Newt Gingrich: Home State Loss Means 'Badly Weakened Candidacy'

In a pointed attack on Mitt Romney ahead of the Michigan primary, Newt Gingrich said that any presidential candidate who loses his home state would be "badly weakened" and might have a hard time continuing in the race.

"There's a whole rationale which is now built on [Romney's] ability to win, and if he loses his home state, I don't see what they say to their donors to stay in the race," Gingrich said to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "If any of the three of us lose our home state -- if Santorum loses Pennsylvania, Romney loses Michigan or I lose Georgia -- you have, I think, a very badly weakened candidacy."

Gingrich declined to say that he would quit the race if he lost in Georgia.

"Given the chaos of this race, I'm not ready to say anything, but I'm certainly willing to say I think it's extraordinarily important to carry your home state, and it has all sorts of underlying impact if you don't," he said.

Romney faces an uphill battle in his home state of Michigan (where he was born and where his father, George Romney, was governor), as recent polls show him trailing Rick Santorum by a few percentage points. Meanwhile, polls in Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania show the former senator holding a slim lead over Romney.

In Georgia, Gingrich so far holds a comfortable lead over the field in recent polls, but on Saturday he did lose a symbolic straw poll there to Ron Paul.

Later on the show, Gingrich defended his campaign's significant reliance on the funding of a single person, Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, saying that the money provided a much needed balance to Romney's "Wall Streeet money."

He said Adelson's support for Gingrich's campaign rested largely on their shared concerns about Israel.

"Sheldon Adelson is desperately worried about an Iranian nuclear weapon and desperately worries about the survival of the state of Israel, and I'm the strongest candidate on foreign policy and the strongest candidate on national security," Gingrich said. "It's a very open relationship. And I'm happy to say I'm very worried about the Iranian nuclear weapon, and I think we should do everything we can to make sure Israel survives."

Comments

[Paul Junior]

12:09 PM on 02/21/2012

Looks like all the middle-schoolers who are out of class this week decided to post their unbridled thoughts on HP:)

[Murdale]

03:19 PM on 02/20/2012

Can't wait to see what happens if Gingrich loses Georgia.

[unluckytony]

02:21 PM on 02/20/2012

"Gingrich said. "It's a very open relationship."

[Seafarer61]

02:03 PM on 02/20/2012

Newt looks like he just found the pick of Destiny.

[reggieb]

01:25 PM on 02/20/2012

Yipes! Somebody looks like the deviI......

[thomasdep]

01:45 PM on 02/20/2012

Quite a pair he and Calista arent they?

[99er2049er]

12:35 PM on 02/20/2012

I love it. Newt is like a bug in Mitt's face. A really big ugly bug, but a bug never-the-less.

Go get him Newt.

[reggieb]

01:26 PM on 02/20/2012

With yellow crookedy teeth!

[thomasdep]

01:46 PM on 02/20/2012

Maybe he should start that moon colony himself, anyone want to contribute to him going all by himself?

[Riven]

11:25 AM on 02/20/2012

Dear Mr. Romney:

Before I can even consider you viable Presidential material, I need for you to do an in-depth analysis of the height of the trees in every state in the Union to determine whether they are just the right height. Please present your findings in a bar graph so they can be easily read. If the height of trees in some states does not meet your exacting standards, please include suggestions for bringing the trees into compliance. Including the opinions of a scientific sampling of squirrels and blue jays would be a plus for your study.

Many thanks.
Tree-Hugging Liberal

[thomasdep]

01:46 PM on 02/20/2012

Youre killin me, that was a good one.

[stacknef]

11:17 AM on 02/20/2012

All three of the Republican "giants' will lose their own "home state". After all, each was thrown out once already, why shouldn't they expect to be thrown out again, except for their enormous egos....? They haven't contributed anything since......

[Mort Twain]

11:07 AM on 02/20/2012

Thank you, Newt, for being willing to plunge us in World War III for Sheldon's bucks. The fate of the world gyrates now on such bizarre connections. As soon as the United States got the bomb we celebrated by dropping it. Fortunately, nobody has dropped another one since.

Just as we were told Saddam Hussein was making chemical and germ weapons, I was skeptical because he was a germophobe. Likewise, Iran lives downwind of Israel and I doubt dropping a nuke on Israel makes much sense because radiation travels and so do missiles from Israel in retaliation.

Everybody on earth now has huge motivation NOT to drop a nuke on anybody because they would prefer not to be nuked in return. However, anything can happen on such a bizarre planet; like causing nukes to get dropped by staging a preemptive war on Iran to prevent same which is most likely how it will unfold, thanks to Sheldon.

[callie34677]

11:01 AM on 02/20/2012

Your pictures of "Evil Newt Laughing" are outstanding. Just had to share that tho they're only on the front page & not with the story!

[oldfloozie]

10:59 AM on 02/20/2012

Its time to bring back Quayle..........maybe..

[PatrioticUSGlory]

11:07 AM on 02/20/2012

I was a liberal when Quayle was VP. I thought he was kooky. The liberal media did quite a job on him. Had me hooked. Only when he came on Fox News a year or two ago did I begin to re-evaluate how much I let the media dictate my opinion of him -- something I was more than willing to allow as a liberal.

[KidSampson]

11:20 AM on 02/20/2012

Regardless of whether you're left or right, you have to admit he said some profoundly weird things.

[thomasdep]

01:48 PM on 02/20/2012

You arent suggesting that he actually has a brain do you? Even my dog knows how to spell potato.....

[billbb]

10:56 AM on 02/20/2012

Newt lives in Virginia, where he isn't even on the ballot. And both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum have beat Newt in Georgia straw polls.

Do we sense a little of that silly Republican projection going on here?

[capt hastings]

10:55 AM on 02/20/2012

"If any of the three of us lose our home state -- if Santorum loses Pennsylvania, Romney loses Michigan or I lose Georgia -- you have, I think, a very badly weakened candidacy."

Such a historian, such a professor,such a scholar this man is...In the words of one our finest female Democrat leaders, "DUH."

[keshea01]

10:54 AM on 02/20/2012

Ummmmm, I'm in GA and the news here is that Newt is struggling trying to win his own home state....(GA)

[billbb]

10:58 AM on 02/20/2012

Georgia people remember what a piece of Newt smells like.

There was a great Onion short article, "Time traveler from 1998 appears to warn people about Newt Gingrich."

[SoCalNick]

10:53 AM on 02/20/2012

But...

After the way they have been rigging these primaries to appear as if he won even when he hasn't who will ever know ??

WHY are the rights voters not rioting in the street with all of the BLATANT voter supression and fraud going on?

They will allow ANYTHING to be done to THEM and this NATION JUST to get at our Lawfully elected President.

That is all

[capt hastings]

10:57 AM on 02/20/2012

As I understand it, states run primaries and the parties run caucuses.

So, the obvious incompetence and perhaps outright corruption that occurred in Iowa and now in Maine should be a call to voters to fight back against the GOP voter suppression laws that are flooding into the states.