Published for www.online.wsj.com, February 8, 2012

Newt Gingrich’s remarks Saturday night after the Nevada caucuses and on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the next morning proved that presidential candidates should talk policy, not process.

Proclaiming “We want to get to Georgia, to Alabama, to Tennessee,” Mr. Gingrich said primaries in the South would produce “a series of victories” that by the April 4 Texas primary would make him “very, very competitive in the delegate count.”

Well, the Gingrich Southern strategy faces big obstacles, starting with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Demanding that these two candidates drop out so he becomes the only conservative alternative to Mitt Romney hasn’t worked.

Mr. Paul sees himself as the leader of an insurgency. He’s made it clear he’s in the race to stay. And while Mr. Santorum’s victories on Tuesday in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and Missouri’s beauty contest primary didn’t produce any national convention delegates (Missouri’s vote was nonbinding, and the caucuses were for precinct delegates), his wins also spell trouble for the former House speaker’s plans.

Mr. Santorum’s success came because while Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich battled in Florida and Nevada, he barnstormed Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, making 22 stops in the three states to Mitt’s three and Newt’s two. He demonstrated that showing up matters and gained critical momentum toward becoming the not-Romney alternative.

Newt’s Southern strategy also faces a geographical obstacle. There are 25 contests in February and March, and 18 of them, with 579 delegates, are outside the South. The remaining seven in the South have 371 delegates at stake. Mr. Gingrich can compete for only 322 of them because neither he nor Mr. Santorum qualified for the Virginia ballot. (Messrs. Romney and Paul did.) Mr. Romney will, in all likelihood, grab the 33 delegates awarded winner-take-all at the congressional district level and most of the delegates allocated proportionally by Virginia’s statewide results.

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