While Rick Santorum will never have Newt Gingrich's way with words - I'm sorry, I meant Rick Santorum will literally fundamentally never have Newt Gingrich's transformational way with words - it does look as if Santorum has once again replaced Newt as the GOP's anti-Mitt of the moment.

GOP primary voters are divided into three main categories: Mitt Romney fans, Ron Paul fans, and fans of a rotating cast of anti-Mitts. The anti-Mitts are Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. If you've heard political commentators say this GOP contest is "volatile," they're referring to the rapid rise and fall in the polls of anti-Mitts since last summer. Anti-Mitts keep surging in popularity, then flaming out.

Newt surged in November of last year, then flamed out in December. Santorum surged in late December, won the Iowa Caucus, then floundered.  Newt surged again in South Carolina, then ...

As polls predicted for nearly a week, Newt Gingrich decisively lost the Florida GOP primary last night to Mitt Romney. Exit polls showed TV ads and debates were a big deal to voters. As anyone who watched the two Florida debates knows, Newt failed to shine in either. As for the battle of the ads, Romney massively outspent Newt in Florida.

Romney's supporters want Newt to drop out quickly because a difficult primary battle has a way of weakening general election candidates: think Bush 41's tussle with Pat Buchanan in 1992, Carter's battle with Ted Kennedy in 1980, and Reagan's weakening of Gerald Ford in 1976. The Clinton vs. Obama grudge match in 2008, which appears to have sharpened Obama's campaigning skills, was an exception to the rule.

Despite the predictable (and predicted) big loss, Newt shows no sign he's ready to quit.  On Monday he said the campaign will ...

I think Newt Gingrich lost Florida during last night's debate and, therefore, his best chance to win the GOP Presidential nomination.

After surging in the polls in the lead-up to his South Carolina win, Gingrich's support in Florida began to decline by the middle of this week. He needed to shine in last night's debate to make up for the fact he and his super PAC allies have a smaller ad budget than Romney.

Unfortunately for Newt, he was flat last night. The energy he had in the final debate before the South Carolina primary was absent from the last two debates.

I think his biggest early misstep was when flubbed what I think should have been an easy attack on Romney's blatant immigration flip-flop (nutshell: Romney's language about immigration is much harsher when he's not standing in front of Hispanic Americans like he was last night. I'm not a ...