Have FAUX and MSNBC have spun up this Gingrich Surge in an attempt to drag this out?

[OmahaBlueDog]

If Romney wins the GOP nomination by February, they don't have a helluva lot to talk about until the conventions. Maybe the veep pick for the GOP, but that's it.

[gateley]

1. I think you give them too much credit. They don't lead the news anymore, they just react to what's

happening and jump on it until they can't squeeze it any longer.

[OmahaBlueDog]

12. You are probably correct.

As stated downthread -- it's just speculation on my part. Gingrich+ Deeply Conservative Southern State = Romney Loss is more logical.

[phasma ex machina]

13. +1

Mockingbird Media

[NotThisTime]

22. +1

[MADem]

2. You don't want to leave out those silly voters in SC. They had something to do with it. NT

[think]

5. Or John King for feeding the troll /nt

[MADem]

6. I think John King is too "northern" for that crowd. nt

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. I think the poster may refer to this

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/22/idUS77355438720120122

Did CNN’s John King swing the South Carolina primary to Newt Gingrich?

That’s what several Fox News analysts said on Saturday, including former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who said that Gingrich should take King out to a steak dinner for his tough questioning during Thursday night's debate.

King opened CNN’s candidates debate by asking Gingrich a controversial question about an interview ABC conducted with his ex-wife Marianne in which she said the former Speaker wanted an “open marriage.”

[MADem]

15. I think that question was a tempest in a teapot--it gave Newt an easy chance to look outraged,

but I'll bet if something like that didn't come up, Newt would have gotten "outraged" about something else--military funding, or some other issue that plays well.

Newt did need an opportunity to be "more pissed off" (aka more 'manly') than Mittens, and that question was a blessing, but I think he would have found a reason to thunder even if Marianne hadn't given the interview.

Newt needed to be the biggest walrus in the room. King HAD to ask--it was in the air. Everyone got what they wanted, but I don't think King was doing Newt any particular favors.

[OmahaBlueDog]

8. Who's being called a troll here?

Enquiring minds want to know.

[think]

9. eye of newt :P

Sorry if it wasn't clear I was speaking of Newt.

[OmahaBlueDog]

11. Fair enough. You have my wholehearted agreement

[think]

14. TY. Call me old fashioned but I look for a moderator to focus

on the issues and not the side shows. Let the clowns tear themselves a part and the moderator should do just that "moderate". Maybe I'm being too hard on him as CNN doesn't really qualify for news now days.

Unfortunately the MSM feeds on drama not issues.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

3. Semi-Creative Speculation.

[rufus dog]

4. I think it is a surge

At the start of the week Romney had won the first two contests and was favored in the third. By the end of the week he had one victory pulled and lost his favored status.

It isn't like Obama/Clinton where they took expected victories and turned them into "game changers."

Although SC should have never been a Romney state, those racists were never going to pick someone different.

[OmahaBlueDog]

10. At the outset, I would have expected this

..then a week ago, the MSM was talking about a Romney SC win (which would have essentialy seen him cruising toward the nomination).

At this point, Romney has a questionable Iowa win, an expected NH showing, and a drubbing in SC against a candidate who, while very Southern, should be beatable.

[pnwest]

16. No. The guy who gave newts superpac $5M did. If not for that -

newt woulda been an also-ran by now. History. Archives. Goddamn Citizens United.

[Leopolds Ghost]

17. Why would anyone oppose Gingrich over Romney? The man is cancer.

Do you wANT Obama to lose to Romney in the fall? Really, I sometimes question people's ability to think strategically.

[Vogon_Glory]

18. I Don't Think They Did

I don't think they did. I suspect that the big game plan for the Republican/right-wing establishment was to quickly rally around an "electable" candidate and then spend the rest of the election cycle bashing President Obama so they could roll over him in November.

Clearly that didn't happen. I think the reason for it is because so many social reactionaries and Religious Right voters never liked Mitt-sie in the first place and decided to go for the strongest "Chrizchin" and "let-the-poor-folks-and-coloreds-starve" candidate they could find, and the luck of their draw turned up Newt. That their standard bearer is a sleazy multiply-divorced multiple-adulterer apparently didn't make much of an impact on their voting decision.

I think we might possibly be watching something very interesting this year--the right-wing crazies driving the Republican Party over a cliff into electoral oblivion. The Republicans' base might be handing the rest of the GOP an unpalatable, unelectable candidate that wows their base but the rest of the electorate can't stand.

Establishment pundits and assorted media critters might be sighing in dismay. I don't think I am. After decades of right-wing crap, I say that if the Republican Party wants to self-destruct, I say let them, and then progressives should go in and stomp on their shattered pieces.

[Old and In the Way]

19. Excellent points!

I wonder about the future of the Republican Party, as well. Traditionally, the best and brightest of a political party rise to the top and run for President; what has risen to the top in today's Teapublican Party is something quite rancid. A jobs cremator and offshore tax cheat, a racist/Fed Reserve crank, a disgraced former Speaker with serious ethics problems, a batshit crazy Congressional backbencher, a faux, sanctimonious moralist/hypocrite, and a former Pizza CEO with an idiotic 999 plan. This is what passes for the best candidates a Party has to offer?

Obama gets mucho grief for trying to be inclusive and centrist in his approach to POTUS - the Teapublicans make no pretense to doing that. They run and would operate as if the majority in this country doesn't exist. They are not a serious national Party anymore.

[OmahaBlueDog]

21. 2016 will be the GOP's best/brightest run

Traditionally, the best and brightest of a political party rise to the top and run for President; what has risen to the top in today's Teapublican Party is something quite rancid. A jobs cremator and offshore tax cheat, a racist/Fed Reserve crank, a disgraced former Speaker with serious ethics problems, a batshit crazy Congressional backbencher, a faux, sanctimonious moralist/hypocrite, and a former Pizza CEO with an idiotic 999 plan. This is what passes for the best candidates a Party has to offer?

Upthread, someone put it well. It looks like the theory at the outset was that "Romney" was the most electable. Pawlenty bailed and Huckabee opted not to run. I think they needed someone with broad appeal to go against a sitting President. Romney also could have looked good against Sarah Palin, who many Republicans like, but who will also admit (with great pain) probably can't get elected President.

My original theory was that Newt was in the mix to be Palin's Veep, had she ended up running.

2016 will be the GOP's best/brightest run. That's when you'll see Christie, Daniels, maybe Bobby Jindal, maybe Marco Rubio.

[Old and In the Way]

23. Supernova's are always brightest before they collapse and flame out.

A rout in 2012 will force the Party to autopsy their failure. Will they conclude that they need to moderate their image or will they convince themselves that they weren't "conservative" enough for the voters? Somehow, I doubt they'll refute their recent history by moving to the center...I think they'll continue to purge the moderating influences in the Party and become a smaller, meaner and ideologically more unelectable group of bomb throwers.

[OmahaBlueDog]

24. Or the GOP moderates, and the "Tea Party" faction walks away and forms a third party

Either way, the effect will be the same.

[Vogon_Glory]

25. The Likely Autopsy Result: The Republicans Will Have To Be Even MORE Ideological!

I suspect that the likely Republican conclusion to getting stomped this year would be that their party has to become even MORE ideological, MORE divisive, and EXPLICITLY racist.

If the loonies want to propel the GOP into the rubbish bin of history, the faster their demise, the better.

[Old and In the Way]

26. I encourage this analysis!

Really Teapubs....you just aren't conservative enough! People want lower taxes, less services, dirtier air, undrinkable water, $5.00/gal gas. Keep pushing this agenda!

[tallahasseedem]

20. +1

It's been crazy, yet fun, to watch!