Several months ago, the conventional wisdom was that Newt Gingrich's campaign for President was over, that he should abandon ship and get out of the race for the White House. Now the polls have shown Gingrich showing some signs of life.
"I feel a little bit like Mark Twain, who said that reports of his obituary were premature," Gingrich said Wednesday morning after the GOP debate in Las Vegas.
"It feels pretty good to be alive, it feels pretty good to have a campaign," Gingrich told me and Neal Boortz on the Vegas Strip.
While Gingrich hasn't been challenging Mitt Romney or Herman Cain in the polls, his numbers have been bubbling up, most likely a result of his debating skills, which certainly play to his advantage.
And the former U.S. House Speaker says that publicity has certainly helped his campaign.
"We have, I think raised money in the last four days than we did in July," said Gingrich, who acknowledged that his campaign remains in debt, which he hopes to pay off by December.
To see Gingrich on the campaign trail is to see someone running a low budget operation, where the candidate is accompanied only by a few staff.
Each time that I ran into Gingrich this week in Las Vegas, he had only a few people with him at any one time, and few people were jumping to get a picture with the candidate.
To be truthful, Gingrich's campaign for the White House still seems to be focused on other things at times, as his emails to reporters often include more notices about his upcoming book and film releases than campaign information.
"We have recovered from the all out media effort to destroy the campaign," said Gingrich, who seemed perplexed that "Fox was part of this too" to say he was going nowhere.
As for how he fits in to the GOP race of the next few months, Gingrich still gives himself a chance to be seen as an alternative to Mitt Romney.
"I always thought this race would be 'Romney-not Romney,' someone would fill the "not Romney" slot," Gingrich said, adding that he thought that role would be filled immediately by Rick Perry.
But Gingrich says the polls show that Perry may not be that person - "Rick has failed to fill that vacuum," the former Speaker said, giving him hope that his numbers will bubble up and put him in that top tier along with Herman Cain.
"There are lots of people out there who aren't for Newt Gingrich this morning, but they are at least willing to listen," said Gingrich.
Most people in Washington, D.C. would give Gingrich no shot to win the GOP nomination at this point - but for now, Gingrich says he shouldn't be counted out.
And with more debates on the way, he certainly will get his chance to make the crowd roar as he did again on the Las Vegas Strip Tuesday night.
