Gingrich Focuses on Ohio, Hoping for Eventual Payoff on Super Tuesday
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DAYTON, Ohio -- On a day that was not kind to Newt Gingrich, he traveled to a place he hopes will help get him back in the saddle next month: Ohio.
Dealt a big defeat in the Minnesota caucuses and trailing in Colorado on Tuesday, Mr. Gingrich is campaigning for two days across Ohio, which does not vote until Super Tuesday -- March 6 -- but is a place he feels he can win. A strong showing in this state, with its 66 delegates, would help him claw back from disappointing showings in Florida and Nevada and play into his strategy of trying to regain momentum in conservative Southern states and working-class battlegrounds that hold contests on Super Tuesday or later.
At a Tuesday morning speech at a chili restaurant in Cincinnati, Mr. Gingrich suggested that he might even be leading the race here, though it is far from clear where he actually stands against Mitt Romney, particularly since the contest is so far off. "We need your help to make it a bigger margin," he told the crowd of about 200.
Then in Dayton he made a pocketbook appeal to hundreds of people who packed in, standing-room only, at a meeting hall. Noting that opponents had mocked him for proposing to colonize the moon, he suggested that his lunar gambit would be a lucrative shot in the arm for a region where aerospace remains a dominant industry. Square in his sights were the more than 200,000 scientists, engineers, mechanics, assemblers and aerospace workers who live and vote in and around Cincinnati and Dayton.
The debate over space, he said, is about "whether or not the bold, visionary, exciting, job-creating future that secures our national security" is "the right path for a strong, prosperous America."
He added, "And this is the right town to have that discussion."
He used his lampooning by the troupe of "Saturday Night Live" over his moon-colony proposal to start his talk -- "funny show" -- and offered one of his favored chestnuts about American entrepreneurial resilience, the story of the Wright brothers, who lived in Dayton. Then he toured Hawthorn Hill, home of Orville Wright.
His local-economics approach worked with Brenda Newman, who waited in line for two hours to attend the rally with her husband, Rickey, who was laid off seven months ago. "He's going to work for us and give us hope," she said of Mr. Gingrich.
First Published February 8, 2012 12:00 am
