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Newt has a harder road to climb, but Newt is far better at winning over the unconvinced than Romney is.

Therefore in the general election, he has a better shot than polls suggest.

On the flip side he also has a greater propensity to shove both feet in his mouth.

I agree about the foot-in-mouth problem, but I'm not sure about your other point. Newt is great at articulating a (hard) conservative position, like the debate the other night in which he was excellent, and that gets conservatives on their feet. But, I worry that were he to be the nominee, people's minds would already be closed to him because of his image. In the popular mind of the electorate, Gingrich is a vain, mean 'right-wing' curmudgeon; and that's where he starts out! His negatives are very high. Of course Romney's religion may have the effect on closing many people's minds to him, along with the notion that he's a serial flip-flopper, but I thought his New Hampshire victory speech was excellent; that Romney can appeal to crucial moderates and independents if they overlook his religion, etc. Gingrich can win over minds who are seriously looking for truth and a better future...but it takes someone who is open to the speaker and open to honest solutions, and I don't know that large swathes of the electorate rest their decisions on much more than gut feelings, soundbites and a host of other intangibles. In some ways, the nomination of Gingrich would be a refreshing victory of substance over form, and it would be one of the few, if not the only time, that that has occurred in post-television presidential politics, but that is quite a gamble. ABO for me, I just hope we nominate the strongest candidate.