Gingrich adaptability

“Some Democratic strategists worry about Gingrich’s potential appeal

By Peter Wallsten and Anne E. Kornblut, Published: December 4

Newt Gingrich would be such a weak challenger to President Obama, according to Rep. Barney Frank, that his nomination would be “the best thing to happen to Democrats since Barry Goldwater.”

Democratic strategist Jim Jordan says he and others in the party “passionately” want to face Gingrich. And from the right, conservative pundit Ann Coulter is warning fellow Republicans that the former House speaker’s past extramarital affairs and other baggage make him a far less formidable nominee than Mitt Romney.

But even as Gingrich’s sudden rise has filled many Obama supporters with cheer and some Republicans with dread, some Democratic strategists worry that the combative Gingrich presents some challenges for the Obama campaign that would not exist if Romney were the GOPcandidate.

Where Romney, the former business executive and Massachusetts governor, poses a threat in his ability to win independents and conservative Democrats attracted to his image as an economic Mr. Fix-It, Gingrich could pursue a strategy that combines energizing the conservative base and chipping away Democratic support among Hispanics — an electoral formula that helped George W. Bush win in 2004.

Some Democrats believe that Gingrich, a hero of the conservative movement, would excite the party base more than a former liberal-state governor with a history of centrist views. And voters yearning for authenticity may be more open to the voluble and rumpled former House speaker, who frequently discusses his past mistakes and his recent conversion to Catholicism, than to a former ­equity-fund executive with perfect salt-and-pepper hair.

“He does not carry Wall Street baggage,” said one Democratic strategist working on the Obama reelection effort, speaking on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss his thinking. “He’s really smart. He’s definitely authentic.”

Perhaps most significantly, Gingrich has an extensive Hispanic outreach organization, which he has been building for years. Unlike anything in the Romney playbook, that network could give Gingrich a head start slicing into Obama’s base in key states in the Mountain West, where Hispanics are a fast-growing swing voting bloc. Polls show Hispanic voters, two-thirds of whom backed Obama in 2008, still favor the president — but GOP strategists believe that winning 40 percent of that vote could disrupt Obama’selectoral college strategy by putting Colorado, Arizona and Nevada in the Republican column.

Gingrich is distributing a weekly Spanish-language newsletter to Hispanic voters (the subject line is “Newt con nosotros,” or “Newt with us”), holding a monthly call with community leaders, even studying Spanish and using it in appearances on Univision, the Spanish-language network.

As Romney has run hard to the right on immigration, running the risk of alienating Hispanic voters, Gingrich has pursued a more centrist course. He has expressed support for legalizing some immigrants with deep ties to the United States, a position that Romney has derided as “amnesty.””