The Conservative Papers » Republicans

Santorum Hands Romney Triple Defeat

kalel — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:27:24 +0000

Dismissed by pundits and GOP insiders just days ago, Senator Rick Santorum won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and a non-binding primary in Missouri on Tuesday.

Rick Santorum

Minnesota caucus results showed Santorum with 44.9%, of the votes, Paul 27.2%, Romney 16.9%, Gingrich 10.7%, and Others 0.3%. Colorado Caucus Results showed winning Santorum 40.2% of the votes, Romney 34.9%, Gingrich 12.8%, Paul 11.8%, Others 0.3%.

Santorum’s victory in Missouri was largely symbolic as delegates will be decided in district and state conventions later. His Minnesota win was expected, but his victory in Colorado was a genuine upset for Romney who easily carried the state in 2008.

“I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” Santorum told supporters with his wife standing at his side. “I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

The triple-upset for Romney turned Santorum into an alternative to Newt Gingrich and to the well-funded front-running Romney. While Gingrich has won one state, South Carolina, Santorum has now won four, including Iowa.

Santorum’s showing adds another wrinkle to the contentious GOP primaries that have seen voters refuse to unite behind a single candidate thus far.

Romney scored back-to-back victories in Florida and Nevada leading pundists to once again predict he would march unopposed to the GOP nomination. But Tuesday’s results have shaken things up and embarrassed pundits and political analysts who have once again made the mistake of assuming the GOP primaries were on a steady, predictable track.

Ahead of the upset, Romney’s campaign had sought to downplay expectations, going so far as to admit a likely defeat in Minnesota, but smugly added his opponents had a poor understanding of the electoral numbers saying it wouldn’t matter.

John McCain lost 19 states while still winning the GOP nomination in 2008.

Well-financed and strategically organized, Romney goes into a nationwide campaign with several advantages and may well recover from Tuesday’s embarrassment well before the Super Tuesday competitions on March 6.

But Santorum’s trifecta has proven he’s a scrappy contender whose conservative religious values, family man image, and clearly elucidated positions appeal to a significant portion of the GOP base.

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Santorum Only GOP Candidate Beating Obama, Rasmussen Daily Poll Finds

kalel — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:39:52 +0000

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks at the First National Bank Exhibition Hall in Loveland, Colo., Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Chris Schneider)

(CNSNews.com) – Just ahead of three more Republican nominating contests, a new poll — a snapshot in time — shows former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum leading President Barack Obama in a one-on-one matchup.

The Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll for one day only — Feb. 5. — marks the first time Santorum has held a lead over Obama in potential matchups.

It’s a small lead for Santorum — 1 percentage point, giving him a 45-44 percent edge over Obama.

“This is the first time Santorum has ever led the president in any poll,” the Rasmussen poll said. “Several other GOP challengers have led the president a single time in the polls, including Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich. Each man briefly held the lead while they were surging in the polls, only to fall quickly. It remains to be seen what will happen to Santorum’s support.”

The same daily tracking poll finds Obama actually beating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the GOP frontrunner, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Neither Obama nor the other GOP candidates gets a majority in any of the hypothetical matchups.

On Tuesday, Colorado, and Minnesota hold caucuses and Missouri has a primary.

Santorum holds a slight lead over Romney in Minnesota, 29-27 percent, according to a Public Policy Polling survey of Colorado and Minnesota released on Feb. 5. The same poll shows that Romney leads comfortably in Colorado, 40-26 percent, over Santorum.

Meanwhile, there was media speculation over the weekend that Santorum would do well in Missouri because Gingrich is not on the ballot in that state.

With regards to the Rasmussen poll that found Santorum the only candidate beating Obama, other GOP candidates had respectable showings.

Obama wins 47 percent of the vote against Romney’s 43 percent, according to the Rasmussen daily poll for Feb. 5. Obama and Romney have been virtually tied in most polls for months. Obama leads Paul, 45-42 percent. Gingrich does worse among GOP candidates, losing to Obama 49-41 percent.

Romney has won nominating contests in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada by large margins. Santorum narrowly won the Iowa caucus in early January. Gingrich convincingly won the South Carolina primary. Paul’s best performance thus far was a second place finish in New Hampshire.

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Another Reason to Stop Romney: He Has Formed a Strategic Alliance With Anti-Semite Ron Paul

kalel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:43:49 +0000

RENO, NEV. — The remaining candidates in the winnowed Republican presidential field are attacking one another with abandon, each day bringing fresh headlines of accusations and outrage.

But Mitt Romney and Ron Paul haven’t laid a hand on each other.

They never do.

Despite deep differences on a range of issues, Romney and Paul became friends in 2008, the last time both ran for president. So did their wives, Ann Romney and Carol Paul. The former Massachusetts governor compliments the Texas congressman during debates, praising Paul’s religious faith during the last one, in Jacksonville, Fla. Immediately afterward, as is often the case, the Pauls and the Romneys gravitated toward one another to say hello.

