BILL PRESS: And for more, now, on the state of the GOP field heading into next Tuesday's Florida primary, I'm joined by Tim Dickinson, contributing editor with Rolling Stone. Hi, Tim, good evening. Good to see you.
TIM DICKINSON: Good to see you.
PRESS: Let's remember, there are a couple of other people on the stage last night, right? Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.
Now then, let's start with Santorum. So, he goes home today to do his taxes. Tim, I don't know about Pennsylvania, but in the rest of the country, taxes are due in April, not in January. What's really going on?
DICKINSON: I'm sure he's trying to re-evaluate, but the thing is no one's been able to deliver a knockout punch to Santorum. His debate performance was arguably as good as anybody's last night. And Newt as the anti-Mitt seems to be sinking. So maybe there's a Santorum surge yet to be seen. I don't know. His whole philosophy this whole time is to be the last non-Mitt standing. He's still in the running for that, marginally. I think we'll see him get out — either when the poll numbers force him out or when he sees a strategic opening to get whatever it is he's actually running for. If it's not president, if it's Health and Human Services Secretary or something else.
PRESS: Yeah, no. You know, he's a puzzle to me. Because, clearly, he's the most, I think, authentically conservative candidate in the race — somebody's going to put that in an ad somewhere for Santorum, I guess, that statement — and he was endorsed by the evangelicals right down the line on all the issues. And he does very well in the debates, and yet hasn't seemed to really catch fire. Yeah, he won Iowa, but what's the problem?
DICKINSON: You would have thought that evangelical endorsement would have been a really big boost to him. I don't — I think his national profile isn't high enough, I think his repeated statements in vain against women — you know, I just don't think he plays well —
PRESS: And gays.
DICKINSON: Well, he doesn't — even GOP women, I think he makes them cringe a little bit. I don't think he's got that, you know, "It" factor — that presidential factor that people are looking for in a candidate.
PRESS: Now — Ron Paul, the forth candidate, he sort of lives in a universe of his own. He got some great laugh lines off last night and while Santorum, I think, might drop out, would you agree Ron Paul just goes all the way to have whatever impact he can on the convention?
DICKINSON: I think that's right. Ron Paul has his sort of own little universe of voters. The polls show that he can be quite a dangerous third-party candidate, too. He has his sort of own Ron Paul party and his adherents are very loyal to him.
PRESS: Do you think his Ron Paul party could become a third party?
DICKINSON: He didn't rule it out. He said he didn't intend to do it, but he certainly didn't dispel that notion entirely in the penultimate debate.
PRESS: I want to come back to what Vice President Biden said. It is fun for Democrats to watch Republicans kind of act like Democrats, right? Form a circular firing squad and everything. But are they weakening each other as Democrats seem to think, or are they, perhaps, becoming stronger through this primary process and emerge as a stronger nominee? How do you read it?
DICKINSON: You know, you look at their negatives and they are rising sky high. Romney's negatives, Gingrich's negatives. These are not popular men. And when you have people like Rick Perry calling Mitt Romney a "vulture capitalist," that's some gold you can use, that David Axelrod can make use of in the general election.
Obama himself has boasted about running some of these GOP debates verbatim and without editing, especially some of the comments about immigrants.
And, I think this debate, these series of debates — have given Democrats an awful lot of ammunition. If you look at the new Mitt — I mean, Gingrich — super PAC attack documentary about Mitt Romney's Medicare record, that's the kind of thing that could be re-aired, almost unedited, in October.
PRESS: So, you think some of those phrases like "vulture capitalist" and "corporate predator" we might hear again?
DICKINSON: There's no way to inoculate yourself against a Swiss bank account. I just don't think that's ever going to get old for people.
PRESS: Indeed. Finally, I just wanted to ask you, Newt — in the latest poll out today, Newt Gingrich is down eight points in Florida, right? But he's up eight points in the Gallup poll nationwide. Why the discrepancy?
DICKINSON: We've seen, repeatedly, that the nationwide polls are sort of a lagging indicator. And people in Minnesota aren't getting subjected to the attack ads that Mitt Romney has been airing nonstop for the last three weeks in Florida. I think — I think it underscores just how little oomph there is behind that Newt bubble.
PRESS: Tim Dickinson, out in San Francisco for Rolling Stone. Thanks, Tim, very much.
DICKINSON: Thank you so much.
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