The thing is, butterdezillion, if the base wanted him to be the nominee, then he would be.
It’s very hard for me to see what happened to Newt, but something definitely happened. As smart as he is, he was unable to convince a large portion of GOP voters that he would make the best candidate for president.
Replacing a weak candidate who still doesn’t have enough delegates with another weak candidate who has even less delegates is a risky move IMO.
The sad fact is that the GOP is not producing conservative leaders and neither is America for that matter. What we are producing is debt, communists, homosexuals, racists and criminals.
The “base” isn’t determining this, and in fact, voter turn out in the primaries has been very poor. In some states, as we recall, Newt wasn’t even on the ballot. This was thanks to Romney’s money, which he had been busy spending lavishly since 2008, pretty much salting the earth for other candidates: look at all the endorsements he reaped from people to whom he had earlier given the odd $30,000 or so for their campaigns (I’m thinking of Marco Rubio).
Then of course, there was the press, which ridiculed him virtually from the start (and there’s nothing worse than ridicule).
Finally, don’t overlook the massive opposition to Newt among the pundits and opinion-makers of the base, people such as Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, etc. It’s puzzling, and I honestly don’t understand their opposition to him, but that’s how it was.
So what’s remarkable is actually that he’s still standing and that he’s doing as well as he is.
The base was split between him and Santorum. This is the first point at which it’s actually conservative v LIBERAL rather than conservative v conservative.
As a case in point, I have been agnostic between the two until now. I hadn’t even entered the fray between those 2. Don’t count out people like me who were WAITING to see who to support most effectively.