Romney and Paul

The Romney-Paul alliance is more than a curious connection. It is a strategic partnership: for Paul, an opportunity to gain a seat at the table if his long-shot bid for the presidency fails; for Romney, a chance to gain support from one of the most vibrant subgroups within the Republican Party.

“It would be very foolish for anybody in the Republican Party to dismiss a very real constituency,” said one senior GOP aide in Washington who is familiar with both camps. “Ron Paul plays a very valuable part in the process and brings a lot of voters toward the Republican Party and ultimately into the voting booth, and that’s something that can’t be ignored.”

To ensure that they are heard — not just now but after Election Day, too — Paul and his followers are working to gain a permanent foothold in the Republican Party nationwide. One state at a time, Paul’s supporters are seating themselves at county committee meetings, and standing for election as state officers and convention delegates, to make sure their candidate’s libertarian vision is taken into account. The goal is a lasting voice for an army of outsiders that has long felt ignored and sees the nation headed toward ruin if things don’t change.

That is just fine with the Romney campaign, which would be happy to bring Paul’s constituency — perhaps the most intense and loyal in the country — into the fold.

Romney’s aides are “quietly in touch with Ron Paul,” according to a Republican adviser who is in contact with the Romney campaign and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its internal thinking. The two campaigns have coordinated on minor things, the adviser said — even small details, such as staggering the timing of each candidate’s appearance on television the night of the New Hampshire primary for maximum effect.

One advantage for Romney is that Paul’s presence in the race helps keep the GOP electorate fractured. But there is also a growing recognition that the congressman plans to stay in the contest over the long term — and that accommodating him and his supporters could help unify Republican voters in the general election against President Obama.

“Ron Paul wants a presence at the convention,” the adviser said — and Romney, if he is the nominee, would grant it.

What Paul and his supporters would demand, and what Romney would offer, are subjects of some speculation. One Paul adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk freely, said prime-time speaking slots for Paul and his son Rand, the junior senator from Kentucky, are obvious goals. On the policy front, Ron Paul’s priorities are reforming the Federal Reserve and reducing federal spending. So promises to audit the Fed and to tackle deficit reduction seriously could appease the congressman and his supporters, the adviser said.

Less likely are concessions on foreign policy, where Paul’s non-interventionist stand is at odds with that of Romney and most other Republicans.

Infiltrating the party

For Paul’s campaign, playing the inside-outside game has required nudging activists into the party system, even as he and they remain wary of it.

“I’ve been involved in politics for 20 or 30 years,” Paul told an enthusiastic crowd in a Spartanburg, S.C., hotel ballroom in January. “One of the reasons I became frustrated with the whole process is that the rhetoric could be so different. Republicans would say one thing, but then, when they get into office, they haven’t done a heck of a lot.”

Paul paused, and his audience cheered loudly as he added: “Have you ever noticed that?”

The crowd that day was characteristically scrappy and diverse: a man with a ponytail and a camouflage hunting jacket, a young mother with two small children, a doctor and his wife, and a well-dressed, young professional couple.

Yet the insurgents are executing a concerted strategy to infiltrate the Republican Party. Five Paul supporters, for instance, sit on the state GOP’s central committee in Iowa, where their candidate finished a strong third in the Jan. 3 caucuses. In Nevada, the vice president of the state GOP backs Paul. In Virginia, Paul supporters are lining up to attend county and district conventions to influence the election of national delegates.

In Reno, regional coordinator Wayne Terhune used a slide show on a recent weeknight to teach volunteers how to participate in a Republican precinct meeting to help Paul win delegates in the state’s caucuses on Saturday. He has tutored packed rooms at Denny’s as well as smaller crowds in the campaign’s Reno headquarters, located in a low-slung office building alongside the airport.

In a tiny conference room with a water cooler and two dogs on the floor, Terhune told the volunteers not to allow paper ballots out of their sight once votes take place — and to dress neatly and inconspicuously, so fellow Republicans won’t be disinclined to elect them as caucus delegates.

A common refrain is to “cover your tattoos and cut your hair,” said Paul’s campaign manager, Jesse Benton, who often tells coordinators to “dress for business, because we mean business.”

“You’ll nominate yourself,” Terhune told the room. “They’ll probably have you give your speech. Have a meeting a day ahead so all the Ron Paul people know who the other Ron Paul people are, so you can vote for them. Then you give a generic speech, and the non-Ron Paul people say, ‘Oh, he’s solid, I can vote for him.’?”

Terhune also urged the volunteers to pull out their iPhones and record the proceedings on caucus night if party officials “don’t play by the rules.”

Teaching the establishment

Paul’s infiltration strategy began in 2008, after his last presidential bid, when he saw the potential to continue building his movement by working within the Republican Party.

