I never heard that. I think you are having false memory problems. All I ever heard was what a rino McCain was. In any case Newt is far from McCain. He's been in private life for what--fifteen years? Half the electorate won't even know or care what he was savaged for in the early nineties, and the other half won't hold it against him if he runs against the Usurper.
Never heard it, never came close to thinking it. John McCain is, was and always has been one of the least dynamic, dim-witted, slow-on-his-feet, marble-mouthed train-wrecks of a public speaker modern politics has ever produced. Everyone knew the lying Kenyan would mop up the floor with the old fool in the debates, and that's exactly what he did.