We’ve Met Before? Of Course! I Remember It Well.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — To be in public life as long as Newt Gingrich has means that you have met a lot of people. And when you are running for president, many, many of those folks expect to be personally remembered. Working the rope line after rallies, Mr. Gingrich regularly encounters well-wishers who tell him that they chatted at a fund-raising picnic long ago, or that he worked with a third cousin of theirs, or that he once taught them as a college history professor. As often as not, Mr. Gingrich grasps the extended hand and offers a noncommittal greeting, the same as saying “Nice to see you” at a cocktail party when you’re hedging because you’re not quite sure if you’re meeting someone for the first time. “Oh yeah, that was fun,” Mr. Gingrich told Irene Karakolidis in Savannah, Ga., when she said they met at the state Republican convention “with Nathan Lester at the barbecue place.” “We have the picture up, and I forgot to bring it,” said Ms. Karakolidis, a retiree in her 60s. “I would have signed it,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I’ll see you again,” Ms. Karakolidis said. “See you again.” Mr. Gingrich spent five days last week barnstorming in Georgia, which he represented for 20 years, and the number of “Remember me?” encounters was unusually high. But he said they happened all across the country. “I’ve just been around a long time,” he said, insisting that he recalls many of the folks who cite a connection. His demeanor on the rope line, in any event, is businesslike — he smiles for pictures and signs autographs on buttons, books and posters, but he keeps it moving, rarely stopping to schmooze. “I grew up in Columbus, Ga.,” said Martha Young after a rally in Savannah. “Does that sound familiar?” Mr. Gingrich attended Baker High School in Columbus, class of 1961, where Ms. Young went to the cross-town rival, Columbus High. “We’re going to be there this evening,” Mr. Gingrich told her. “So e-mail your friends in Georgia.” Working a rope line may seem like a political chore, an afterthought to a speech meant to get the candidate on the evening news. But most embrace the age-old ritual as part of wooing voters. Short on cash for advertisements, Mr. Gingrich invites people to pose with him and post the pictures on Facebook to amplify their support through social media. He spends 30 minutes or more greeting people after most speeches. So does Rick Santorum, whose spokeswoman, Alice Stewart, called it “critical.” “A lot of voters vote from their heart and really need to check off the box that ‘I like this person,’ ” Ms. Stewart said. “They can’t check off that box until they’ve had that one-one-one connection.” Mitt Romney also shakes a lot of hands, though he struggles to overcome a reputation for being awkward in one-on-one encounters. But the rope line is also hazardous, a seemingly friendly creature, like a giant sea anemone whose waving tentacles beckon the candidate and can trap him if he lingers too long. The line of supporters is kept behind a barrier — a row of tables if not an actual rope — designed to let candidates briefly engage while still moving methodically toward the exit. The stickiest tentacle of all is the voter hoping to reminisce. “Do you remember me?” Claire Frank said, handing Mr. Gingrich a package of natural cough drops and a candy bar. She had given him the same presents at a rally in Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Gingrich told her he did recall. A few feet farther along — this was on the deck of a restaurant in coastal Brunswick — Jim Morrison handed Mr. Gingrich his business card, on which he had written: “Newt, I supported you for Congress three times. I was executive director of the Georgia Wildlife Federation. Let me know how I can help you.” A faint glint of recognition seemed to enter Mr. Gingrich’s eye. Another man said, “Newt, this is Doyle Mathis.” Mr. Gingrich recognized Mr. Mathis, who was head of the political science department at West Georgia College in the 1970s when Mr. Gingrich was on the faculty. They had not spoken in years, but Mr. Gingrich said he had recently met Mr. Mathis’s stepson. “I’m so sorry,” a handler told people, pushing Mr. Gingrich along. “He’s going to be late for his next event. Thank you so much. We have to get to the next event.” The encounters came during Mr. Gingrich’s last of five days campaigning in Georgia, as he pursued a virtual single-state strategy ahead of Super Tuesday after a surge by Mr. Santorum in the polls and a barrage of attack advertising by Romney supporters threatened Mr. Gingrich in his home state. His effort seems to have paid off. A poll released Saturday for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed Mr. Gingrich with a double-digit lead in Georgia, 38 percent to Mr. Romney’s 24 percent and Mr. Santorum’s 22 percent. Mr. Gingrich said his strategy to keep his campaign alive was to use the momentum of a decisive Georgia victory in the next contests in Alabama, Kansas and Mississippi. He would also, no doubt, count on wooing the rope line. In Savannah, Tony Thomas, the chairman of the City Council, shook his hand and said, “You may not remember. ...” Mr. Thomas had been a host of a get-together for Mr. Gingrich in Atlanta in the 1990s when Mr. Gingrich was speaker of the House. “I’m sure he’s had many other events since then,” Mr. Thomas said later. “I don’t think ours was that memorable.” “Good to see you again,” Mr. Gingrich told him.