which of the GOP wannabes I’ll end up supporting, Mitt Romney has been going after the nomination in the old-fashioned way and, as a result, I’ve been arguing for some time that he is the ONLY one who might be able to blow away his opponents early by sweeping the early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina.

If he accomplishes this (and I’d be the first to admit that he could fail and break the streak), the Giuliani lead in the big states that follow will prove meaningless. In fact, if he manages to win these early contests, he could blow everyone away fairly quickly. None of the other candidates is in a position to do anything like this, and that’s why I think Romney — nationwide polls to the contrary — is the candidate the others have to stop if they really want the nomination.

It is historically true that the winner in Iowa or even New Hampshire doesn’t always win his party’s nomination. The momentum generated by wins in these early contests can be broken by the candidate himself or because the bump from a win can dissipate before the next one. The problem this year is that there’s no time between the contests for the momentum to dissipate, and this alone makes anyone who can win early a real threat to the rest of the field.

Those who point to national polls ignore history, and while history isn’t an infallible guide, it is unwise to ignore its lessons. History tells us that we should be wary of a static interpretation of poll data during the nomination process because the outcome in every contest affects the next.

A case in point: I was in charge of Ronald Reagan’s 1976 Florida primary campaign against then-President Gerald Ford. Reagan lost to Ford in New Hampshire by something like 900 votes, and within three days our polls showed him losing the lead and 18 points in Florida. There was enough time between New Hampshire and Florida to allow us to make up about half of what New Hampshire cost us, but it was those 900 votes that doomed us there.

If we had simply looked at the poll results in the two states earlier and said, Well, New Hampshire may be close, or we may lose it, but we’ll be fine in Florida, we’d have been fooling ourselves. And that may be what Rudy’s forces are doing right now.

Morris seems, however, to believe that only Rudy stands a chance against Hillary Clinton next fall. I’m not at all sure that’s true. It’s usually foolish to decide early that a candidate, if nominated, will be a “sure loser,” because winning itself can transform a loser into a winner.

Keene is chairman of The American Conservative Union, whose website can be accessed here.