In 1990, when Rick Santorum was a political novice running a long-shot bid for Congress, he would drive around western Pennsylvania listening to the political preachings and teachings of a leader he barely knew, a congressman from Georgia named Newt Gingrich.
That fall, in an otherwise dispiriting midterm election for the GOP, Santorum shocked a seven-term Democratic incumbent in a campaign that became a model for Republicans over the next two cycles.
Vote by precious vote, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney battled improbably to a virtual draw in Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses early Wednesday, the opening round in the race to pick a challenger to President Obama. (Jan. 4)
Difference in raw votes between Romney and Santorum
Four years later, Gingrich used the same strategy to engineer a 54-seat pickup in the House and give Republicans their first House majority in 40 years.
For movement conservatives anxious about Mitt Romney’s conservative credentials and still hoping to put one of their own in the Oval Office, the choice is an increasingly simple one: Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, two close friends from the original Republican revolution.
Gingrich and Santorum were central players in what has come to be known as the Gingrich revolution, and both are using the same confrontational tactics in the current campaign for president, hoping to appeal to conservatives hungry for an alternative to Romney. A few weeks ago, Gingrich was viewed as the greatest threat on Romney’s right flank, but his standing wilted under a barrage of negative advertising. Santorum came from nowhere in Iowa to finish in a virtual tie with Romney on Tuesday, setting himself up as the latest option for the anti-Romney bloc.
As attention shifts to New Hampshire, the question is whether Santorum and Gingrich’s long friendship will help or harm each of them going forward. Will they train their fire on each other or combine their attacks on Romney?
Their fortunes have already been closely linked. One key factor in Santorum’s rise in Iowa was Gingrich’s implosion amid the flurry of negative ads from allies of front-runner Romney. Many of the most conservative voters fled the former speaker into the arms of Santorum, leaving Gingrich in a disappointing fourth place in Tuesday’s caucuses. Still, their combined totals outpaced the number of votes Romney received.
As the campaign heads into more complicated terrain, the teacher-pupil relationship could be tested and fray. Or they may decide, as in the past, to join forces to make an ideological point.
The fading Gingrich this week branded Romney “a liar.” If Gingrich chooses to play the role of conservative pit bull, that could allow Santorum to stay above the fray and consolidate conservative voters while appearing to be the most positive of the candidates.
Perhaps foreshadowing such an effort, Gingrich’s concession speech Tuesday night offered laurels for Santorum while casting a thinly veiled jab at Romney. “I want to take just a minute and congratulate a good friend of ours, Rick Santorum,” Gingrich said. “He waged a great, positive campaign. And I admire the courage and the way he focused, and I admire how positive he was. I wish I could say that for all candidates.”
For both men, this campaign has been a political revival. Both were left for dead politically long ago because their aggressive styles eventually wore thin. Both were ousted from Congress.
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