If your name is Mitt Romney and you are running for president, this is nothing but bad news from the Associated Press:
Conservative stalwart Newt Gingrich has done nothing to lay the foundation for a presidential run except talk - yet he ranks third among Republicans in most national polls.
"We need to stand decisively for the values and principles of the future of the American people," the former House speaker from Georgia declared Saturday to GOP activists who gave him a celebrity's welcome at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
Over the past few weeks, at least four polls have put Gingrich behind only former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Ex-Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts came in fourth. The ranking reflects Gingrich's status among the party's right wing as well as the Republican base's discontent with Giuliani, McCain and Romney.
Unlike Gingrich, the three are actively campaigning for the nomination and are considered the party's strongest contenders so far. Conservatives, however, are wary because they don't trust that any of the three will sincerely champion their causes.
"A lot of Republicans are still searching," Wendy Nanney, chairwoman of the GOP in Greenville County, S.C., said recently. Her counterpart in Iowa's Henry County, Robin Malmberg, agreed, and said: "Gingrich may be one that people can rally around."
Gingrich says he won't make a decision about the presidential race until September.
"If no one in the existing field has staked a strong claim on conservative voters by next fall, a Gingrich candidacy would turn the entire field upside down three or four times over," said Dan Schnur, a GOP strategist in California who is neutral in the race. "If he does decide to run, conservatives will have been taking a look at this field for almost a year and not found anyone with whom they're comfortable," Schnur added.
Gingrich's third-place position despite his non-candidacy is not just bad news for Romney, who trails him, but for all of the other candidates in the race, even for Giuliani and McCain who lead him. It suggests even they might be vulnerable to a late Gingrich entry as it would mean they hadn't locked up the conservative base either.
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