My thoughts on the mudslingers are that it is them who have a lack of integrity. The idea of taking a tiny excerpt, manipulating it, editing it so you only hear what he wants you to hear, and showing it out of context  is down right dis-honest.   It amounts to a blatant lie.  They are relying on their stature as a public official to make it believable and therefore convince us that they are the better candidate.

I saw one the other day where a mudslinger took 4 words from a press conference being held by a candidate and repeated those 4 words 5 times during the commercial.  The commercial was edited so that you never even hear the candidate say what the issue was that was being discussed.  The mudslinger was the one who told us what was being discussed.  Now how do we know that those 4 words were even said in the conversation the mudslinger says it was.  The candidate could have been talking about the sunrise that morning or what kind of car her drives. But….we’ll never know that because the mudslinger used those words to mean only what he wanted them to.  Now THAT weighs heaving into my voting choice.

As the voting public, it is our responsibility to know and understand both the process and the issues.  Truth be told, that is nearly impossible unless you can quit your job and spend 40 hours a week  studying these things.  In some ways, we have to rely on some commercials to tell us how someone voted on issues that are important to us.  BUT, we can be a little smarter about what commercials we lend validity to.  So, I’m not asking you to ignore the mudslinging commercials, I’m asking you to scrutinize them.  Really look at the editing, the context , the content, and devious hidden agendas.  The deceitful practices to get elected are only a preview to the practices after taking office.  So if you see mudslinging commercials, you can be sure if they will employ these self-serving tactics to get elected, they will employ these self-serving tactics to get what they want after elected.

Thats my opinion…..

Gorilla-Gate: negative stickers and posters such as this one, adapting the Slovak official coat of arms in a Gorilla fashion, have flourished all over the country.

By almost pure chance, 2012 is a year in which all three countries I am linked to will be voting in a general/presidential election. And as you readers have probably have read enough this week of French cheese and US giant burgers, I guess it’s time to have halusky for dessert, as Slovakia gets ready for its own general election this Saturday, March 10.

If I talked about chance (or bad luck for some), it is because the election was not expected this year. In fact, the last Slovak general elections were held just two years ago, and they produced a fragile but effective ruling coalition made of four centre-right parties (two Christian democrats, SDKU-DS and KDH; one new generation Central European right-wing Freedom and Solidarity – SaS; and one Hungarian-Slovak party named Most–Híd, ‘bridge’ in Slovak and Hungarian) and led by Christian Democrat Prime Minister Iveta Radičová. Because of the Greek crisis, this coalition exploded last autumn, when the Christian Democratic wing of the coalition decided to support the bailout for Greece (which was supposed to be the last by then) while SaS opposed it. The result was that the bailout was rejected once by the parliament  (which provoked a crisis at the European level), the government fell as the EFSF had been tied with a confidence vote, and all this pushed Iveta Radičová to call for early elections in exchange of the opposition’s support for the bailout in a second vote. In the end, the bailout was approved, Greece was “saved” (for a few months), and the anticipated elections are still on, with a conclusion expected on Saturday (at least in terms of the campaign).

With such a background, you would have expected this Slovak election to be all about the European Union, public finances and the economy, and all actors prepared for it to be the case. During the pre-campaign, the contest itself looked like it was going to be a fight between the two heavyweights of Slovak politics, the center-left opposition leader of Smer-SD Robert Fico and Foreign Affairs Minister (and, like Fico, also former Prime Minister) Mikuláš Dzurinda, leading the centre-right main party SDKU-DS. But the thing is: politics do not always turn out as expected. Instead of this high debate and two-man fight, the campaign went to a completely different direction in December and January, when the Gorilla scandal burst into the national scene.

“Gorilla” is the codename given to a wiretapping operation allegedly conducted by the Slovak secret service in 2005-06 (i.e. during MikulášDzurinda’s second tenure in office). It basically consisted in taping conversations in “safe appartments” in Bratislava and the Tatras Mountains between high profile politicians and members of the “business” sector (including foreign ones, but also most infamously representatives of group Penta, one of Slovakia’s biggest private equity firm, but which is also suspected of illegally financing Slovak political life). The “Gorilla files”, as they are known, tended to show the murky links between business and politics, with allegations that multi-million Euros bribes were paid to senior government officials to win various public-procurement and privatization contracts.

