Is This It? Newt Says GOP Choice Will ‘Come Down to Mitt and Me’

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Thirty-three months after the first Tea Party rallies, we are presented with a choice between Mr. “It’s His Turn” and Mr. Speaker:

A surging Newt Gingrich said he’s bracing for searing political attacks from all sides now that he’s the latest front-runner in the cutthroat Republican bid for president — and he predicted the GOP nomination will come down to him and Mitt Romney.
“I fully expect the effort will be made over next three weeks by the Obama people, by other people who want the nomination and the news media to scrutinize me,” the former U.S. House speaker told the Herald in an exclusive interview. . . .
“I really see Mitt and I as co-front-runners,” said Gingrich, adding that the nomination battle is “going to come down to Mitt and me.”
“The one consistency is that Mitt has a hard time getting over 24 or 25 percent (in the polls),” he added. “Everyone was looking for the next ‘Not Mitt.’ ”

Really? The next “Not Mitt” is a golden oldie blast from the past? Back to the days of mullets, when MTV played music videos?

(Via Memeorandum.)

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105 comments

  3. It’s in Newt’s interest to portray the race as him vs Romney, that would mean he had earned the “not Romney” slot.

    But Palin had it right – he’s the “flavor of the month” like Trump, Bachmann, Perry, and Cain before him. 

    The bloom will come off Newt’s rose, too.  I thought Perry might have a comeback in him, but his desperation is showing too much.

    But at this point in the last cycle the leaders were Giuliani and Fred Thompson – who was the “not Rudy” candidate.  Anything can happen, and usually does.

  4. He said none of those things all he said was that he thought those people wanted jobs just like everybody else. Patently incorrect but hardly an endorsement.

  5. The only person who could possibly have any conceivable hope of a comeback is Bachmann. Other than that, maybe Santorum will get his first shot, his turn as the “Not Mitt”. Outside of those two possibilities, yes its a choice between Mitt and Newt. Well, I guess there is an extra slim hope that Huntsman might exceed expectations in New Hampshire and grow from there, but I doubt it. But it would be fun coming on here and watching the fireworks.

    Just think, if the Democrats and the GOP establishment hadn’t succeeded in running Palin off, we would probably already be counting the days till the approaching end of the Obama era.

    Now we’re preparing for the worst.

  6. Word on the street was that the reason Whitman was dumping so much of her money into the California election was partly at Romney’s urging, so that she could hop-scotch that win to being his Veep nominee.  Instead she blew things so badly, the red wave crashed at the CA border, now “no veep for you!”

  10. Given that Cain does not listen to you, Stacy, Jimmie and other friends, I do not see any changes happening soon. 

  12. Yeah okay. They’re not a bunch of leftists wanting to overthrow the capitalist system and impose wealth redistribution on a massive scale. That’s just a small, tiny minority of them. Most of them are there just because they want “jobs”. Thanks for the correction.

  16. Actually, that information is incorrect.  Cain answered the question fine…he just thought about if for 10.5 seconds.

    That interview you refer to ended up being canceled due to scheduling.

    Like Team Mitt (Mittness Protection), Team Cain should be scheduling more appearances, but limiting interviews.  No benefit can come from interviews given his name ID now.

  17. It wasn’t bull.  He did it. 

    He funneled money from a children’s charity to his book writer.

    Can’t get mad at the truth.  It wasn’t an honest mistake.  Newt planned and executed the tax/charity evasion scheme.

  18. Huh?  Nothing has changed with Cain.  Still the same guy when he entered the campaign.

    Honestly, the campaigning itself is nonsense.  I merely looked at the resumes and backgrounds of these people and made a decision from there.

    The rest of this “campaign” stuff is just a fashion show.

  20. I expect Cain to regain momentum at the start of the primary season. 

    His team actually been building a support network in the grassroots of the early primary states….something Newt certainly hasn’t done…and won’t be able to do.

    I expect Cain to outperform whatever the pre-primary polls are.

  22. I know what I heard, and I know it was outrageous enough that O’Reilly called him on it. When you’re dressed down by Bill O’Rino that’s pretty damn bad. Perry is one of many, mostly Democrats, who try to paint the OWS as mostly well-intentioned until the movement was “hi-jacked” by leftist thugs. A more accurate appraisal would be there might be a small percentage of relatively well-intentioned people there who got suckered in to the middle of a far leftist socialist/anarchist freak movement. Don’t tell Perry that though, it might ruin his faith in those brilliant former Charlie Crist operatives he has advising him.

    And by the way, I’m the guy who used to defend Perry from what I honestly thought were unfair attacks here on his integrity and on his policies, specifically his illegal immigration policies. Not any damn more.

  23. They should have the video of what I was saying about Perry on the O’Reilly Factor. If they don’t have the video, they should at least have the transcripts. I don’t know how long it takes them to post these things, it was just last night. But it happened. I have no reason to lie about it, because Perry isn’t going any damn where anyway.

    Edited to add-I mean they should have it at the Fox website, at the O’Reilly Factor section.

  24. I’m not one claiming Cain or anyone else is “done. ”

    However, IMO, the polling in Iowa is fairly irrelevant. Winning in Iowa is retail politics (it’s a small state, sparsely populated, and possible to visit every single district as Santorum has).

    Polling in the larger states – in which it’s impossible to shake everyone’s hand and slap ’em on the back – is where marketing and PR competency actually matters, because the only way you get your message out is through those two means.

    If you suck at both, and are really only good at being charismatic on a debate stage, then how can you beat Obama? You can’t go shake everyone’s hands, or even get a small minority of the voters to go to a Tea Party rally to hear you speak directly, as opposed to being filtered through the MSM or conservative media.

