I know this is hard to believe. This is a gift from Heaven above ! But based upon the evidence, I am about as convinced of this as I am of the law of gravity or anthropogenic climate change or evolution or the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which is to say completely.
It is about 1 month from the Iowa caucuses.
More below the fold:
None of the other non Mitt candidates doubled up on Mitt nationally, nor dominated him in Iowa and Florida. None of them tied him statistically, gasp, in New Hampshire.
Newt leads Mitt in Iowa by 14 percent (or more) according to polling, 26 to 12.
Cain isn't coming back in Iowa, nor is Michelle, Rick Santorum is not going to be competitive there, Ron Paul has his 10 to 12 percent and can't get more, Rick Perry isn't coming back and Jon Huntsman will be lucky to get more than 2 percent.
It is hard to deny that Newt will win Iowa and by a wide margin.
He is already in a statistical tie with Mitt in New Hampshire. Mitt has never held a majority lead in polling in New Hampshire. There have always been more votes for candidates not named Mitt than for Mitt in New Hampshire.
Having won Iowa, he will have shown himself to be the only viable non Mitt candidate. He will therefore gain the support, as polling shows (second choice ....) of those who previously had supported other non Mitt candidates. This bump from Iowa and the ingathering of the other non Mitt voters will give him a win in New Hampshire.
Nevada will be close. Then, we move to South Carolina which will not be competitive. Newt will win South Carolina by a landslide and Mitt will not fare well.
Current Florida polling shows Newt beating Mitt in Florida by 30 points.
And we're done here. That's all she wrote. There was never a hunger among actual mainstream conservative Republicans for Mitt. The only Republicans who liked him were those simply wanted an R in the Presidency. There will be little stomach for defending him and thrusting him upon an electorate that won't have him.
1 month to go, no viable non Mitt candidates left, dominant polling everywhere and nationally, and Newt realizes that this is his and is playing to win.