Will Delaware Decide If Gingrich Stays In The Race?

Newt Gingrich has said that he’s taking his campaign all the way to the convention but that may not be entirely true:

WILMINGTON, Del. — The future of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign seems to hinge on the Delaware primary early next week.

“Tuesday is a big day,” a source close to the Gingrich campaign told NBC News. “Newt is just waiting to see what happens on Tuesday.”

Up until now, Gingrich has promised to take his campaign all the way to the Republican convention in Tampa at the end of the summer, although the odds are not in his favor.

The former House speaker has been spending the majority of his time the past three weeks in the First State. Gingrich has made at least 12 campaign stops in Delaware thus far while the presumptive GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, has held just one event there.4

Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond said they are “optimistic” about the results in the state.

“Because Delaware is a small state it has allowed us to campaign effectively,” Hammond said.

“We are looking for a bounce from Delaware and, with a good showing in the state, we will spend a lot of time on the phone with donors.”

None of this really matters, of course, but there is a certain voyeuristic quality to watching Gingrich flail about at this point. Just yesterday, his campaign revealed that it had racked up another $4,000,000 in debt in March alone. Then a trip to North Carolina was canceled at the last minute only to be put back on the schedule a few hours later. Clearly, none of these people have any idea what they’re doing.

The idea that Gingrich might actually win in Delaware seems absurd, but we must always remember that state has a history of doing odd things in Republican primaries.

The exit question, of course, is whether Gingrich realizes the extent to which he has become a complete political joke.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. OzarkHillbilly says:

    The exit question, of course, is whether Gingrich realizes the extent to which he has become a complete political joke.

    Hasn’t he been a complete political joke since he left Congress in disgrace? And isn’t the real political joke here the fact that he remains a major player in GOP politics? (and before you say he isn’t, he did win 2 primaries, and more than a few think he is Obama’s intellectual equivalent)

  2. al-Ameda says:

    That’s a good picture for the Caption This Picture Contest.

    My nomination: “Hey, I had nothing to do with this … not my fault.”

  3. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Will Delaware Decide If Gingrich Stays In The Race?

    Isn’t that sort of like asking whether a round trip to Antarctica will decide whether Eastern Airlines remains a viable company?

  4. Manuel Little says:

    A joke is only funny to those who share the premises. Gingrich is a politician with excellent ideas, and we should respect him for serving our country in the best way he knows how. Or, are you agreeing that the US Presidency should go to the highest bidder? The biggest joke is Obama.

  5. grumpy realist says:

    @Manuel Little: well, I guess this proves what has always been said: that Gingrich is what a dumb person’s idea of an intellectual is.

    Excellent ideas? I have to laugh.