word, collapse. while newt gingrich is on the rise. if you ask me, i think you can t discount the fact newt gingrich spent millions of dollars against mitt romney in south carolina and that matters. but it is also the collapse of the basic justification for mitt romney. newt gingrich is killing mitt knit in the debates. two this week. supposed to be another one in florida on monday. mr. romney today making sounds about potentially not showing up for the monday debate in florida. the romney campaign kicking a whole contingent of press off their campaign plane today. the romney campaign warning supporters they expect to lose tomorrow. in 2008, john mccain kicked mitt romney s butt. this year, none of these other republican candidates is john mccain. but could mitt romney still be beaten the same way he was beaten the last time? on a day like today it feels more possible than ever. joining us next is the man who ran john mccain s 2008 campaign, stay tuned. i want to look natural, not na
a week ago the consensus conventional wisdom among every political reporter, person that works in republican politics, was that mitt romney was going to win the south carolina primary and the race would be effectively over. and this has entirely changed over the course of the week and it is hard to imagine a scenario where seven days ago you could have pictured having a worse week than the one he s having. seven days ago mitt romney won iowa. he had won iowa. he may be one for three at the end of the weekend, we thought he d be three for three. what was your mccain s campaign main strategy against mitt romney in 2008? what did you see as his biggest strength and how did you try to neutralize it? well, his biggest strength was money, was organization, was resources. if you remember the john mccain campaign in the summer of 2007, the campaign had collapsed. he was flying on the middle seat
that is my thought. gail collins, when the south carolina primary sadly does end, time and gods of politics will have you to thank for it. if they had me it would go on forever. gail, thank you. there was a book how to campaign for president against mitt romney. it was a book written for john mccain in 2008. the man who is the only person to have ever beaten mitt romney in a presidential campaign is the man who ran the john mccain campaign against him. and beat john mccain beat mitt romney. the man who beat mitt romney in 2008 will join us for the interview tonight. that s coming up. the sleep number bed.
the guy from massachusetts, whether a republican or democrat, always wins new hampshire. in 2004, john kerry, in 1992, paul songas, 1998 michael dukakis, henry cabot lodge, john f. kennedy. when a massachusetts politician is running for president it s a safe bet they will wine in new hampshire. they will win. there are two exemptions to the rule. two exceptions to the massachusetts guy winning in new hampshire in modern political history. 1980, jimmy carter got a primary challenge from the left from inside the democratic party from ted kennedy, ted kennedy was from massachusetts, he did not beat the incumbent president in that new hampshire primary. that is kind of an exception but it wasn t incumbent president, so not really. the only other exception to the massachusetts guy not winning in new hampshire, the massachusetts guy being surprisingly weak, defying history to lose new hampshire, the only other example? mitt romney. when he lost new hampshire in 2008 to john mccain of arizona
debate about taking our troops out of iraq in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of the surge and john mccain, in a move you don t see often in politics staked his campaign and said i believe in this to the degree i would rather lose the election than see this country lose a war in his view. i think that had enormous currency in the republican primary. the inauthenticity problem you say carries forward to 2012, i feel like the attacks on mitt romney are partly in that same vein, partly like you saw in 2008, he s a flip-flopper. is there something else that has emerged as a weakness for him or do you think that is still his achilles heal? if you analogize this to a football game he s a quarterback this week who has shown a propensity to throw a lot of