Rick Klein predicts that the bad blood between Gingrich and Romney could have long-term consequences for the Republican party.

“Gingrich is accusing Romney not just of liberal and moderate viewpoints, but of a craven dishonesty in his attacks — the kind of dishonesty that will make it seem strained at best when and if Gingrich throws his support behind Romney for the general election. He’s using the attacks to fuel an argument that Romney simply can’t beat President Obama in November. Sarah Palin, speaking to the tea party activists and other base conservatives, is emerging as Gingrich’s chief ally in arguing for the campaign to continue. Her voice was reinforced by that of former candidate Herman Cain, whose endorsement of Gingrich Saturday puts an exclamation point on the split between the party’s establishment and anti-establishment wings.”

Walter Shapiro says Newt Gingrich may indeed be the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But it is not Reagan the governor nor Reagan the transformative president. Rather its the stubborn Reagan who bedeviled Jerry Ford all the way to the 1976 Kansas City Convention.

“None of this guarantees that political history will repeat itself as either tragedy or farce. But again and again, the largely youthful campaign press corps has sold Gingrich short. Maybe Florida is indeed the end of the line for Gingrich’s frail hopes to be the GOP nominee. But all it takes for Gingrich to prove that he is not yesterday’s man is a GOP primary electorate that remembers yesterday — and the day before.”

“Vote for Newt. Annoy a liberal. Vote Newt. Keep this vetting process going, keep the debate going.”

— Sarah Palin, quoted by National Review.

Coming this spring: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality by Chris Mooney.

Newt Gingrich’s campaign has launched TalesofMitt.com, full of recent flip-flops by the Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.

It is certain that Democratic political operatives have already been
documenting many of these moments, but they have to be happy to have
Republicans lay the groundwork and soften the target with slick ads
using the material.

As Super PACs raise larger and larger sums of money to put towards operations supporting specific candidates, Politico
reports that these organizations are evolving to become more like
shadow campaigns, “including phone banking, field organizing, direct
mail, polling, state-of-the-race memos and even surrogate operations.”

“The
ambitious expansion is another example of a shift in political
power away from the major parties and their candidates to deep-pocketed
outsiders. But it’s left campaign operatives and even candidates
grumbling about whether the super PACs are actually helping their
favored candidates… With advertising, campaigns and outside groups
can figure out what one another are doing by consulting spending reports
with details of buys that each is required to disclose in close to real
time. With on-the-ground organizing, it’s tougher to determine quickly
who’s doing what, while staying within the bounds of the rules.”

Josh Putnam looks at the filing deadlines and notes that after Tuesday it will be mathematically too late for someone to enter the Republican presidential race and still be able to win the 1144 delegates needed for the nomination.

Of course, it’s still possible someone could run to deny one of the existing candidates the magic number.

A USA Today/Gallup poll in the dozen most competitive states finds President Obama and Mitt Romney essentially tied while Newt Gingrich trails the president by a whopping 14 points.

The survey focuses on the nation’s most competitive battlegrounds: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

First Read: “Perhaps the most important number in the NBC-Marist poll was what happens when Santorum is removed from the race. Santorum’s vote splits off evenly if he’s removed, and Romney has an even WIDER lead over Gingrich, 49% to 33%. So, Gingrich can’t make the argument that if conservatives weren’t divided he would win. The numbers just don’t bear that out. What’s really interesting — Santorum probably could argue that if GINGRICH weren’t in the race, he’d have a better chance against Romney. Santorum’s image is as good as it’s been since the campaign began.”

With the Florida Republican presidential primary wrapping up tomorrow
and likely to vote overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney, the candidates will
now turn to the seven contests in February. The AP notes, however, that Romney’s campaign has been laying the groundwork in these states for months.

“Romney has consistently dominated his opponents in fundraising,
reporting $19 million in his campaign account at the end of December.
And his campaign distributed paid staff on the ground — months ago, in
some cases — to bolster a growing network of local supporters. They
include a combined 380 Republican officials across February voting
states, eight members of Congress among them… While his opponents have
struggled to compete in one state at a time, Romney has had paid staff
in Nevada since June. He has already begun advertising there. More
recently, the campaign dispatched staff to Colorado and Arizona. Top New
Hampshire surrogates are headed to Maine in the coming days.”

The New York Times looks into former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) lack of an endorsement of Mitt Romney.

Troubled by Romney’s immigration rhetoric, Bush “voiced his concern directly to Mr. Romney, two people close to him said, urging him to moderate his oratory and views to avoid a collapse of support among Hispanic voters in the general election. In his conversations about an endorsement, Mr. Bush also conveyed to Mr. Romney and his allies that his double-digit defeat in the South Carolina primary did not warrant an endorsement and he needed to ‘earn’ it.”

“I think you can expect advisers to think that the work of advisers is very, very important, but frankly, I think if you’re to go back and look at where the sentiment changed, it was with the debates.”

— Mitt Romney, in an interview on the Today Show, dismissing the role of his advisers in his bounce back after losing the South Carolina primary.

[Read more…]