Mysteriously posted online by an anonymous source, the Gorilla almost immediately became a big story in the national media. The story was big, and so it exploded into the face of Slovak politicians with a force that totally changed the face of these elections. While pundits were expecting a difficult but serious debate between parties, the scandal mobilized public opinion and made the political atmosphere almost unbreathable, as every day was marked by a new release of a secret taping with a new politician and as mudslinging became daily routine.

The scandal concerns every party who was in the circuit at the time, from left to right (that includes opposition Smer-SD as well as SDKU-DS, or KDH). But public reaction was totally different depending on which parties were touched: for example, the Gorilla files show that Dzurinda never set a foot in the “safe appartments”, while transcripts suggest that Social-Democrat leader Robert Fico was present in at least one of these meetings. However, because Dzurinda and SDKU were in power at the time, and may be also because their initial reaction was one of outright denial, most of the blame has been put on the shoulders of the present leader of the coalition, while Smer kept its positions. And so while the centre-left party is set to record a historic, near-40% win which could give Smer-SD an absolute majority in the Slovak parliament, things have gone from bad to worse for SDKU, as they have plunged in opinion polls and are now credited with around 4.7-4.9 % of the votes, so less than the threshold needed for a representation in parliament (they were at more than 15% last time).

"Red or Blue?": this question is asked by SDKU in its latest billdoard... It looks like it's going to be red, this time.

Despite a very organized and effective campaign (at least by Slovak standards),  SDKU is facing the prospect of parliamentary extinction, although it is also true that opinion polls always tend to underestimate the electoral potential of the coalition leader. If SDKU’s defeat was to be confirmed by Saturday’s vote, it would be a terrible end for Mikuláš Dzurinda, the man who led Slovakia at a turning point in its history and transformed it from the black hole of Central Europe it was right after the fall of the semi-authoritarian system of the Vladimir Mečiar years to the dynamic European economy it has been since his tenure in office. As Prime Minister, Dzurinda was bold enough to introduce a flat-tax system andto make the country and “investor’s paradise” (according to Steve Forbes) and the “car factory of Europe” in just a few years. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Slovakia became a member of, NATO and the EU, and became the most dynamic country in the region, with economic growth then at 6%. However, despite these incredible accomplishments, Slovaks have never fallen in love with Dzurinda for many different reasons (the perceived cost of this dynamism, the social difficulties many Slovaks still face despite the modernization of the country, scandals as well as a Dzurinda-fatigue), and his credibility ratings have fallen to abysmal levels. It looks like this time, Mr. Dzurinda will pay a heavy price for his unpopularity, and the relative or absolute decline of SDKU will pose the question of leadership and structure of the Slovak centre-right in the immediate future.

At some point, it may have looked like newcomer, new generation right-wing party SaS party may actually benefit from SDKU’s difficulties, as Freedom and Solidarity was left untouched by the Gorilla scandal (as it didn’t exist at the time). But the latest “Sasanka” scandals, describing the relationship between the party chairman, Richard Sulík, and controversial businessman Marián Kočner, have also tainted SaS who is now credited with a weak 6.2% of the vote, while Most-Hídremains stable at 5-6%. The ”winner” on the centre-right may then be Jan Figel’s Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), who may benefit from his leader’s seriousness and the Eliot Ness-like image of Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic, as it is expected to record a record 12-13% of votes on Saturday.

The future therefore seems difficult for the Slovak centre right, as they seem bent to be kicked out of power by the electorate. With Dzurinda in great trouble (but you never know in politics,…), the question of the future of the Slovak centre-right is posed, as the model that has lasted for the past few years is crumbling. Shall it reconstruct themselves around two or three nucleuses, with a Hungaro-Slovak party remaining alongside a Central European New Right nucleus (represented by SaS or the “Ordinary Slovaks” list which may get represented in Parliament) and a Christian Democratic wing with KDH and SDKU? Should it merge into a single coalition? Who should be its leader? How can they organize better to win the communication battle?

That makes a lot of questions, and do not expect the anticipated future Prime Minister Robert Fico to make things any easier for the Slovak right. Mr. Fico is a very good tactician (even a ruthless one, as he didn’t hesitate to ally himself with the Slovak extreme-right in order to become Prime Minister, a move that surprisingly didn’t get much publicity among his Centre-Left friends in Europe, usually so prompt to give morality lectures to their counterparts), and you can expect him to play the game of divide and conquer inside the center right. Rumors have already circulated that he may well invite KDH and/or Most to be a junior partner in a ruling coalition whatever the results, and this would most probably give a blow to prospects for unity within the Slovak Christian-Democratic movement. You never know what the future holds in politics, but it goes look that some very tough times await the Slovak Center-Right.

