“[I]n the Reagan White House, Newt Gingrich was considered quite frankly by a lot of folks to be something of a political opportunist and who was not trusted and who had played no role whatsoever,” Buchanan said. “He was a Rockefeller Republican in the great Goldwater-Rockefeller battle, where conservatism came of age.”

Buchanan also theorized that Gingrich stumbled in two debates this week because he was caught off guard by all these people who turned on him.

“I do think this, though. Newt has been pounded [mercilessly],” Buchanan said. “He had people he worked with basically turn on him and dump on him down there in Florida, which somehow I think may have had some role in the fact that the great fighter and battler of South Carolina had no fight in him whatsoever in the Monday and Thursday debates in Florida.’