Charles Franklin grapples with Gingrich's polling slump:
This is a great example of how elite opinion can modify mass reaction. Gingrich can be very appealing to GOP primary voters with his rhetoric and wit and seeming erudition. But elites remember his foibles as Speaker and the many issues he has embraced and then shrugged off. Those weaknesses have been the focus of conservative commentary for three weeks now, and they have taken their toll.
Joe Klein reports what he's hearing:
Iowa Republicans are not neoconservatives. Ron Paul has gained ground after a debate in which his refusal to join the Iran warhawks was front and center. Indeed, in my travels around the country, I don’t meet many neoconservatives outside of Washington and New York. It’s one thing to just adore Israel, as the evangelical Christians do; it’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.
Chait is betting on Romney:
[W]ith Christian conservatives splintered, the path is clear for Paul to win Iowa. Short of Romney winning Iowa, that would be Romney’s best possible outcome, as Paul can’t possibly cobble together the support of a majority of Republicans or anything close.
But Paul is third in New Hampshire, and Gingrich is falling fast. New Hampshire is a Ron Paul type state, it seems to me. And I find a two-man race between Mr Fake and Mr Real to be quite intriguing. Chart from TPM.
The Dish 
