Maddow: GOP elite going all out to stop Newt

Recent days have seen an unprecedented push by some of the most powerful lawmakers and opinion-shapers in the Republican party to arrest Newt Gingrich's rise to the top of the Republican ticket this fall. Friday night on The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel recounted and provided historical context for some of the attacks on the former Speaker of the House and discussed how his prospects would be affected by a win in Tuesday's Florida primary election.

Former presidential candidate and Viagra pitch-man Bob Dole weighed in with a column in the National Review Online in which he said, "Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself." Gingrich, he wrote, was an "off the wall" show-boat politician who was rapidly becoming the most unpopular public official in the U.S. right as Dole was trying to mount a campaign to unseat President Clinton.

Other magazines and conservative news outlets have all weighed in, most feverishly trying to put a halt to Newt's momentum. The Washington Post's Karen Tumulty joined Maddow in a discussion of the situation, which has some Democrats rubbing their hands together with glee and many Republicans becoming increasingly panicked.

Watch the clip, embedded via MSNBC, below:

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