Newt is completely oblivious to the fact that Santorum surged precisely because he was the anti-Gingrich candidate.
For those who didn’t want to vote for Romney and didn’t want to vote for Gingrich, they voted for Santorum.
Why would Santorum, the anti-Gingrich candidate, want to align with Gingrich? Santorum is already secure as an anti-Romney candidate. And he’s now the alternative to Gingrich. If Santorum does well (a strong second place finish) in NH, imo, Newt will be out of it.
The surging has been shifting back-and-forth between Newt, Santorum and the other conservatives. That’s the whole point of what Newt is saying. They might need to team up in order to prevent Romney winning states with a small plurality like he did in Iowa, especially winner-take-all states like FL. Perry staying in is a huge negative too. His massive money spent and poor showing in friendly territory like Iowa means he needs to GET OUT NOW.
Since Newt is polling higher nationally still, I think he should take the presidential slot. Plus we’d be better off with him debating Obama than Santorum, who seems to suffer from some kind of subtle stuttering speech disorder, which I think is the main reason Rick never got a bump in the polls from the debates, despite his answers being pretty solid on content. He constantly mispronounces a word and then has to correct himself. He would have done better earlier if he was able to get treatment for that speech impediment.
Let’s remember that Newt’s “negatives,” Pelosi, Sharpton, etc. are all stuff that have no effect in the general election. Independents don’t mind the two parties working together, and Obama can’t put an ad out that portrays Pelosi as some kind of witch. Newt is an incredibly strong general election candidate. Santorum has a chance but is so untested and frankly had many performance gaffes in the debate like Perry’s but they went underreported.