At this point it is difficult to predict who will and won't do good running against Obama later this year but everyone likes to claim their candidate is the one that will do the best.
In Newt's case he clearly has weaknesses that are being exploited now and will be again later. Remember that his own members (caucus) insisted that he resign as Speaker in 1998. Since leaving office (his conservative Georgia district voters ) he has taken many progressive positions that he thought at the time would be good for him.
He claims he can beat Obama (solely) with his great debating skills yet he is complaining about unfair ads against him as being the source of his return to the lower position in the Iowa polls. There will only be two debates against Obama (at most) and Obama has been banking hundreds of millions of $$$ to use against the nominee.
After/if Newt loses the Iowa race he will go negative against fellow Republicans and his ‘don't be critical of fellow Republicans’ rule will just be talked away like everything else he has done in the past that doesn't work for him now.
A lot of that is just wrong. Newt never said he would beat Obama solely on debating skills. There will certainly be a vigorous ad campaign against Obama.
He hasn’t changed his positions or become more progressive since leaving office. They came up with the individual mandate while he was in Congress in the ‘90s to combat Hilarycare. Likewise he’s always had some interest in climate change, but never believed it was at the level of what the libs say. Other than that he’s been 90% conservative consistently. He’s been on Fox News many times over the last decade and usually agreed with Hannity, not with Colmes.
Most of the ads against Newt can’t work for dems or moderates. How exactly can Obama bash Newt for doing an ad with Nancy Pelosi? Is he going to try and tell the public Nancy Pelosi is evil? Romney is far more vulnerable to attacks from the left of the OWS style. Newt has almost no angles that Obama can attack him from.