More on Newt's strategy moving forward

Byron York writes:

"Our goal first is to keep Romney well below 1,000," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said an hour before Gingrich addressed a small crowd of disappointed supporters gathered at the Wynfrey Hotel. "It doesn't have to be 1,000, or 1,050 -- it has to be below 1,100." If Gingrich succeeds, Hammond continued, "This will be the first time in our party in modern politics that we're going to go to the convention floor."

On election eve, after a long day of campaigning, Gingrich relaxed on a couch at the Wynfrey and vowed to keep challenging Romney through the summer -- long after the primaries have ended. If he can keep the former Massachusetts governor from hitting the 1,144 delegate mark, Gingrich said, "Then on the 26th of June, there's a real conversation. We haven't seen in our lifetime a situation where you actually had a political process beyond who wins the primaries." As he has several times in recent days, Gingrich brought up the case of Leonard Wood, the Army general who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1920.

"The reason I keep citing Leonard Wood is because in 1920, Wood goes into the convention as the frontrunner," Gingrich said. "[Warren G.] Harding goes in as the guy who's in sixth place, and at the end of ten ballots, Harding is the nominee and Wood is gone." More than 90 years later, that's the scenario Gingrich sees as his own path to victory.

Rick Tyler, a former longtime aide to Newt who is now with the main pro-Newt Super PAC, said on the radio:

"In many ways Newt is Lincoln in 1860 who went to his convention third. Newt will arrive, it I may propose this, he will arrive in Tampa on equal footing with the other candidates. That is, he will arrive with less than the required number of delegates to win the nomination.

If that happens, my prediction is that Mitt Romney will lose the first ballot and if he loses the first ballot he will be abandoned. And then Newt, I believe, would have better than a 50-50 chance of winning the nomination among the remaining three candidates.

In brokered conventions, which we haven't had in my lifetime, in my recollection all bets are off. Once the first ballot fails, all the delegates are released. And Newt will have a case to make. And I believe he will have a strong case to make.

Jonathan Karl of ABC wrote Wednesday:

Newt Gingrich is not getting out of the race any time soon.

Here’s why: Gingrich firmly believes that staying in the race is the best way to prevent Mitt Romney from clinching the nomination before the convention in August. And he actually may have a point.

...

Gingrich knows that it is virtually impossible for him, or Santorum for that matter, to beat Romney on delegates, but he makes the case — and it is not far-fetched — that unless Romney starts winning delegates at a faster pace he won’t clinch nomination by end the end of the primaries.

He quotes Newt of what that would mean:

“This thing is going to go on. You guys need to relax and cover the most interesting nominating process in your lifetime,” Gingrich told me. “Be not anxiety-ridden, this is going to be good for America. This is a good conversation to have.”

Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation and who endorsed Newt back in September -- wrote an article called "Newt Gingrich Needs to Stay in the Race."

Newt does the Republican Party and the conservative movement a great favor by staying in the race.

If Newt can stay in the race and pull enough votes to block the nomination of Romney, then the Republican Party has a chance this fall. We must select a conservative to take back the nomination and the White House.

Newt at this point must stay in the race. If the race goes down to a one-on-one race between Romney and Santorum, Romney will win. Despite Santorum thinking most of Newt's supporters would automatically back him if Gingrich were no longer in the race, that is not true. Some would peel off and vote for Romney, which could possibly give him the delegates he needs to win the nomination.

The only way we can stop a Romney nomination now is for Newt to stay in the race.

To add to Phillips' point about Santorum not having a chance to win one-on-one with Romney, all the money from Romney's campaign and Super PAC would be squarely focused on Santorum -- which would destroy him. (Think of what happened in December in Iowa and late January in Florida when Romney went after Newt with everything he had.)