The latest Robert Half survey queried 400 American workers between December 2011 and January of this year and found that 41 percent believe involvement in office politcis is “somewhat necessary” to get ahead, while 15 percent said political involvement at work is “very necessary” to one’s career success.

Interestingly, 42 percent of those surveyed said they believed participating in office politics is “not at all necessary” to advancing one’s career. They might want to think again given the competitive landscape for financial services professionals these days.

Semantics could be at fault: Mingling the concepts of work and personal politics may leave some professionals with a bad taste in their mouths.

Still, it is clear that all of the savviest professionals have learned a thing or two about workplace diplomacy, says Robert Half Chairman and CEO Max Messmer. “They remain attuned to political undercurrents but don’t allow themselves to get pulled into situations that could compromise their working relationships or reputation,” he says.

Whereas some might consider banks and financial services boutiques to be more steeped in politics than other organizations, that’s not necessarily the case, says Steve Saah, a Robert Half director of permanent placement services based in Washington, D.C., who focuses on placing accounting and finance professionals.

“The reality is that politics exist in all organizations, and that’s not necessarily a negative thing,” says Saah. “The biggest thing is to avoid those situations that can negatively effect your career.”

Here are some tips on how to stay out of nasty office politics:

1. If you’ve made a significant on-the-job achievement, don’t take all the credit for yourself. “If your team recognizes you’re the type of person that will share credit for the work your team has done when approproate, it will bode well for your reputation and perception,” says Saah—not only among members of your team but those above you as well.
2. Watch out for certain personality types on the job. Every company has its share of what Saah likes to call “covert operators” who use manipulation and personal information about others to get ahead.
3. Be cautious of a colleague who tends to be critical of others and eager to take credit for what others have done, and keep your guard up around him or her. Also look out for those within your organization who are closely alligned with leadership, serving as their eyes and ears. That’s someone who may serve as an advocate for you if you develop a good rapour with him or her.
4. Don’t overlook lower-level colleagues. Even if you want to impress the power players, don’t overlook those still at the grassroots level. You never know whose vote of confidence could come in handy in the future.
5. Don’t participate in mudslinging. It is is a sure way to damage your own credibility.
6. Dodge conversations about religion and politics. This is a big election year, so casual chit-chat will inevitably veer toward the polarizing topic of government politics. Proceed with caution or (politely) bow out completely.

Photo by: Cartoonstock.com

Very rarely, some candidates refuse to participate in the political mudslinging. For example, Ronald Reagan employed “The Eleventh Commandment” in his 1966 campaign for the Governor of California. The Commandment reads: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”.

Most candidates still resort to the lowly bashing.  A prime example was Thursday, January 26th 2012, in Jacksonville Florida, in the final campaign debate in the area between Romney and Gingrich, where they verbally attacked each other’s motives and morals.

Photo By: Google Images

Romney pounced when the topic turned to Gingrich’s proposal for a permanent American colony on the moon — an issue of particular interest to engineers and others who live on Florida’s famed Space Coast.  A career businessman before he became a politician, Romney said: “If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired.’”  The audience erupted in cheers….

Later, in the same debate, Gingrich raised questions about Romney’s wealth and his investments. “I don’t know of any American president who’s had a Swiss bank account,” Gingrich said.

Political mudslinging has been around since the beginning. It’s human nature to want to show your opponent’s flaws as means to make yourself look better.

During the Johnson vs. Goldwater 1964 Presidential Race, in what turned out to be a landslide victory for Johnson, the campaign was punctuated by perhaps the single most infamous ad in modern campaign history—known as “Daisy Girl.”  It is “the Mother of all televised attack ads.” The spot played off Goldwater’s “trigger-happy” image, showing the detonation of an atomic bomb following a countdown as a young girl plucked petals off a daisy. The ad only aired once, but has been replayed on the Internet countless times.

Photo by: Google Images

To watch Johnson’s ad click here.

