January 23, 2012 10:58 PM UTC

Wadhams: Newt "Dealt Forcefully" With Affair Questions

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• by: Colorado Pols

Noted in yesterday’s Pueblo Chieftain:

“Yes, character issues are still important to voters,” said Dick Wadhams, veteran GOP campaign strategist and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. “But this information about Newt isn’t new. Everyone knows he’s on his third marriage and they’ve already figured that into their thinking about him as a candidate.

“In my experience, voters are reluctant to give much weight to last-minute revelations [Pols emphasis] like those made this week,” Wadhams said. “From my perspective, he dealt with it forcefully in the debate and if he wins in South Carolina, he will have done so in the glare of this information.”

Fair enough, but we’ve got to wonder–how “last-minute” do the revelations need to be in order to hurt a candidate? Examples that ex-Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams will be (very) familiar with include the revelations of gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis’ alleged plagiarism. That story broke on the evening of July 13th, about three weeks before the primary McInnis lost. In retrospect, we think that proved lethal to McInnis about five seconds after the average voter heard it. It’s not really a situation where timing would have mattered, except possibly that fewer people might have heard about it had it come out later.

In that respect, Newt Gingrich’s problems with new, unsavory allegations made by his second wife might indeed have not had time to penetrate (awful pun) into common knowledge, simply because they came so late ahead of the South Carolina primary. If that’s true, the worst could be yet to come for Gingrich–particularly if his numbers are being boosted by a sympathetic, but as Herman Cain discovered, short-lived defensive reflex from hypocritical conservatives.

Because sooner or later, voters will recall Newt’s fixation with a certain President’s sex life.