The Love Revolution Is Coming to Iowa and Newt Folds

Having been bombarded with attack ads before and after the last debate, Newt Gingrich has taken a real hit in the polls nationally and in Iowa in particular. The side beneficiary of this is Barack Obama, who with dismal approval ratings in recent polls, has come out on top in a new Purple Strategies poll of Swing States leading both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich by more than margins of error. The same swing state poll showed that only 29% of voters had a favorable impression of Mitt Romney.

It is true Bob Dole and the Des Moines Register endorsed Mitt Romney. But the attacks ads and the endorsements are not what broke Gingrich in Iowa. Now is the crunch time in Iowa when every one in the state expects the canidates to actually be around. What does Gingrich do? He flies to Washington immediately after the debate, is present at his wife's book signing party at Mount Vernon and attends a concert where she is playing a French horn. Then Gingrich puts his foot to the pedal on Face the Nation yesterday and doubles down on his criticism of "activist" judges, says he will ignore any Supreme Court ruling he disagrees with and will order U.S. Marshalls to arrest judges he doesn't like. Gingrich then went off into the ozone on his immigration policies saying that over 7 million undocumented workers will freely leave the United States and go home under his presidency. All of this tends to influence people more than the ads and Romney's endorsements.

So today's PPP poll has Newt cratering back to a stunning 14% level, almost 20 pts within a week. Here is just above the 10% gang of Santorum, Perry and Bachmann.

The big beneficiary from this is Ron Paul and the Love Revolution. Paul has been winning the under 45 vote massively. At this rate Nate the Great Silver predicts Paul will win Iowa with a 44%, Romney with 32% chance and Newt now down to 15%. From around the state, reporters are picking up that Paul has the best organization and is likely to gain not lose support as we head to the finish line.

Romney stands right now at 20%,which is usually where he is anywhere in the country.

Nationally, Newt still leads and Romney has peaked to 24%. CNN reports that the Tea Party Patriots polled 23,000 of their members and Newt won the strawpoll. It would have been nice if CNN actually told someone the results.

The most telling poll recently was the Gallup poll that over 70% are tired of the campaign and want to vote in the general election now. Amen!