I’m also of the opinion that Romney’s awful debate performance and debacle in dealing with the tax records had a lot to do with the shift, not simply dog whistling.

Newt wasn’t only whistling- he was also being loud and confident (or arrogant, w/e), while Romney got chewed up on all fronts. Exit polls pointed to those two things as having a lot to do with voters taking newt over romney.

I’m also of the opinion that you could have said anything about the president in front of that crowd- racial tinged or not- and so long as it sounded bad, they would have cheered.