Debunking the Beltway Hacks' Latest Spin: Gingrich Will Harm Down-Ticket Republicans

The latest folderol emanating from the utterly embarrassed Beltway elites -- many of whom were surreptitiously on the Romney payroll -- is that Newt Gingrich's poor "likability" scores will harm down-ticket Republicans.

If history is any indicator, this is about as accurate as their mantra-like predictions, repeated ad infinitum, that Mitt Romney would run away with the nomination because of his "electability".

Rasmussen Reports explains what Obama's failed presidency really means to down-ticket Democrats:

Going into the final weekend of [Jimmy Carter's 1980] campaign..., Gallup had Carter’s Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, up three points. Harris had him up five points, while Newsweek and The Washington Post had Carter up one.

But at the end, the bottom fell out for Carter. “I’ve never seen anything like it in polling,” said Pat Caddell, Carter’s pollster. What was a close race turned into a big Reagan lead in the last hours of the campaign; he ended up winning 489 electoral votes and a 51%-41% victory over Carter. Likely aiding Reagan at the end was the one and only debate between the two, held just a week before the election, when Reagan memorably asked voters “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” ...With Carter captaining the Democratic ship, election night in 1980 was Titanic-esque. Democrats lost 12 Senate seats and 33 House seats.

...Given the divided control of the government, some commentators we respect have noted the possibility of a total switcheroo in Washington next year: President Obama loses the presidency, the Republicans take the Senate and the Democrats re-take the House.

That, of course, is possible. But it would be a first in the modern history of the republic: Since 1860, an incumbent president has never lost the White House in the same election that his party won control of either house of Congress from the other party. Similarly, the House and the Senate flipping in opposite directions has never happened in the same election in the same timeframe. In other words, regardless of what happens in the presidential race, a scenario in which Democrats captured the House next year and Republicans captured the Senate would be, in a word, historic.

So history tells us that Democrats need Obama to roar back and win a second term in order to flip the House. And even that might not be enough.

So when Karl Rove, who has yet to reveal any financial interests he may have vested in one or more of the GOP candidates, next opines about Newt's "likability", you can take his "analysis" with a giant grain of salt.

Say, a 31 percentage point-sized grain of salt.