IMHO, the election was lost when the GOP decided Bambi could not be criticized, way back in late 2008, continuing from the day of his inaugural, all the way through until the end.
Newt could not have changed that narrative with the time and money he would have had if he won the nomination. The Bambi "stash" was too much, his giveaways too powerful, the media bias so overwhelming, without a public long term and consistent critique by the GOP, the narrative change that Newt would have brought would have been torn apart. The democrat/media complex would have overwhelmed him, in a far greater way than Romney did to him in the primary.
It's also true that "the bad Newt" would have been destroyed by the Bambi ads far more easily, putting him on defense constantly, and he would never have been able to raise half the money that Romney did.
Oh, I was a big Newt supporter during the primary, this is all 20/20 hindsight, a rethinking looking at what happened. I'll check back tomorrow if I get the time, I'd like to have a few back and forths about this: My thinking is if we can't figure out how to neutralize the big media and cultural advantage of the dems, we're in a heap of trouble. Taking out the media should be our main goal, and how that can be done is the most important strategy we should have, along with consistent, persistent, methods of repeating and communicating the conservative message(s) to the American public.
This is why you’ll love the book. It covers the following time tables, because 2012 was 20 years in the making:
intro and WTF happened 5%
1992-2000 10%
2000-2007 10%
McCain Campaign 10%
2009-2011 25%
2011 into 2012 campaign 33%
Mitts Campaign 5%
Ahead? 2%