His poll numbers increasing, Newt Gingrich told potential voters at a West Des Moines insurer Monday morning that he’s uniquely qualified among Republican presidential candidates to lead the nation through troubled times that he said are “deeper and harder than Barack Obama.”

“I don’t think anyone else has the range of experience, the background to take the beating,” he said, answering question from an employee of GuideOne Insurance who asked why the former House speaker should get her vote.

“I find it very formidable that I might win, that with your help, we might go through eight very difficult years,” said Gingrich, the 68-year-old former Georgia congressman whose Contract With America made him one of the most powerful congressman on Capitol Hill during the 1990s.

“It can’t be about about me,” he said. “It has to be about America.”

GuideOne co-workers Diane Lee of Johnston and Ellen Love of Dexter said Gingrich has mellowed in the decade he has been out of the public eye.

Lee said she appreciated that Gingrich said that he has “the background to take the beating” that comes with trying to accomplish change. “We need someone who will stand up to take the heat,” she said, “because you are going to get beat up.”

Love said partisanship on Capitol Hill is the worst she’s seen and has created a situation where it’s difficult for the president to lead. “They’re being bullheaded and they’re not listening to people.”

She agreed with Gingrich when he said the 2012 election is “as important as any since the 1860s in determining who we are as a people.”

“It’s very important because of all the trouble we’re in as a country,” Love said. “When Obama ran four years ago, I wondered why in the world anyone would want to be president and walk into all these messes. These are the worst times of my lifetime.”

Another GuideOne employee, David Decker of Clive, said Gingrich didn’t convince him, but neither is he sure that he will vote for Obama again. Decker described himself as an independent who votes for both Democrats and Republicans.

“The more I see of politics, the more I become jaded,” Decker said. “They promise X,Y, Z and they don’t deliver. In most jobs, you get fired if you don’t deliver. In this job, you just run for re-election.”

Taking questions from the audience, Gingrich said he favored term limits in 1994, but has since cooled to the idea. “Look at California,” he said. “Term limits are so short legislators never understand what they are doing, and lobbyists and bureaucrats run the government. I could live with 12-year term limits, but would not go shorter.

“Legislating is very complicated and takes tremendous leadership,” he said.