“He’s articulate and he tries to think of a conservative version of an idea that will solve a legitimate problem,” Clinton said, by way of explaining the Gingrich resurgence. “For example, I watched the national security debate last night. And Newt said two things that would make an independent voter say, ‘Well, I gotta consider that.’

“He said, ‘OK, I don’t want to legitimize immigrants who came here undocumented, illegally.’ On the other hand, a lot of those people have been here for years, they worked hard, they paid taxes, they’ve got kids in the schools, they’re not criminals, we’re going to have a hard time sending them all home, there’s millions of them. So, I’d like to have a process where they could be here legally but not have a path to citizenship. That sort of splits the difference between the immigration reforms proposed by President Bush and President Obama, which would give a path to citizenship, and would be a version of what President Reagan did.”…

“See, that’s a new wrinkle on this,” Clinton said, crediting Gingrich for thinking out of the box. “So he’s always … I think he’s doing well just because he’s thinking, and people are hungry for ideas that make some sense.”