Visual source:
Newseum
NY Times:
Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich took fire for most of the evening and seemed to relish his new role as the leading Republican candidate in the field.
Dan Balz and Philip Rucker:
At a GOP debate, the former House speaker defended himself as his rivals accused him of being a career politician, a serial hypocrite and a leader with intemperate rhetoric.
And those were his friends. Then there are the people that don't like him.
Maureen Dowd:
Republicans still seem a bit dazed by Newt’s dizzying rise from the ashes.
Peggy Noonan calls him “a trouble magnet” and “a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, ‘Watch this!’ ”
Joe Scarborough, one of the House plotters against Speaker Gingrich back in 1997, quipped, “Let me just say, if Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy in the room, leave that room.”
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who was in the House when Gingrich was speaker, told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that he would have a hard time supporting Newt because his leadership was “lacking oftentimes.”
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who worked with Newt in the House, noted, “He’s a guy of 1,000 ideas and the attention span of a 1-year-old.”
Congressman Peter King of New York told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Newt’s “inflammatory” statements, his “erratic” and “self-centered” behavior, and his “Armageddon language” wear people out.
George Will:
So, small vote totals for independent candidacies can have huge potential consequences. Which brings us to Ron Paul.
When recently asked if he might mount an independent candidacy, he said: “I’m not thinking about it because, look, I’m not doing badly right now. . . . So we concentrate only on one thing: Keep moving up in the polls, and see how things come out in a month or two.”
WaPo:
Five myths about Ron Paul
Yet Paul is doing increasingly well in national and state-level polls. He’s running in second place in Iowa ahead of the Jan. 3 caucuses and third in the New Hampshire primary — the first two contests for the GOP nomination. And now that Cain has dropped out, Paul’s stock is likely to keep climbing. The congressman is no less a top-tier candidate than anyone else in the race.
David Ignatius:
Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030.
The answer, judging by comments from a panel convened to discuss the topic, is that America faces serious trouble: The U.S. economy is slowing, relative to its Asian competitors, which will make it harder for the country to assert its traditional leadership role in decades ahead. That, in turn, could make for a less stable world.