I'm pretty bullish on Newt. He doesn't have the money/organization Romney does and there's a good chance of a career-ending scandal or gaffe that puts him out of the race, but if somehow the first doesn't matter as much as people think it does and the second doesn't happen, I think he has the nomination sewn up.
Anyone watching the debate on Saturday knows that Newt is one slick motherfucker when under attack -- the dude somehow turned a defense of his child labor stance into an applause line and despite the entire debate being a Newt pile-on (in which many very justifiable objections to Newt being the nominee were brought up), he came out of it the winner. Romney was smooth (albeit robotic sounding) when delivering talking points, but he sputtered and lost his cool once he started arguing with Newt. The debates are already more important to this primary race than maybe any before it (I mean, because of the debates Gingrich has become the frontrunner in Iowa without even having a proper campaign staff in Iowa) and are going to become increasingly so once D-listers like Santorum drop out and they more or less become Romney vs. Newt slugfests. And in the bizarro Republican world where logic and truth don't matter, and all anyone cares about is how confident you sound and how well you can deliver applause lines, Newt wins. Of course, once Newt exits the insane asylum, things change dramatically.
Like everyone else, I'm rooting for Newt to win the nomination. Anyone who follows American politics and isn't crazy is going to enjoy the schadenfreude once Newt loses by a wide margin and the Yahoo! commenters who harped on about how "DAFFY DUCK COULD BEAT OBAMA" don't know what to do.
