A new poll from CBS shows Herman Cain at 18% support nationwide followed by Romney and Gingrich, both at 15%. Steve Benen is skeptical. Josh Marshall snarks:
Myself I’m looking forward to a thick crop of ‘Newt’s moment’, ‘Did we misjudge Newt’ pieces from the standard pubs. It’s not all a bed of roses for Newt: he currently has a net national disapproval rating of -25%. But, hey, that’s down from about -30% only a couple months ago.
Rich Lowry is more accommodating:
No politician has spent so long saying we need such fundamental change. It is typical of Gingrich that his 21st-century Contract with America is conceived as “a larger and more complex developmental challenge than any presidential campaign has undertaken in modern times.” Cue the eye-rolling. But the country now has such grave challenges even beyond the headline problems of joblessness and spiraling debt that there’s a place for a candidate devoted to upending 20th-century structures in health care, education, and more. Never have Gingrich’s extravagant overstatements seemed so apt.
Michael Brendan Dougherty freaks out:
[Gingrich] has all the admirable qualities of an autodidact. He's energetic and occasionally lobs a challenge at weak intellectual orthodoxy. Unfortunately, he has all the horrible qualities of an autodidact: a tyrannical streak and an egomania that is impervious to the reality of other people. … Please, conservatives, spare yourselves Newt Gingrich.
Doug Mataconis has more. RCP's poll of polls, above, has Gingrich in third.
