>> If Newt’s campaign has any smarts, and I think that’s up for discussion at this point <<
My limited experience working in large organizations has indicated that the underlings usually tend to reflect the operating style of the man at the top.
So one has to wonder if the campaign’s problems mostly reflect Newt’s general indiscipline and poor management skills — personal characteristics that former associates like Tom Coburn and Tom DeLay have mentioned prominently about Newt.
You bring up a good point, and one that is inherently the case. Now, from where I sit, every campaign is ultimately the responsibility of the candidate. If he/she hires and fires the wrong people and listens to the wrong people and ignores the right people - then the candidate still is ultimately still to blame or credit.
I think Newt makes a lot of his own decisions. I suspect he has yes people around him, and those yes people were not smart enough or strong enough to prevent Newt from hearing and seeing the negative ads run against him in Florida. They should have known that he would be personally insulted and would lose it. He was, and he did.
Good handlers would have kept him firing at Obama and the liberals - because that is what made Newt’s surge first in Iowa and then again in SC.
So Newt got bad advice, but chose to take it nonetheless. Blame all around .