Perhaps the earliest knowing political mudslinging was in 1828 in the Presidential Race between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

President John Quincy Adams was challenged by “Old Hickory,” war hero Andrew Jackson. The interests backing the incumbent Adams went all out to discredit Jackson. Newspaper columns, leaflets, and handbills called Jackson’s mother a prostitute who birthed Jackson by a mulatto father. Jackson’s wife was tagged a bigamist, and Jackson himself a murderer. Opponents even went after Jackson’s military exploits in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.
Accounts at the time say that Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was so upset by the tenor of the campaign that she died of a heart attack before she could see her husband inaugurated.  This campaign is perhaps the dirtiest in American history.

Political candidates, the people who will be running our country, are supposed to set good examples for American citizens  that mirror the good morals our country is supposed to show the world. When candidates slander each other and show bad behavior, that is only proving to the rest of the world that America’s character is no better than anyone else’s!  I believe that this kind of behavior is disgusting and should not be engaged in.  Healthy and civil debates are possible!

Photo by: John Hambrock

Now, I know I promised you all an in-depth breakdown of all 24 of the Republican candidates, but that proved to be a nigh impossible task, my friends. It seemed every week another one went down in a cloud of smoke and political slander. Candidates rose and fell with the tide, and it was all the mainstream media could do to keep up with them.

So, I decided to take another tack. I’m not going to explain who the candidates are or were, for surely some of them we won’t even remember mid-year (“Herman who?”). I’m going to talk about the dirt that buries them all at one point or another: the attack ad.

It might surprise you, dear reader, to learn that attack ads and attack campaigns are nothing new in American politics. Then again, it might not.

Since the race for 2012 began, attempts at character assassination have plagued every potential candidate. Women came out of the woodwork to accuse Herman Cain of sexual harassment. Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion has been scrutinized, questioning whether he would put his country before his beliefs (though the right-wing Republicans usually prefer an equal sprinkling of both, as long as it’s the right religion). And these are the accusations coming from inside the party. Let’s not even touch the mud thrown toward the other side of the room.

Of course, character assassination has existed just as long as the political party system has been a fixture in this great nation. That is to say, it’s been here from the beginning. It might be interesting to note that President George Washington, the only president not to belong to a political party, warned against the formation of political parties in his farewell address:

“In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings [sic] which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.”

In a nutshell: Parties make stuff up to divide people where there should be no division. We are all Americans, and we should all be working toward the same goals.

As has happened with all great leaders, no one listened to him.

Character assassination has always had a few favorite themes, namely infidelity, disloyalty to God and country, and disconnection from the people. But often, it has adapted itself to the values of the times. Throughout the 200-plus years of this great nation, candidates have been accused of being loyal toEnglandor the Pope. They have been called communist and even (gasp!) a flip-flopper. Candidates are too common or too rich, depending on who the target audience is. The list goes on and on, and it started with the very first presidential race.

In the 1800 election, theJeffersoncamp started the rumor that John Adams wanted to marry his son off to the daughter of King George III in order to infuse royal blood into American government. Of course, any association with the recently oustedGreat Britainwas a no-no, which made this accusation scathing.

Not as scathing, apparently, was the rebuttal from Adams supporters, who called Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by aVirginiamulatto father.” Though being associated with Native Americans and African Americans was bad, being associated with the enemyGreat Britainwas worse.

Being associated with the Catholic Church was also a political black eye, even before the days of President Kennedy. In the election of 1884, a Protestant minister denounced the entire Democratic Party as papists, coining the ever-popular Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion slogan. (Drinking has always been frowned upon by our ever-Puritan society.)

And of course, it’s always bad to be a Communist. In 1934, Upton Sinclair ran for the governor’s office in California. The opposition news reels jumped on his socialist leanings, casting his followers as Reds with comical Russian accents. He lost the race.

Linking candidates to hated nations or dogmas is a very common weapon in the arsenal, of course. I’m not even going to go into the Republicans’ desperate attempts to link Obama to Islam. We all know what lies down that road.

Now we turn on the television and hear Newt Gingrich accusing Mitt Romney of elitism because he speaks French. God knows theUSandFrancehave always had their minor differences of opinion, though we have been the strongest of allies since the Revolution. And, God forbid, a president be somewhat worldly in this unquestionably global world.

So when exasperation overcomes you as you watch these political debates unfold, you can throw up your hands in the air and ask “When did politics get this ugly?” Just know that American politics was an ugly baby in the seventeenth century and it never truly grew into its features. It’s still ugly today.

