1. Gingrich is coming across very whiny about all the negative ads that people wouldn’t air if they had to show them to their grandchildren (or something), and anyway, who are you going to believe on Freddie Mac, your eyes, common sense, and the evil Mitt Romney ads or Newt Gingrich? I’m just not sure that this will convince wavering Iowans to switch (back) to Gingrich.
2. The New Hampshire debates are setting up as Huntsman and Gingrich vs. Romney and Perry vs. Santorum. Gingrich can hardly contain his bitterness and wrath at Romney and he needs a knockout performance at the debates to regain his momentum. New Hampshire is Huntsman’s first, last, and only stand. He needs to take Romney down hard. I bet Perry is wishing that he had used the last two debates to seed the story about Santorum and pork spending. When the air went out of the Gingrich balloon, a lot of conservatives looked at Santorum and said “Why (other than his lousy poll numbers) not?” They didn’t have a substantive answer to that question. Those same voters had multiple answers to the question “Why not Rick Perry?” I think the whole pork thing is a hugely overrated issue, but I’m not Perry’s target audience. Perry and Santorum both played the pork game in their own way, but Perry needs to stop Santorum from becoming the consensus “non-Newt Romney, non-Ron Paul, real conservative candidate” if Perry is going to have any chance at all in South Carolina.
