By Douglas Burns

Newt Gingrich prepares for an interview with Sean Hannity at the Fox News/Republican Party of Iowa debate last Thursday in Sioux City.

Positioned in the center of the stage at the Sioux City Convention Center last Thursday night, Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich delivered a memorable riff on lawyers, nimbly unsheathed historical references and wheeled out a haymaker at President Obama on a controversial North American oil pipeline plan — all of which reinforced his leading status in polls just weeks before the Jan. 3 Iowa Caucuses.

Gingrich did nothing of the self-inflicted variety at the Fox News/Republican Party of Iowa debate, and his six opponents failed to land any shots or barbs that will leave a bruise.

Where there may be movement, though, is with support for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who embraced the premise of a Fox News question suggesting he was to the left of President Obama on foreign policy.

Paul’s isolationist positions are no secret but have been somewhat backseated during a heavy focus on the economy in this cycle. On Thursday, the Paul foreign policy vision came into starker view for Iowa Republicans — who clearly don’t like his walking-in-their-shoes rationale for Iran pursuing nuclear weapons. Paul is one of perhaps two GOP candidates within Iowa striking distance of Gingrich — and the central question now is: can anyone close the gap?

Paul said much of the rhetoric about Iran coming from his opponents amounted to saber-rattling.

“It’s another Iraq coming,” Paul said. “It’s war propaganda.”

He added, “That’s how we got into this useless war in Iraq and lost so much.”

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., quickly challenged Paul.

“I think I’ve never heard a more dangerous answer for American security,” she said.

A recent InsiderAdvantage survey of 517 registered likely Iowa caucus-goers shows former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 27 percent support. Paul is at 17 percent, followed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 13 percent, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 12 percent.

Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn said there is still time for trailing candidates to surge.

“You have two-thirds of Iowa Caucus-goers who are effectively telling pollsters they could change their mind between now and Jan. 3,” Strawn said in an interview.

One candidate who made a colorful appeal with regard to that possibility is Perry.

“There are a lot of folks out there who said Tim Tebow isn’t going to be a good NFL quarterback,” Perry said. “Am I ready for the next level? Let me tell you, I am ready to be the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses.”

Reporters questioned Perry’s staff after the debate about the contrast between their candidate, who was using sports references tied to the Denver Broncos quarterback, and Gingrich, who salted his answers with mentions of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, the Dred Scott case on slavery and the Federalist Papers.

In the debate Gingrich took rhetorical shots at the federal judiciary, which he thinks has overstepped its bounds, and went after lawyers in general, saying law schools “have overly empowered lawyers to think that they can dictate to the rest of us.”

Gingrich’s strongest answer — and one that Gov. Terry Branstad’s communications director Tim Albrecht said in a tweet showcased “why” Republicans are drawn to the former speaker of the U.S. House — centered on the Keystone XL oil pipeline planned for a route between Alberta, Canada and the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The State Department had planned to issue a decision on the matter in 2013, but the pipeline is tied up in a battle over the extension of a payroll tax cut and a division between President Obama, unions and environmentalists who want it killed.

“The Iranians are practicing closing the Straits of Hormuz,” Gingrich said. “The Canadian prime minister has already said to the American president: ‘If you don’t want to build this pipeline to bring, create 20,000 American jobs and bring oil through the United States to the largest refinery complex in the world, Houston, I want to put it straight west in Canada, to Vancouver, and ship the oil direct to China, so you’ll lose the jobs, you’ll lose the throughput, you’ll lose 30 or 40 years of work in Houston.’ ”

R.C. Hammond, a Gingrich spokesperson, said in an interview: “It is beyond our understanding why the Obama administration is willing to ship tens of thousands of jobs to Canada by stopping this pipeline.”

Hammond also responded to challenges from Bachmann, who sought to diminish Gingrich’s pro-life credentials on abortion by noting that he had supported pro-choice Republicans in the past. Gingrich said the GOP would have lost power had it engaged in a purging of pro-choice elected officials.

“If you’re going to have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, you’re going to have a lot of Republicans that fit under that bill,” Hammond said. “And that’s going to include some pro-life Republicans and some pro-choice Republicans. There’s just mathematically no way around it. If your choice is between being in the minority and being completely purged and pure — that is one option. The other one is you can build a coalition of Republicans which includes moderate Democrats.” CV

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa newspaperman who writes for The Carroll Daily Times Herald and offers columns for Cityview.