He is in what would seem a golden opportunity, yet cannot seem to pierce the 16% barrier. Romney and Paul seem to be the only ones gaining from Santorum.
Check this out...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiaw0hgB-fg
He announced in May, floundered in the 10% range for months until Cain dropped out, rose, stuck his feet in his mouth and sank back to the mid-teen percentage range.
His rise was a fluke. I doubt it happens again.
However, if either Santorum or Gingrich drops out, the other might garner enough to give Romney a real challenge. Otherwise, the hucka-hanger-on will cause Romney to get the nomination. IIRC, soon after SuperTuesday, most of the primaries become winner-take-all, so being even a strong #2 is moot.
Personally, I think it was because of Rush Limbaugh throwing a nutty where his mouth was in motion before his mind was in gear.
Just before Florida, the PAC ad came out where Gingrich attacked Romney (who had been personally attacking him for months) on his misleading depiction of his business career. Romney tried to make it seem like he was in a productive business, but he was in the financial biz and in a very dubious area of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, in essence, but Romney was being dishonest and should have had to tell people what Bain Capital actually did that made him filthy rich and how powerful Bain Capital still is in the financial world... and how tied in with the US government.
But Rush shot off his mouth and announced that this was “anti-capitalist” and this became the meme and it totally destroyed Gingrich.
Actually, Gingrich is the only one of the candidates who has treated Rush with courtesy after his recent foot-in-mouth episode, so I’d say Gingrich gets major gentleman points for that!
He faltered because of the unrelenting attacks by the Romney/MSM cabal.
His personal life didn’t help matters, either.
Can he bounce back? Sure he can.
Will he? Don’t know.
Santorum is already beginning to fade away, and Romney seems to be inching closer to inevitability, but there is hope for a Newt comeback.
With each passing day, Romney becomes more unelectable. Perhaps GOP primary voters will collectively pull their heads out of their asses and get behind a real conservative candidate. Newt is the last viable choice.
I do predict another Gingrich surge. Just don’t know if it will be enough.
It is a mystery. The people I talk to love Newt and when I ask if they are going to vote for him, they respond that they have heard that he can’t beat Obama, so they don’t want to waste their vote.
I think he can still come back, but time grows very short.
Although I don’t think it’s fair or relevant, a lot of people just don’t like Newt. The Presidency has become a glamour contest, a tabloid event. Newt’s been portrayed as a grumpy old man and it stuck with many of the sheeple.
“Why did Newt falter? Can he come back?”
Newt faltered because he could not withstand the Romney onslaught of negative ads in Florida. People are generally stupid and do whatever the box in their living room tells them to do.
Newt’s own mistakes and, at times, inept campaign strategies didn’t help.
Can he come back? Doubtful. He put all his eggs in one basket (the South on Super Tuesday). He will carry Georgia and... that’s probably it.
I agree Newt is the most qualified. I guess that he has simply “too much baggage” to quote the cliche.
Newt is facing just what he faced in the 1990s the entire left, and the gop-e, along with the Democrat party.
Newt is facing the entire range of the left, from liberal republicans all the way to the far left democrats, even the Paul nuts.
Newt is the only one who can save America.
Romney is Obama without the tan, Santorum will be used by the RINO’s .
Stop. Newton survived 83 Bull Shiite ethics accusations and a phony IRS investigation.
He came out on top and his policies remained intact.
It ain’t over til it’s over.
IMHO you can trace his fall to when he started attacking Romney for being too harsh on illegals. Newt had already gotten into trouble early on with his Perry-esque warning to conservatives for not being “humane” to illegals that had been here a long time. It even got the “FUNG” from Jim Robinson himself.
Later, when it appeared no other candidate had a shot at stopping Romney, many of us held our noses at the Newt/Pelosi couch commercial on globull warming and his multiple wives and...like Jim...went all in on Newt.
After Santorum won Iowa, it seemed that there was another possibility that did not require as much nose holding. Support started to shift, Newt had a bad debate with moonbases, and then the attack on Romney for being too harsh on illegals. It brought back all the amnesty talk and gave Mittens cover so he could pretend to be conservative.
After Jims announcement of support for Newt and his warning about attacking the remaining conservatives in the race, many Newt doubters held their tongues. The constant attacks on (in their words) “Reverend Rick”, “Little Ricky” etc etc has caused more and more freepers to be more open about their doubts about Newt. Attacks about morality not being important anymore and the recent cheering by some anti-rick noobs about Romney catching up to Santorum has caused more of the Newt doubters to speak out in the open.
Just my 2 cents. I want Romney stopped. Whether its Santorum or Newt that does it.
1. As a former House Speaker, he was combative and partisan by nature. Those traits make for a great Speaker but weigh against someone who is trying to win a national popularity contest.
2. Related to #1 ... He spent way too much time in his life as an inside-the-Beltway hack who never spent much time (if any) in private industry. This made his attempts to paint himself as an "outsider" completely transparent and phony.
3. Related to #1 and #2 ... He simply doesn't come across as an executive (because he's not). For all of Romney's flaws, he looks and acts like someone who can be in charge of a small-town grocery store, a Fortune 500 company, or the United States of America.
I think it is all the fault of Bush, Limbaugh, Newt’s exs, Santorum, Romney, Ron Paul, Mark Levin, that Savage person, Beck, Will, Hume, Bachmann, my folks, my cats, my folks again, and all the dumb voters, etc; that are unable to see how marvelous Newt is.
Heres a few clues,,
Left office midterm leaving his state in the lurch
Cheated on 2 wives
Had an affair with intern same as BJ Clinton.
Helped Bawny Fwank while making millions off fannie and freddie
Sold his influence to the highest bidder
Sat on the couch with Nancy supporting global warming.
Supported Dede Scozzafawa against the tea party
need more?
Because the American people are confused and mis-educated. Democracy fails in such a populace.