Sources:

Mitt Romney has admitted the obvious- that he put his foot in his mouth the other day by using words to explain that his focus was on the plight of the middle class which could be taken out of context to imply that he didn’t care about poor people.

Which has not, of course, stopped the Left from continuing to take them out of context. Paul Krugman’s questionable opinions as to the efficacy of Romney’s economic program for the poor do not constitute evidence that the likely Republican nominee is a heartless, uncaring Scrooge. Even if one accepts every one of Krugman’s arguments at face value, they would prove only that Romney’s economic prescriptions don’t work, not that he’s a lousy human being.

Krugman’s article- and we will see far more like it in coming months- is a very fine example of the kind of demonization of the opposition which has divided our nation so badly as to threaten the very viability of our democracy. Shame on you, Mr. K.

HT: Real Clear Politics

The morning after his victory in the Florida primary, Mitt Romney said the following:

“I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them. We will hear from the Democratic party the plight of the poor, and there’s no question it’s not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. But my campaign is focused on middle-income Americans. My campaign — you can choose on where to focus. You can focus on the rich — that’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus. …We have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether it has holes in it. We have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor…”

From this, the liberal media, the Democrats,  Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have dishonestly selected out the words, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” and reacted as if that was the substance of his comment, rather than the way in which the middle class has been neglected.

And Gingrich questions Romney’s honesty?

As for the lefties… well, what you you expect? You’ll be hearing this carefully-edited half sentence in ads this Fall (along with “Corporations are people, my friend” (out of the context of explaining that “corporations” represent the 401ks of ordinary citizens) over and over again.

But I doubt that anybody will address the substance of Romney’s point. He’s not saying that he’d neglect the very poor; he’s saying that it’s the middle class who have been left out in the cold, and that it’s time that we address that fact.

HT: Drudge

Make no mistake, this win in Florida is huge: for the first time, Romney was confronted to adversity. And faced with Gingrich’s challenge, Romney was not found wanting. He did not panic, and for the first time it really appeared that the reaction he imposed on himself during the past ten days of campaigning in the Sunshine State made him really stronger, much stronger in fact than he appeared just two weeks ago.

This win is also important because Florida is the first highly significant state in the primary. While Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina were important because they were first, Florida is the first important state of the race. The Sunshine state is the fourth biggest state in the union, both in demographic and economic terms (it drew more voters than the first three contests combined). It has a very diverse population reflective of the diversity of the nation, from the rednecks of the Panhandle to the affluent, urban multicultural elites of Miami (without forgetting the different latino communities, born again-christians, etc.). And last but not least, it is one of the most important swing states in the country, one of those that define the general election in November (since 1964, the choice of Florida has always been that of the country, and in very tight races it has regularly been one of the decisive, if not the decisive state of the whole race). By earning himself a strong win yesterday (with 46.4 % of the vote, that is almost 15 points above his rival), with a big support from swing communities that may well decide the election this autumn (he got no less than 54 % of the Hispanic vote, against 29% for Gingrich), Mitt Romney has put his campaign fully back on the good tracks for the nomination. With 50 new delegates in the bag for the convention (Florida was a winner-take-all contest, which reinforced the stakes of the race), the frontrunner is now clearly back in the driving seat, and he can look forward to the February primaries with some confidence, as most of them are likely to strengthen his position: this month’s races are taking us to Maine in the North East (where Romney almost plays on home turf), Minnesota and Michigan in the Midwest (both are considered as moderate, the first is home of Romney’s strong ally Tim Pawlenty, the second had Romney’s father as governor in the 1960s), and Nevada, Colorado and Arizona in the West (the first has a strong mormon community, while Colorado and Arizona have good chances to give him a clear majority as he got the support of the two heavyweights of these states, namely Gov. Bill Owens and Sen. John McCain).

