The vote in the key state of Iowa is more than a month away, but veteran Republican leader Newt Gingrich is ready to declare a winner in the Democratic presidential nomination race there: Barack Obama.
The former Speaker of the House — and once briefly a presidential aspirant — said in an interview on Tuesday on ABC’s Good Morning America that he thought the senator from Illinois could beat front-runner Hillary Clinton on Jan. 3 when voters in Iowa kick off the state-by-state nomination battles for both parties.
“My guess is that Sen. Obama’s going to win Iowa, and he’s going to win it by a substantial margin,” Gingrich said. “I have a hunch that the emotional energy that Sen. Obama’s building is more powerful than the emotional energy that Sen. Clinton is building.”
“It just seems to me right now, that in Iowa at least, that Sen. Obama’s built a real head of steam,” Gingrich said in the interview, nearly a year before the Nov. 4, 2008 general election.
His prediction came as some polls showed Clinton falling slightly behind Obama in Iowa.
– Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Trackback
14 comments so far
The man is dead right. You never feel the Obama steam until you get around some of his events. The sheer confidence and energy the guy evince, and the halo around him tells something. The guy is different. I will not be surprised if he wins by a large margin in Iowa, NH and SC
- Posted by siam ErzuahI never thought I would say Newt is right!
We have been without a leader who could inspire us for so long we have forgotten what it is like to really believe in our President.
Barack Obama brings that back along with sound judgment and policy after policy crafted by listening to experts and to real people.
He listens before he acts. He doesn’t force things we don’t want down our throats.
That’s why his agenda resonates so well with the American people: Democrats, Republicans and independents.
- Posted by LaurieI’ve attended a rally in Santa Barabara for Obama, with over 9000 people. The energy was magnetic. He was incredible. He has great ideas and vision and he has tha capacity to actually convey those ideas better than any other politician I’ve seen in my life. He’s inspired me, at 35 years old, to get involved in politics for the first time in my life. I’ve canvassed, I’ve phonebanked, I’ve talked and typed until I could do no more. Obama, I truly believe, is the best hope this country has for a really prosperous and fair future.
Newt and the neonuts all want to see Hillary as the nominee becuase they feel they can beat her. Gingrich is only coming out about Obama winning Iowa because it really looks like he will and Gingrich doesn’t want to lose his soothsayer status, so now he’ll start saying the obvious.
The main stream media and the right wing, along with the Clinton machine has done all they can to suppress Obama, but now, luckily for this nation, they’ll have to deal with him head on. Y’know, at that rally of 9000 I attended, every single news agency later that night said that only 1000 were in attendance, and they didn’t show a single crowd shot on the news, any of the networks, only a brief closeup of Obama talking. If they’d spun the camera around, they’d have seen people as far as the eye could see.
In NYC, Hillary had a rally with 2400 people. Two weeks later, Obama had one, with 24,000 people. The news barely registered it.
But the main stream corporate powers can only contain Obama for so long. The more real americans out there supporting him, the more they’ll begrudgingly have to deal with him, and in a one on one fight, the dude is unbeatable.
Obama 08. Thank God.
- Posted by LanceThe people will deliver Barack Obama to the White House!
OBAMA ‘08
- Posted by bymysideI believe that the country truly seeks a change from the Old Guard. Barack Obama represents a fresh way of thinking that we have not seen since the days of Bobby Kennedy. I am excited about the race and I too feel the steam not just from Obama but from the people who are fed up with old style politics.
- Posted by doug davisI too believe that Obama is the most inspirational candidate on the Democratic side, but I worry for his safety given the history of visionary progressives in American politics. (JFK, RFK, MLK) I believe he can beat Hillary and the republican nominee, but he will have to prove his metal time and time again over the next six months. Lord knows we need an agent of change and Obama is someone who can lead.
FloridaMoves.com
- Posted by Southern DemNeither Barack Hussein Obama nor Hillary Rodham Clinton are qualified for the office of President of the United States. Hillary believes because she lived in the White House with President Bill Clinton and because she traveled all over the world on tax-payers dollars and has had a dismal record as a Senator from New York that she knows what is best for Americans. Obama is a 1 term Senator from the State of Illinois and a former constitutional law professor. And, don’t compare
- Posted by Larkin G. Meadthis political neophyte, Obama, with the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Had Kennedy not been assasinated, he would have gone onto be one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century. “Old style politics” has been around for over two centuries and Clinton & Obama respresent the socialist agenda laced with a whole lot of Marxism. I’ll take old style politics any day over socialism, anarchy, secularism and hedonism.
Of course gingrich is going to bash hillary she will be winner. Republicians would love to see obama nonimated they would WIN …..
- Posted by josephThis is the same Newt who just weeks ago was predicting Hillary would win the Dems nomination. Is this a flip-flop, or just a prediction calculated on the basis of the most recent polls to explain why her inevitability isn’t. Is he really a genius to make this prediction now, and not three months ago? Looks like Newt just is not as smart as he would like the world to believe. He is just another GOP pundit commenting on the Democratic contest, as if the media was not full of them enough already. Just let the people of Iowa have their say and ignore this has-been.
- Posted by wizinitThe rigidly programmed Hillary Clinton is running out of steam and is failing to provide a compelling reason for her candidacy. She will almost certainly lose in Iowa. Her candidacy was a mistake from the start. She is simply not electable!
- Posted by Andrew Prieditiswell, the whole presidential field Dem/Rep is full of solid canditates but the question is can the electorate know a president if they spot one?
- Posted by TedGreat news from Newt.
- Posted by Ken LObama award the “Man of the Year” Check it out. Great news!
- Posted by Ken LObama, our knight in shining armour, to slay both the Hillabeast and Billabeast with one sweep of his flashing sword.
- Posted by s woods