Let’s take a look at all the political firepower and scathing punditry aimed at Newt Gingrich from all directions, now that he is the Republicans’ newest instant-frontrunner:
This morning, former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu and former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent are holding a press conference call, arranged by the Mitt Romney camp, to discuss former speaker Newt Gingrich’s record.
“In other words, to trash him,” according to ABC’s “The Note.”
*****
The press release from the Romney campaign announcing the Sununu/Talent event bore this headline: “With friends like Newt, who needs the left?”
The former Massachusetts governor’s communications director says this: “Lifelong Washington insiders can’t fix the mess they helped create.”
*****
The New York Times is reporting that the White House and Obama campaign, previously fixated on Romney, is now setting its sights on Gingrich – just in case. One insider told the Times that the effort is “one part gleeful mischief-making and one part serious due diligence.”
*****
While Newt now holds double-digit leads over Romney in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, over at Politico they’re reporting that the biggest subsequent change for the campaign is all the campaign cash that’s flowing in.
“There were days in August when we raised $10,000 overnight and we’d be very excited about it,” a Gingrich spokesman said Wednesday. “Now we see $10,000 an hour.”
*****
Politico also obtained an advanced copy of a major speech that former Utah governor John Huntsman will deliver today. With Huntsman still trailing the field, he has decided to take the gloves off.
Here’s a little slice of his prepared remarks, where he compares Obama’s missteps to the track record of Gingrich and Romney:
“My opponents offer no better. Governor Romney will say anything to earn the voters trust. We are in this mess because there are already enough people in Washington who make a career out of telling people what they want to hear. Newt Gingrich is a product of that same Washington, who participated in the excesses of our broken and polarized political system.”
*****
Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for The Washington Post, has a scathing piece today that compares Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a GOP favorite who decided not to seek the presidency. They both spoke Wednesday at a Republican Jewish Coalition forum and, Rubin declares, it was “a vivid display of many of the traits that would make (Gingrich) a disastrous nominee.”
Rubin continued:
“…The speech certainly revealed Gingrich’s exaggerated regard for his own intellect, his tone-deafness, his penchant for self-delusion, and his serious handicap in reaching voters beyond the GOP base.
“… If you compared Christie’s speech, which was a clarion call to put action above rhetoric, with Gingrich’s white-hot rhetoric and lack of workable solutions, you would conclude that Gingrich is entertaining but Christie might get elected and accomplish something. Christie isn’t running, of course. So one of Gingrich’s actual rivals will have to call out Gingrich, expose him as a charlatan, and make the case that the GOP is heading for a train wreck if Gingrich is the nominee.”
*****
And, finally, we have left-wing commentator Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, who trotted out Gingrich’s sister for an on-air interview in which she said she favors Obama over her brother.
Candace Gingrich-Jones, Newt’s lesbian half-sister, will be voting for Obama said she’s particularly troubled by the GOP’s opposition to gay rights, and while she and Newt are “mutually respectful,” she believes “he is definitely on the wrong side of history when it comes to those issues.”