Victory in Florida came at a price, however. I am not talking here about the impressive grassroots, Get Out The Vote effort that was instrumental in giving Romney the commanding lead he got on election day (the price of that was paid by Romney’s effective fundraising machine, and the efforts will certainly prove useful during the general election this autumn). Nor am I talking about Romney’s new assertiveness, which took just a slight change in strategy to take. No, the real price was the barrage of negative campaigning that was aired on Floridian TVs in the past few days. As I said in one of my previous articles (in French), negative campaigning is a part of the whole campaign process, and a useful one. But when there is too much focus on it, things can degenerate quickly: if you have a look at the final week of the campaign in the Sunshine State, negative ads accounted for 92 percent of all campaign commercials that were aired during the final week of the race. That is a huge number, and you can be sure that the content was of the kind you don’t want to hear when you prepare a family reunion…

Let’s not play on words: this past week has been brutal. And while Romney needed it to be brutal, while Gingrich is once again going down, this souring of the whole process campaign has two consequences: first, it uncovers new elements for negative campaigning for the Obama camp, and therefore weakens both Gingrich and Romney while criticism is focused on them, and not on the President. Consequences have already started to be felt in opinion surveys: according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Romney’s negative rating with independents jumped 13 points in the past month and 20 points since November. This is certainly stuff that should be preoccupying the Romney pollsters in weeks to come. That said, it is better for these things to come out (and for Romney to train himself to answer the negatives) now than in october. However, if the contest lasts for too long and keeps on this sour taste, then the risk is that the negatives and the tensions will escalate, giving more ammunition to the Obama camp.

And that’s where Gingrich’s personality comes in the equation. The former Speaker of the house is certainly a brilliant mind, but one of his defaults (nobody being perfect) is his huge ego. And this ego, fully satisfied last week by the win in South Carolina, has been humiliated by the speaker’s second downfall in the polls. And there is nothing more dangerous as an injured pride these days. Mr. Gingrich may or may not realize it, but he is neither the front-runner nor the likely nominee. He is aware, though, that he can certainly spoil the fun, and his resentment for Romney, his envy and his will for revenge are all pushing him to do just that. That is why he will do what he can to ensure that the present nastiness stays on as long as possible (and if possible, right up and through the Convention).

Yesterday, Newt Gingrich did not congratulate Mitt Romney (as is usually the case in US politics). Neither did he bother to call him. Instead, he declared: “We are going to contest every place, and we will win”. Well, may be not in Virginia where he missed the ballot deadline and therefore won’t be able to compete, but elsewhere, the plan is definitely to run. And if the former speaker knows February is not going to be favorable to him, he also knows that, even if he sweeps the floor this month and on Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney will not have enough delegates to declare formal victory. All he can hope then is that the Southern States (Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas) of March and April will go for him. That certainly won’t be enough for him to win, but the former speaker seems keen on telling Mitt Romney: “if I go down, you will go down with me”, and that is certainly not a message to be taken lightly when uttered by a man so stubborn as Gingrich.

As the former speaker is ready to play the divide between moderates and conservatives until the very end, Mitt Romney has several tasks before him: the first one is to win, of course: he knows pretty well that, in terms of delegates, he’s only gone 5% of the way towards securing the nomination. And he knows he’s going to have to compete for as long as Gingrich will make it possible. This may not be a bad thing for Romney: a long fight will mean his campaigning machine will have a chance to compete in most (if not all) states, meaning more money raised, more people voting in the primary and getting into the Romney database, and more chances to test and clear up messages in view of the campaign in the autumn. That is exactly what happened to Barack Obama in a very bitter fight with Hillary Clinton in 2008, and we all know how it ended (Democrat strategist tend to dismiss this argument today, saying that the fight was in way as bitter and profound in 2008 as it is now. Well, may be they should be reminded of a few words exchanged then, when Hillary Clinton slammed Barack Obama’s inexperience, naivety, and “shameful methods”, and made fun of his supporters).

For this to work, though, Mitt Romney will have to be hard enough to make sure that Gingrich does not come back and stays as low as possible, while making whatever he can to try and bridge the gap between him and the conservative right. He can certainly use Rick Santorum to divide the potential pool of voters for Gingrich, but that will not be enough. The former Governor of Massachussets will also have to convincingly reach to conservative voters, may be by making some of their ideas his own. A fresh view on tax reform (and taking up ideas recently aired about flat income tax) could come handy for this purpose.

Now that he is firmly back in the driver’s seat, Mitt Romney needs to think about the future: in the short-term first: in the next few weeks and months, he will have to pursue these two competing aims: ensure his win as soon as possible while bridging up with the more conservative voters, and the task is not going to be easy. But at the same time, he will have to appear as focusing more on the contest that lay ahead against Barack Obama, and keep most of his criticisms for the president he will most probably challenge this autumn. That is exactly what he did during his victory speech yesterday, anticipating “brighter days” for Americans when “hope” will be much more than “a faded word on an older bumper sticker.”