Here’s yet another in the string of recent polls that suggests that the more former House Newt Gingrich is seen under the microscope, the more conservatives who are looking for a pure conservative (and the more independent voters who are looking for a problem solver) don’t like what they seem. Romney is now leading. Andrew Sullivan:
As I’ve said before, Rasmussen is the pollster I look to most for Republican base mood, because of their skewed sample. And their latest poll shows Romney ahead in Iowa by 3 points over Gingrich. Romney has barely budged since the summer, but Gingrich has lost altitude very quickly. Since August, Romney has gained a statistically insignificant two points. Gingrich has gone from 5 percent to 32 percent and now back to 20. Paul is in the top three, with 18 percent, up from 10 percent a month ago. Given the difficulty of polling caucuses, I’d say all three have a shot. But the momentum is with Paul, not Gingrich.
All the other candidates have seen a mild lift since October – also largely at Gingrich’s expense. Mickey Kaus’s theory that everything goes faster every electoral cycle may be true again. But the attacks on Gingrich – especially from Paul’s brilliant ads – seem to have taken a toll. And Republicans will surely note the following result as well..
I still believe Gingrich can get the nomination. His backers include many Tea Partiiers, members of the party’s Talk Radio Political Culture, former Vice President Dick Cheney and — from his interview on Morning Joe this morning — former Mayor Rudy Guiliani (there’s a politician who has pretty much become one more ideological politico). As I’ve said before, for all of his flaws and flip flopping, in another time Romney would be a dream GOP candidate. And he would most assuredly be the GOPer who could do best against Barack Obama — if that is what the 2012 election is all about rather than venting anger by getting the person who can utter the bet zingers.
Sullivan also points to a Rasmussen question about how Gingrich would do against Obama and notes that the result shows Gingrich at the top of the ticket would “mean a Goldwater-style defeat in the fall. Hence the panic in Washington.”
FOOTNOTE: As noted above, due to technical problems from my blogging site I will not be posting anymore tonight.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.