I have a traditional ira left over from a 401k rollover from an old job. can I squeeze this into my pending new roth somehow? do I just have to pay taxes on it like I would have?
yes
I'm not sure what dobber was saying yes to, and I'm not really sure what your question is, but you can't merge traditional and roth ira's. you can convert the ira into a roth ira, but you still don't want to merge them into the same account because there are separate rules with regard to roth conversions and roth contributions.
I guess I misunderstood the "pending new roth." I at first thought that he meant he wanted to move it and start a new Roth IRA. Rams is correct. If you have already started a Roth IRA, you will want to roll your traditional IRA into a new-different- IRA. You can have more than one. If the tax hit is too large, at one time you were able to convert it over a three year period. I am not certain if that is still an option. Could probably google it and see if that is an option.
Also, if you are wondering, the annual contribution limit is based on total contributions to Roth IRA's, so having multiple IRA's does not allow you to contribute more. However, the conversion from traditional to Roth does not count as an IRA contribution.