WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Sunday none of the candidates are out of the running despite faulty campaigns.
"At this stage last time McCain was in third place. At this stage in 1991 Bill Clinton was an asterisk. I think he had like 2 percent. You know, this is a wide open process," Gingrich said on CNN's "State of the Union."
He said, though, if Texas Governor Rick Perry had not faltered in GOP debates, he would have been a "natural alternative" to Mitt Romney.
"If Perry had had a flawless campaign, he would have been the nominee," Gingrich said.
Gingrich said despite respecting businessman and fellow GOP candidate Herman Cain, he thinks the 9-9-9 tax plan -- which would implement a 9 percent flat income tax, a 9 percent flat business tax and a 9 percent sales tax -- is faulty.
"In New Hampshire, for example, where they have no sales tax at all and no mechanism for collecting it, or in Iowa where senior citizens are going to say, wait a second, as my 79-year-old mother-in-law said on her Social Security, in her fixed income she's now going to pay 9 percent more?"
Unlike the other candidates, Gingrich says he's "deliberately running a campaign of substance."
