Newt Gingrich is still flying high in national polls, but there are signs his big lead in Iowa is collapsing. There’s also been a huge shift in momentum on the highly followed Intrade betting market. Just looks at these two charts that show the odds of GOP candidates winning the party’s nomination — and what’s been happening over the past few days.
Romney’s lead has exploded from around 4 points to around 25 points. Now Romney is still way down from last month when he was in the low 70s. But he seems to have found a floor and has begun to claw his way back. What happened? Well, lots of conservatives have been highly critical of Gingrich’s time as House speaker in the 1990s. The National Review just put up this editorial: “Against Gingrich.” Gingrich had another scuffle with Paul Ryan over entitlement reform. And his slam against Romney’s business record struck many Republicans as reminiscent of Obama-style class-warfare tactics. Iowa seems wide open right now and if Gingrich fails to win it by a wide margin, it seems unlikely that Romney would lose New Hampshire, save for a huge surge by Ron Paul or Jon Huntsman.
UPDATE: This Iowa new poll from Rasmussen further validates the Intrade numbers:
Mitt Romney is still a hard sell for the simple fact that his methodology is to make sure he doesn’t say the wrong thing. No one knows what he truly believes about anything. Is he less likely than Gingrich to balther right-wing and then concede deals to placate leftist legislators? Nope.
Mitt Romney is the New England Brahmin republican candidate. Ala GWB, he is all for big government, Republican style. Newt Gingrich is as much a right-winger as you can find functioning inside the beltway for 30 years.
Conservatives will likely still prefer Gingrich.
Newt votes while in Congress prove that he is not a “conservative” or “independent thinker.” Here is a nice little list of what Newt has supported.
March 21, 1991 – $40 billion to begin the unconstitutional bailout of failed savings and loan institutions
June 26, 1991 – $52.6 billion for agriculture program subsidies, and food stamps
October 5, 1992 – $66.5 billion for housing and community development
September 22, 1994 – $250.6 billion in appropriations for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education.
February 5, 1981, he voted with liberals to raise the National Debt ceiling by another $49.1 billion to $985 billion. He has gone this same route many times since.
December 21, 1987 – $603.9 billion for 13 regular appropriation bills larded with many wasteful, extravagant, and unconstitutional items
May 4, 1989 – outlays of $1.165 trillion and a deficit of $99 billion for a dishonest and spendthrift 1990 budget designed to barely skim in under Gramm-Rudman $100 billion deficit limit
March 10, 1994 – a vote against a responsible amendment offered by Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-NY) to balance the budget by 1999 through $698 billion in spending cuts (a mere 3.5% cut) over five years.
The 1992 House banking scandal revealed that Gingrich has run 22 overdrafts on his checking account, and this in spite of having voted himself a huge pay raise and having a taxpayer-provided, chauffeur-driven car!
His rating from the National Taxpayers Union during his latest session in Congress (the lO3rd) was a meager 75%.
His tax-and spend record over the years on votes tabulated by Tax Reform Immediately (TRIM) has so often contradicted his rhetoric that the National Director of TRIM, James Toft, was prompted to remark: “Professor Gingrich hopefully will never be called upon to teach a course in the proper role of our federal government. His rare votes against bloated big government usually have been prompted by the partisan wrangling of the moment, not by any great respect for, or understanding of, the Constitution.”