Dick Morris

Here’s the reason Mitt Romney won in Florida: Women turned against Newt. 

For students of politics, following the way the Romney campaign played Gingrich is a lesson to learn and to keep.

A seesaw campaign?

The impostor who wallowed in negative ads, attacked capitalism at Bain Capital and hemmed and hawed when asked about his role at Freddie Mac is gone. The real Newt Gingrich has returned!

Two facts emerge from the New Hampshire primary with ominous implications for the GOP in 2012:

Eight votes don’t mean much, but even had Mitt Romney lost out to Rick Santorum in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, he would still have emerged as the big winner last night. He didn’t lock up the nomination, but he acquired a key strategic advantage.

To beat Romney, you’ve got to get him one on one and win all the non-Romney votes out there. (They are not really anti-Romney, but they sure would prefer someone who had never been pro-choice and was not a Mormon.) Had Santorum not surged in Iowa, Newt Gingrich would now have Mitt one on one and could have done some serious damage.

But now, Santorum and Gingrich are about to split the same vote. 

In his “60 Minutes” interview, President Obama offered a keen insight into his 2012 reelection strategy. It takes some decoding, but his underlying strategic goals emerge. He said:

He doesn’t have the money. He doesn’t have the organization. But, boy, does Newt Gingrich have a breadth, depth and intensity of support out there. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this since I watched Obama take over the Democratic Party by storm in 2008.

The conventional wisdom is that the GOP nomination race has boiled down to Mitt Romney versus Newt Gingrich. Not so fast! A contest limited to these two men would leave two key Republican constituencies unsatisfied. And unsatisfied voters tend to stray. Particularly in Iowa.

As the debates accumulate, it becomes more and more evident that Newt Gingrich’s intellect, experience, articulateness and depth of knowledge elevate him to the top of the GOP field. Anyone should be happy to pay admission to watch him duel with President Obama in debate! He’s not as charismatic as Herman Cain or as smooth as Mitt Romney, but boy, does he have a brain!