10.08 pm. My final take? Newt lost it by flubbing the debates. When you're out-gunned 5 – 1 on television, you have to pwn your opponent in the debates. Gingrich choked – and it was particularly striking given his sterling demagoguery in South Carolina. Tonight, Newt gave the kind of speech he needs to redefine and re-energize his campaign. I think they all go on through Super Tuesday.
And if Romney's speech is any indication, he still hasn't grasped how to appeal to the middle. And his lies, lies, lies will catch up to him.
10.06 pm. A funny from Blake Hounshell:
Washington outsider Newt Gingrich cites David Broder column on something he did in Congress in the 1990s.
10.03 pm. Peter Lawler keeps hope alive:
Newt is still tied with Mitt nationwide, and Romney remains stuck in the twenties. Polls posted today out of Missouri and Ohio show Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum in close to a three-way tie. (Romney isn’t leading in either case.) Will Santorum poll significantly better in the ethnic, Catholic, more industrial states of the Midwest? Certainly possible. Could a protracted campaign keep anyone from getting a majority of the delegates? Unlikely but not impossible.
10 pm. Another reader writes:
On the differences between the Mitt-Newt and Obama-Clinton races, remember when one of Obama’s most qualified surrogates, Samantha Power, was immediately dismissed (or she resigned if you believe campaign spin) after she called Hillary a “monster”? Hell, calling the other guy a monster or close equivalent is practically a requirement in the Mitt/Newt race.
As you noted today, Newt actually broke out the holocaust to go after Mitt. Unbelievable. And remember that Hillary never went after Rev. Wright or played up the kinds of pseudo-racial stuff that Palin begged McCain to get into. Bill came close with the Jesse Jackson and related comments, but they always tip-toed around the line without jumping over it. Mitt and Newt have run past the line and jumped over the cliff together.
9.58 pm. A reader writes:
Do you think the “People power vs. Money power” line was the first step in cushioning the blow when Sheldon Adelson cuts him off?
I think that was why he promised to immediately move the US embassy to Jerusalem. By Super Tuesday, he'll be pledging to get the US military to build West Bank settlements.
9.55 pm. TPM has a great interactive map. Look at the divide between north and south:
Mitt got the big swinging dick. But Newt got the taint.
9.52 pm. A real zinger from Michelle Goldberg:
Newt promises a personal contract "between me and you." Because we all know what those are worth!
Romney spent roughly $21 per vote.
9.49 pm. The Romney lead is now down to 14 points. But his victory is still very impressive, as Larison notes:
[Romney] improved on McCain’s winning result by eleven points. He seems to have brought together a coalition of old Romney, McCain, and Giuliani voters, led by huge margins among “somewhat” conservative voters (51-32), moderates (59-20), women (51-29), and Latinos (53-30), and he trailed Gingrich only among “very conservative” voters and strict pro-lifers. According to the exit poll, “somewhat” conservative and moderate/liberal voters account for 67% of the electorate. Small wonder that Romney was always the favorite to win Florida.
9.48 pm. JPod at his mordant best:
Santorum looks like he's having a mildly successful book reading at a Barnes and Noble
9.47 pm. Tweet of the mood of some Republicans:
9.42 pm. On the electability argument, it is worth noting that in a direct contest ron Paul comes second to Romney up against Obama. Obama's margin over Paul? 5.4 percent. Obama's margin over Gingrich? 12.4 percent. You won't hear that on Fox News. If people really want an insurgent people's candidate against the establishment of both parties, as Gingrich argued for, Ron Paul is the most electable.
9.40 pm. Can Newt win? Will Wilkinson:
Gingrich's main challenge is to offer conservatives a plausible story about why his continuing to fight makes defeating Obama more likely. It's a tall order, but Newt's a first-class bullshitter.
9.38 pm. Two things about a Ron Paul crowd: always some hot dude with a smoking beard behind him and chants of "End The Fed!" from the crowd. He had me at the beard.
9.35 pm. One thing you can say about Ron Paul's campaign: he doesn't have an enthusiasm problem.
9.34 pm. Yes, the ad carpet-bombing mattered:
Among those calling campaign advertisements important factors in their vote, Romney beat Gingrich by about 30 points, while he won by single digits among those seeing ads as less crucial.
