Mitt Romney, who just a month ago had hoped to seal the GOP presidential nomination with Florida’s primary on Jan. 31, tells POLITICO that he now foresees an epic fight with Newt Gingrich that could last through the California primary on June 5.
Asked if the former House speaker is the front-runner, Romney replied bluntly: “He is right now.”
Romney made it clear that he would rather lose than make incendiary charges about Gingrich that could help President Barack Obama in the general election. And the former Massachusetts governor said the nomination “is not going to be decided in just a couple of contests” and “could go for months and months.”
“You see how dramatically the numbers have moved and how quickly they have over the last year?” he replied Monday during a video interview at a grubby French-Canadian diner, Chez Vachon, a storied campaign stop that has hosted George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
“It’s a very fluid electorate. I think I’ll get the nomination. I can’t predict when. … I’ve got — what? — five or six more months to go to make that a reality.”
Romney had clearly learned from his thin-skinned responses in a recent Fox News interview. This time, he kept his cool through extended questioning about why he is suddenly the underdog, and whether he has what GOP voters want.
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6 Responses
Romney doesn’t need to make “incendiary charges” about Gingrich since Gingrich does it for him. In any event, a big portion of Gingrich campaign is “forgive me for all the mistakes I made in the past” so how can you attack his record, if the candidate attacks his own record.
While Americans have had many politicians with squeaky clean personal lives (Romney, Obama), we have had politicians with dubious personal lives (Clinton comes to mind, Dole, McCain), but we’ve never had a (le-havdil) Baal Tseuvah before.
We’ve also never had a novelist run for president (though the Brits had a novelist in the 19th century as prime minister), and rarely have we had a PhD who writes never ending speculation about public policy, with sufficient verbosity that no one can figure out what he really believes, or whether he even knows himself. Indeed, if elected, Gingrich would be only the second president with a PhD (Woodrow Wilson was the first – he had a great many marvelous ideas none of which he realized).
#1:
Bill Clinton apologized for cheating on his wife too. How is Newt any more a “BT” than Clinton was. They’re both amoral scum.
It’s funny how when a democrat commits some offense, people around here will harp on it for ages, no matter what contrition is shown. When it’s a candidate they like, they take them at their word that they are reformed.
Me, I don’t trust either of them as far as I could throw them.
Clinton apologized only when caught. Newt went into apology mode years later, apparently tied to changing his sect (Baptist to Catholic), and I suspect something tied to his wife’s religious views. And he seems equally willing to change political positions, and has always been distinguished as a sort of “loose canon”. He would fit in great on a website such as this one, especially if he was anonymous, only he puts his ramblings in books.
He’ld be an interesting candidate.
O not at all. Gingrich has a lot of great accomplishments behind him. I don’t think there’s any one out there who cut government so effectively, and with a democratic president too.
and all the things he ‘needed’ to appologize’ for are really stupidities, if you really look into them.
4:
So having an affair while your wife is being treated for cancer is a “stupidity?” I guess marriage is only a big deal when same-gender couples are at stake…
Don’t count Newt out
There are many pundits who claim that Newt is unelectable. Realistically Obama is unelectable. With the mess that the economy is in, it is absolutely impossible for Obama to win. Even his “friends” are deserting him in droves. Some liberal media pundits…pushing their own agenda, purport that the election will be close. Don’t believe it. Which out of work…out of house, person would vote for Obama. As far as Newt’s extra baggage, it is no worse than Bill Clinton. Romney fails to excite the voters. Newt may do just that…and Newt is fast on his feet and can really give Obama a run for the money