Newt Gingrich to mine for GOP votes not just in Mass., but at Harvard’s Kennedy School
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is trying to capitalize on his growing poll numbers by campaigning not just in the early voting states of Iowa or New Hampshire … but Massachusetts.
That’s the state that will vote on “Super Tuesday,’’ March 6, the same day as 11 other states but potentially well after the Republican presidential nomination is settled.
It also is the place where Mitt Romney, the former Bay State governor, is poised to win the GOP primary.
Gingrich and his wife, Callista, will visit Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on Friday to screen “A City Upon a Hill,’’ their film about American exceptionalism.
The Georgian will then sign his book, “A Nation Like No Other,’’ also about American exceptionalism, at the Harvard Square Coop.
Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said one advantage to having events in the Boston area is that the Boston media market reaches into southern New Hampshire, the most densely vote-rich area of the lead presidential primary state.
And Harvard provides an apt backdrop for a man who has portrayed himself as an intellectual, a historian, and a candidate of bold ideas.
“It is a very good venue for him to talk about American exceptionalism, where we are as a country, what it means to be a sovereign citizen, making one of the larger arguments about what his campaign means,’’ Hammond told the Globe.
In July, Gingrich came to Lexington to screen “Nine Days that Changed the World,’’ his film about Pope John Paul II’s 1979 pilgrimage to Poland.
Boston College political science professor Marc Landy said Massachusetts may not be as odd a place for Gingrich to campaign as it seems at first glance.
While Romney is likely to win the primary, Landy said there is an “anti-Romney’’ faction among Massachusetts Republicans.
And since the state’s delegates are not awarded in a “winner-takes-all’’ fashion, there could be an opportunity for a candidate who comes in second in the primary to pick up delegates.
Although Massachusetts will likely have some libertarian-leaning supporters of Texas Representative Ron Paul, Landy said the state has very few of the evangelical, socially conservative Republicans who tend to migrate to Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann or Texas Governor Rick Perry.
“There’s an anti-Romney faction, and they have to go somewhere,’’ Landy said. “(Gingrich) is the least objectionable to northeasterners apart from Romney.’’
Gingrich has not been ignoring New Hampshire.
He was in the Granite State last week and plans to return in early December.
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