9.33 pm. Tweet of the night:
BREAKING: sources in florida tell me Morty Seinfeld will win the Del Boca Vista condo board elections
9.26 pm. I must say it was a rip-roaring speech designed to buoy his base support, and I suspect he did very well with the Fox audience. He wasn't that nasty – even toward the president. He barely mentioned Romney. He gave a big, positive, passionate tirade, and tried to reach out directly to conservative voters and activists. I think he won tonight's speech duel as soundly as he lost the last two debates. And his emphasis on his experience as Speaker helped remind people that he has been around and wants to persuade them he knows how to get things done in Washington.
I think he pulled this off. 46 STATES TO GO! Well, 45, if you discount Virginia.
9.22 pm. Here's something worth noticing: Romney was much more personal in his attacks on Obama than Newt is. His attacks are on golfing, singing and a Teleprompter. But most of it is a detailed list of things he wants to do as president. The red meat is raw: abolition of all Obama's legislation, the Keystone pipeline, the "war on religion", the "tsars", and on and on. Like an episode of Hannity.
9.19 pm. He's for changing the "entire system". Uh-oh. I'd prefer someone who capably "managed the decay" myself. But I'm a conservative, not a radical like this dude. But he's got fire tonight; his speech has more passion, more spontaneity, and is more intelligent and less dishonest than Romney's. But how anyone could be more blatantly dishonest than Romney is beyond me.
9.16 pm. People power vs Money power: a great line. Then the reminder that he has come back from the electoral dead twice already. He invokes Lincoln, and says he is not going to run a Republican campaign, but a people's campaign. He's going rogue on both parties.
9.10 pm. Oh goodie. Newt is about to speak. He reprises his "true conservative" vs "Massachusetts moderate." Then he tells me that those signs tweeted by Weigel were made precisely for us, the "elite media." Really, you shouldn't have.
9.09 pm. A reader writes:
Romney said that Obama trampled on religious freedom. As Governor of MA, Romney DID THE EXACT SAME THING re: the morning after pill. No conscience exemption and he required Catholic hospitals to provide it. Why doesn't anyone ever call him on this?
More to the point: what does it say about his character that he can so easily assail someone viciously for doing something he has done in the past. There's something chilling about his utter disregard for truth. He's famous for saying that corporations are people. But what he suggests to me is living proof that a person can be as soulless as a corporation.
9.08 pm. Sign on the podium at Newt party: "46 STATES TO GO"
9.04 pm. Santorum is playing up his daughter's recent illness and rising above the mudfight that dominated Florida. He says he won't criticize Romney over Bain or Gingrich over Freddie Mac. He does not sound like he's going to withdraw any time soon. And then: snap. Tomorrow he is giving a speech comparing Obamacare and Romneycare. Heh.
9.03 pm. Newt's moon mission did not persuade the Space Coast. Romney crushed him there – and especially in Dade.
9 pm. Did this mud-fight help Romney, as he preposterously claimed in his lie-packed speech tonight? Ron Fournier thinks not:
Don't buy the spin from his camp that a drawn-out campaign makes for a better general-election candidate. Romney's team likes to point to Obama, who emerged from a long campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the presidency in 2008, but there are two problems with that thinking. First, the Obama-Clinton contest, although brutal, was not as personally negative as Romney-Gingrich. Second, of the five protracted GOP nominating fights in the 20th century, all but one — which Dwight D. Eisenhower won in 1952 — led to a Republican defeat.
The Obama-Clinton death-match never had the kind of ads we have seen these past few weeks. Blood money? Vulture capitalism? I don't think it's an accident that both Newt's and Mitt's unfavorables have been soaring since this race got serious.
8.58 pm. Palin reminds Fox viewers of the massive money advantage Romney used in Florida to blow Newt out of the race. Jesus, I find myself agreeing with Sarah Palin. Where's the Xanax?
8.54 pm. So where is the wave of Jewish voters moving to the GOP because of Obama's alleged hatred of the country? The raw data show the Jewish Republican vote has actually fallen since 2008:
According to polls posted by Fox News, only 1% of voters in today’s Republican primary identified themselves as Jewish. That’s compared to 3% of Republican primary voters identifying themselves as Jewish in 2008. The polls involve a relatively small number of voters, roughly 2,000 in today’s poll, and experts warn that they shouldn’t be taken as representative, especially when dealing with a small sub-group like GOP Jews.
Tobin spins madly:
The comparison is unfair since the man who drove that mini surge in Jewish Republican voters was Rudy Giuliani.
