Iowa. Just like Huckabee...
Both Perry and Gingrich are both far superior candidates than Little Saint Ricky, yet do not mercilessly flog their faith in everyone’s face. Evidently, enough voters see this as a plus, and not a flashy curtain obscuring utter vapidity on nearly all matters pertaining to governance that this charlatan was able to stay in the race.
It also helps that the MSM went total blackout on Newt after Florida, instead only reporting on the “two front runners” in Mittens and Little Saint Ricky. Newt was too effective against them, so they shut him up.
With Little Saint Ricky and Mittens, the Establishment wins either way. Both are big spenders and will further the expansion of Big Government. Slower than Il Douche, but expansion nonetheless.
That's exactly what happened. He lost in Florida...because Romney had been campaigning here for the last several years and because Romney had bought Rubio, having identified him as a rising star and given him a donation when he ran for office (not to mention trading on Rubio's Mormon past). Probably the most damaging thing was that a large number of Florida voters had already voted by the time the campaign rolled to Florida. I heard some of them say they regretted voting for Romney, but by then it was too late.
So this gave the press an excuse to dump Gingrich, because he was clearly the only serious threat to Obama's world view. Both Romney and St Rick are fine with it...the only thing they want is to be the ones in charge.