convention. candidates say that sort of thing all the time, but in newt s case, he could mean it. at age 68, he s not playing good soldier for a shot four years from now. it s now or never for newt. plus, it s personal. he has it out for mitt after the campaign he s been running. if he can t have it, why should he let someone he can t stand have the presidency. the white house learned how to take on mitt romney. win or lose here tomorrow night, he s a much weaker candidate than weeks ago. that s because the obama campaign has been taking notes on mitt and has a blueprint for beating him. and the man florida republicans love to hate. charlie crist tonight here on hardball. on whether president obama will carry the sunshine state come november. and finally, let me finish with newt versus romney. revenge is a dish best served cold. we begin with the assault in florida. with me are the two pros, joe
mitt romney may be winning the battle. he s going to lose the war if he s not careful. he needs to start telling people what s good about mitt. if he s not careful. you took a little edge off this. romney has a commanding lead in the latest poll. 15 points down here. he s on top with 42%. but the range in other recent polls varies wildly. in a new poll out, romney has a 20-point advantage over gingrich. but in an automated poll, romney had just a 7-point lead over the weekend. that dropped to just 4. at least in one poll, newt is closing. what do you make of that? newt is closing on romney? doubt it here in florida, but overall, the question is what are we going to be left with after their done with each other? there s a point of diminishing returns and the negative ads. again, everything has been negative towards gingrich from
scarborough and. i was at your event this morning. those people were lined up at 4:00 this morning to catch your act. there were some colorful character there is. the miami herald reported strippers were there. so i asked, let me see a copy of that miami herald story. there s a funny picture of mike allen. guess what is on the side of the ad? while florida was suffering, newt cashed in. everywhere. everywhere you go in the state, mitt romney is hammering newt gingri gingrich. and you know what? it s just like rick scott. this is how he beat bill mccollum. there s always a cost. you end up being hated.
opponent and talking about how nobody likes him. it s high school. but he doesn t connect. i m one of the guys that worked with newt and have a lot of concerns about newt that we talked about in realtime when i was against him on hardball. even looking at the attacks mitt is making. he s talking about an ethics investigation that most of us republicans believe had nothing to do with ethics and had everything to do with democrats taking down the republican. and so even in his attacks against newt, if he were attacking newt for being ideologically inconsistent, i would say okay. i agree with mitt. instead, he s taking a democratic attack against newt and he s borrowing tom brokaw s newscast to do it. the whole thing. he doesn t get the conservative base. let s start with my favorite question. i always ask this. you re on an airplane. let s assume you re up front. who do you want sitting with you on a plane ride next to you?