8.51 pm. Dave Jarman pushes back against the evangelical support for Gnigrich:
Newt is ahead in only two counties of any consequence, population-wise. One is Clay County, the ultra-conservative suburbs of Jacksonville, where he leads 43-37. The other, interestingly, is Alachua County, home of Univ. of Florida, where the ex-prof is up 37-36. (As we've pointed out, the closer you get to the Georgia border, the better Newt does.) Romney's topping at least 40% in just about every other major county, even some of the fiercely red ones, like Lake Co. north of Orlando, home to notoriously right-wing retirement destination The Villages … Romney's up 45-35 there. But hey! At least Newt's winning a bunch of former-Dixiecrat rural counties in the Panhandle, never mind that most of them have populations of 10 or 20,000.
8.49 pm. What Google searches in Florida tell us:
Gingrich: 1) Callista 2) Newt ethics violations 3) Newt wives 4) Newt scandals
Romney: 1) Mitt bio 2) Tax return 3) Net worth 4) George
8.44 pm. Everything this man says is a lie. He's doubling down on the big lies I tried to counter in that Newsweek piece. The president Romney is describing does not exist. Obama is demonizing and denigrating every sector of the economy? That is a pure lie. As is the repeated lie that Obama is an appeaser. Has Romney understood what has happened to the Iranian economy these past few months? Does he think Osama bin Laden thinks he was appeased?
Let me just say right now: this speech is the most dishonest, manipulative, disgusting series of lies I've heard in a very long time. And its core premise: that the president hates this country, whereas Romney believes in it. As I said: disgusting. I'm with Newt on this. The man will say anything to gain power.
8.41 pm. The county map shows two states: the northern – i.e. Southern part of Florida – and the rest. Gingrich is winning the South. In many counties up there, he is winning 2 -1.
8.37 pm. Romney embraces the brutal process, saying it doesn't divide but prepares the party in the fall. Then a failing argument: that Obama has not turned the economy around. Then he actually says that the recession was because Obama won the election. So far, a speech that is as dishonest as it is opportunistic – and a speech that ignores his Republican opponents.
8.36 pm. Romney's about to speak. His hair has had a color touch-up, it seems to me. Now let's see the tone and content.
8.35 pm. Romney is the candidate of the wealthy: only 8.8 percent of his donors gave $200 or less.
8.32 pm. The bitterness factor. It's over-rated after the nominee is selected, but right now, the nasty campaign has had an impact: 31 percent of Republicans would be dissatisfied if Romney were the nominee; 42 percent would be dissatisfied if Gingrich won in the end. Advantage: Romney.
8.26 pm. It looks as if the panhandle is voting disproportionately for Santorum and Gingrich. Not a good sign for Romney looking ahead to Super Tuesday. More to the point: among white evangelicals, Gingrich won by 39 to 36 percent. Santorum won 19 percent of them. Add Santorum and Gingrich, we have 58 percent of evangelicals who voted for the not-Mormon.
8.24 pm. Ron Paul came in second among the under-30s. 71 percent were over 50!
8.22 pm. Only one percent of the voters were African-American. 16 percent of Floridians are black. This is a party with almost no African-Americans in it.
8.12 pm. The gender gap matters. The ARG poll showed something drastic: among women, Romney was winning 49 – 29; among men by only 37 to 33. The exit poll finds:
Only about half of women report holding a positive opinion of Newt Gingrich as a person, compared with about 6 in 10 men.
And Romney won among women by 51 – 29 percent. Maybe Callista should, you know, speak.
8.11 pm. Nate thinks Romney will end up in the mid-40s.
8.08 pm. As expected, the race has been called for Romney by a hefty margin. The early voting may be a little skewed in favor of Romney, and, as I've said, I'm watching the panhandle for the true test of the candidates' strengths in the South. Weigel is on the mark about this:
In Iowa, early entrance polls gave Romney a narrow lead over Rick Santorum; it vanished with the final count. In New Hampshire, early exits showed Romney dominant, but final results pushed his total under 40 percent. In South Carolina, each wave of exit polls showed Newt Gingrich's lead increasing.
7.55 pm. Here's what's striking to me among the early exit polls: the debates mattered a lot, which is gratifying because of the Super PAC influence, which must have heped Romney; the negative advertizing was relentless and brutal but even though Romney carpet-bombed the state with anti-Gingrich ads, and Newt only managed a fifth of Mitt's volume, both were equally blamed, more or less:
Asked who has run the most unfair campaign, 37 percent of Florida voters pointed to Romney, whose super PAC has blanketed the state with negative ads about Gingrich. Thirty-four percent pointed to Gingrich.
The second finding: almost 40 percent of Republicans were dissatisfied with the choices available.
The Dish 