what the map shows is what you just said. romney still has an issue with the core base conservative. if you believe the party, which is still sort of based in the south. it s a culturally conservative southern party. it s the heart of the party. it s not the majority of the party. but it is sort of the largest plurality part of the party if you will. it s still the heart. and that is where gingrich has a foundation to build on. now if he ever could run a campaign to build from there, you see where he could go. you would rather start where newt is starting, if you were. if you were starting from scratch, than where romney is starting. it s harder normally in a republican primary or any primary to have to sort of win over the base. what romney is doing is much harder than what newt is doing.
campaign. it was going to be long mathematically anyway, but now it s going to be long as a matter of intention, especially from newt gingrich and his ally, ron paul, who is going to do well in the upcoming caucuses. what i saw in newt gingrich was an amazing combination of delusion and defiance. delusion in the sense that he detailed in almost, you know, lunatic specificity the first days of his administration. what he was going to eat. what he was going to sign. but he was doing that to make a point. which is he thinks big thoughts and he thinks in the long term. not only was the guy is going to try to take it all the way to the convention, but a guy who will be difficult to get in the convention. once he s in the convention will difficult to keep in the convention. he said a people s campaign directly between him and the people. that means if he s not satisfied with romney, if he doesn t win, if he country get what he wants in the convention, which he won t, he s going to threaten
thank you, gene robinson. the obama campaign learning about mitt romney and how they will use the info. a lot of info coming out. not a great weekend for mitt romney. but he did win. he did win. we ll be right back. the democrats won the special election in oregon for the open house seat. we ll be back with more of the special eedition of hardball tonight from miami.
what deroy is suggesting and in the long term he has to do that but the short interpreter there is n term, there is not enough time and, he has to raise questions about gingrich, bottom line, if he doesn t win florida his candidacy is in real jeopardy. he lost to john mccain, but got 31% of the state, and john mccain, 35, 36, to take first place and here s the big issue in south carolina. a poll in december they found more than half of those people in the poll believed that government spending is issue number one today. that is in a state with 10% unemployment. who wins that debate, between newt gingrich, mitt romney, santorum and paul? now, newt gingrich is winning among tea party voters in the most an the most conservative voters and the fear romney has is, if it translates as we have been saying, as a victory for newt gingrich, the florida lead, double-digit, will collapse, the
between the two, between santorum and newt gingrich is a different approach to where the race goes from here. newt gingrich has said several times that south carolina is it. he has to win south carolina. he needs to win. the bret: although he said today he may go on, if he doesn t win. he is clearly he spent the better part of the last two days saying that south carolina is huge. santorum has been rather consistently saying this is a long process. i mean, the clip we played, this is a long process. just because romney wants it to be over soon doesn t mean it will be over. just because the media has decided that the two or three contests are determinative, doesn t mean they in fact will be. he is clearly planning for a longer run here. it s just hard to see how one sustains that. if romney goes on and wins south carolina, decisively as the polls suggest he might, and i think he will win very decisively in florida. he has a campaign team down there. he has absentee ballots he is