[Josh Painter]

Newt’s bounce for winning the SC primary is gone. Romney’s smear money is now leading Florida. He’s saturating the airwaves so thoroughly, that some 5-minute breaks have two anti-Newt attack ads in them. This is what he did to Newt in Iowa.

[rbmillerjr]

“Romney’s smear money is now leading Florida. He’s saturating the airwaves so thoroughly, that some 5-minute breaks have two anti-Newt attack ads in them. This is what he did to Newt in Iowa.”

Romney and the E’s knew that a Gingrich win in Florida would end it for Romney....they have to go total Goebbels in Florida and that is what the are doing.

Frankly, it’s going to take a miracle for another Newt comeback. All I’m going to say is that is is hard to hit grand slams every Primary and Debate when the umps are calling you out when you’re in there by 2 strides.

Good luck Newt. As far as you Estab. phags go...I’ll keep my feelings to myself and skip the fbi raid.

[nathanbedford]

First principle: Rasmussen is a highly reputable and accurate pollster; he is not biased in favor of Romney or Fox news or anyone else that is discernible from what he publishes.

The swing in the polls is devastating against Gingrich. There is no nice spin to put on this.

The unanswered question is why the dramatic swing? Is it a result of Gingrich's lackluster performance in the first Florida debate? Is it a result of the accumulation of negative ads? Is it the endorsement of Marco Rubio?

Finally, can the situation be reversed? Can Gingrich turn the tables tonight? Certainly, he has no choice now but to go on the attack and do so aggressively. He will certainly then be accused by the establishment of being the "old Newt" and they will try to make them into another Nixon. Nevertheless, Newt must break out and accept that this reaction will be the cost of whatever gains he can make.

Gingrich must absolutely refute any allegation brought against him and he must do so emphatically and he must do so in such a way that immediately puts Romney on the defensive for his shortcomings. In other words he must parry and counterpunch hard!

We are putting a tremendous demands on Gingrich's forensic talents as impressive as they are. He must not under shoot or Romney will continue to pile up votes by virtue of the weight of his negative charges and negative ads. He must not over shoot in that he must not appear small, mean, or petty. He must display passion but not petulance.

I think we should keep in mind that this is a closed primary and the score will be portentous.