    That’s what many Republicans are thinking – how well is Candidate X running his or her campaign? It’s the only way to gauge how well they will run their general election campaign.

  26. Well his father went to prison, that’s one thing Mitt sure as hell can’t brag about. And he brought riverboat gambling to Louisiana, so I guess that makes him a “Maverick”. He also spent more time in office as a Democrat than as a Republican, so that would help him “reach across the aisle”. Reaching across the aisle is something some of the others have to be real careful about.

  27. They’re all damaged goods, Joe.  But nobody cares how damaged a Veep nominee is.  All they are there for is the optics – and he’ll make a fine attack spokesman aimed squarely at the other black guy in the race.  See, Cain can say things Gingrich can’t, and credibly avoid being called a racist while he does so.  That makes him a mighty valuable commodity in the mudfight to come.

  28. Sorry CPAguy, but the perception of why the meeting was cancelled is fear.  And whether intended or not, Cain’s team let it happened. 

  30. But you don’t understand, Ladd. It doesn’t matter how well or even whether Cain campaigns in Iowa at all, because, you see, he is running a “different kind of campaign”. From what I’ve seen, its this real clever, original, groundbreaking concept where you just buy advertising time and make a few speeches.

  31. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I think we could fare better than that.  Whoever beats Obama will be limited in what they can do.  The President can’t impound funds.  The real cuts will have to come from Congress.

    If we take the Senate by a good working margin, we can do it.  I know past Republican Congresses have turned into Demo-Lite, but there are some different dynamics here.  First of all, there is no more kicking the can down the road anymore.  We’re out of road, a second downgrade is virtually certain if the Super Committee screws the pooch, and any more will start pushing our interest too high to ever pay down.

    Secondly, enough of the members elected in the last couple of cycles are conservative and got involved just because of the fiscal issues, so the caucus will be determined. 

    Finally, so many of the old-line business-as-usual guys retired or lost, the so-called “establishment” lacks the control it once had.

  32. Agree, the worries about MittCare affecting his chances vs Obama are far overblown.

    My biggest problem with Mitt has always been his squishiness on environmental issues.  Like a typical corporate guy, he’s all for appeasing the enviro-whackos to get them out of the way, and just get some rules established.  For business, bad rules are better than uncertainty.

    But he’s still not willing to call the AGW crowd a bunch of frauds, which is what I want to hear.  Romney and Gingrich are both far too accommodating to the Reds as long as they dress like Greens.

  33. The GOP is dead and that is a tragedy, but it is dead because it had no code. It had no honor. And God was watching.

  34. People got all over Fred Thompson for running a “part-time” campaign with only four appearances a day five days a week.  Cain appears four times one day a week, with maybe a couple others scattered through the week.

  36. One’O them infernal optimists. Half of the class of 2010 have already sold us out and become “reasonable” it’s really quite despicable. Half the people who voted to cut government spending just meant foreign aid to China not spending on head start or public housing. To turn this around we need a conservative President a filibuster proof conservative majority in the Senate and a conservative House. The end of the road is indeed here. I think they’ll just keep kicking that can on wonder why it just keeps bouncing back.

  38. RCP takes all the good, legitimate, well run polls, all of the shitty, asinine, poorly organized one, averages them all together and acts like it means something. Rasmussin is the best polling outfit in the nation, and almost always comes closest in their polls to how elections turn out than every other major poll. If Rasmussin says Cain’s done, stuff some dressing in that turkey.

  39. Now now, Adjoran, you shouldn’t be that way. We need to keep Cain fresh and alert just in case somebody asks him a question or two. If he campaigns too much, it might make him “tired”.

  40. That’s your only response, an inferred denial there is a GOP Establishment? Ask Erich Erickson, he’s sure spent enough time kissing up to them, including but not limited to going out of his way to belittle Palin and her supporters. Actually, I just threw that in there as a by the way, my main point was about it looking like its down to between Newt and Mitt, the way things stand now.

  41. Damn you know, somebody should bury that stinking, rotten corpse, its been lumbering around dead all over the country, stinking the place up, scaring women, old people and little kids, hell ever since 2008, and somehow even managed to win a fucking election.

  42. Sure, but a win in Iowa and/or NH changes everything.  McCain had a pathetic, crumbly campaign with little money until he won in New Hampshire.

    So all predictions made with certainty at this point are equal to predictions about the weather in 100 days.

  43. People love to dish out the “stupid” accusation. In my book it typically indicates someone with no real argument. In your case, that’s at odds with your usual debate abilities, so I wouldn’t go there, really.

    I don’t give a shit who you are, to make it to the position any of these candidates have, especially with their backgrounds, “stupid” is a word that simply does not apply.

    Further, I’m willing to bet that the folks who hurl the accusation rarely have achieved as much as the people they target. I know it takes more work to oppose someone in the primaries when we avoid base slander, but hey, the cries of “stupid” aren’t convincing anyone.

    Especially when you look at the local polling in Iowa and South Carolina. As Rush observed, and as pointed out by KenInMontana, the candidates who are more closely following Reagan’s 11th commandment seem to be doing best in those local polls. That would be Cain and Paul, in at least three separate polls done just this past week.

    So much for “stupid.” It isn’t working.

  50. I went and listened to it: PT is lying.

    “Some of the Occupy Wall Street are part of the 14 million looking for a job; the vast majority of those 14 million aren’t looking for a government handout.”

    O’Rielly:”You think those who are Occupying Wall Street want a job?”

    Perry: “I think there are some of them out there that may.”

    Doesn’t sound like he’s embraced OWS…

    When I find the transcript I’ll put up the whole section.

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