But the idea took off in 2010 when Paul’s son Rand ran for Senate. On an outsider, small-government message very similar to his father’s, Rand Paul won the Republican primary that year against an opponent who was handpicked by Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader and senior senator from Kentucky.

Then, quite strangely, the establishment and the Pauls came together.

At McConnell’s request, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent an adviser to Kentucky to watch over Rand Paul’s general-election campaign — “to be the grown-up in the room,” according to one Washington Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.

The adviser, Trygve Olson, developed a friendship with Rand Paul, and the two realized that they could teach each other a lot — to the benefit of both candidate and party. Olson showed Paul and his campaign establishment tactics: working with the news media, fine-tuning its message. And Paul showed Olson — and by extension, McConnell — how many people were drawn to the GOP by his message of fiscal responsibility.

One day that year, at Paul’s request, McConnell joined him for a tea party gathering in Kentucky, according to a Republican who was there. “Who are these people?” McConnell asked, bewildered by the dearth of familiar faces at a political event in his home state.

And at Rand Paul’s suggestion, Olson joined his father’s presidential campaign this year, basically to do what he did for Rand: help bring the Paul constituency into the Republican coalition without threatening the party. It’s probably no small coincidence that the partnership helps Rand’s burgeoning political career, too.

“You can dress in black and stand on the hill and smash the state and influence nobody, or you can realize the dynamics and the environment and get involved in the most pragmatic way to win minds and win votes and influence change,” said Benton, the campaign manager. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

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This Proves Why Trump Should Not Be President – Trump Endorses Romney in Las Vegas

kalel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:51:07 +0000

Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney for president on Thursday, just hours after Newt Gingrich’s advisers were spreading the word that Trump would be supporting him.

“Mitt is tough, he’s smart, he’s sharp and he’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love,” The Associated Press quoted Trump as having said in a joint news conference with Romney in Las Vegas.

The endorsement was the finale in a puzzling chain of events that began Wednesday, when Trump’s office announced he would be flying to Las Vegas for a “major announcement” related to the presidential contest.

Gingrich’s advisers suggested Trump had sent “signals” that he would endorse the former House speaker, but that turned out to be false.

Romney, AP reported, said he was glad to get the support, and said, “There are some things you just can’t imagine happening. This is one of them.”

Trump had considered joining the Republican race himself, but announced in May that he would not do so.

He did, however, manage to force President Barack Obama to publicly release his birth certificate to prove that he was born in Hawaii and is thus eligible to serve as President.

The birth certificate was produced after Trump had begun questioning why Obama hadn’t ensured the long form was released and even claimed to have investigators in Hawaii researching Obama’s birth.

Trump’s endorsement of Romney comes two days before the Nevada caucuses, which will take place on Saturday. AP reported, however, that the endorsement is not likely to affect the results of the primary.

On Tuesday, Romney won the Florida primary.

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

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Senator Hatch Gets It Right on Tax Extenders

kalel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:20:31 +0000

Senator Hatch

On December 31, a set of approximately 50 tax-reducing provisions commonly referred to as the “tax extenders” expired. These provisions, which apply to both individuals and businesses, include popular measures such as the Research and Experimentation credit for businesses and the optional deduction for state and local sales taxes for individuals. Congress will need to retroactively extend these tax laws at some point this year; otherwise, a steep tax increase on certain groups of taxpayers will remain in place.

Retroactively addressing the tax extenders is nothing new. Congress generally waits as long as it possibly can to extend them. But by routinely delaying on the extenders, Congress creates uncertainty for the businesses and individuals, who need to plan for the future and make important financial decisions.

When it does finally act, Congress usually spends its time arguing about how to pay for keeping these tax-reducing provisions in law before ultimately passing the tax extenders with little scrutiny of the individual provisions in the package. This is a waste of time and energy, because none of the tax extenders is a new tax cut—so extending them does not require a budgetary offset.

Not all individual provisions in the tax extenders are good policy, but that gets lost in the shuffle. As Heritage has argued before, Congress needs to spend its time sifting through the separate policies, determining which it wants to keep and discarding the others. It should then lower other taxes by the amount of revenue the discarded provisions would raise. That way the exercise isn’t a tax hike.

This would serve as a mini-tax reform and a stepping stone for much-needed fundamental reform of the entire tax code. It would also lessen the drag the tax code places on the economy by eliminating policies that artificially alter markets. It is long overdue for Congress to take this route with the tax extenders, rather than the business-as-usual approach.

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the tax extenders recently, and Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT) at long last addressed these major problems with the tax extenders. In his opening statement, he said:

Certainty in the Tax Code is a very important factor in allowing businesses to plan their affairs, make investments, and create jobs. And these job creators don’t want bad certainty — they don’t want to hear that their taxes are going up. Congress should provide this certainty by making permanent the provisions that are worthy of remaining in the law, and eliminating those that are not. Chairman Baucus and I agree, along with many of our colleagues, that the current tax code demands comprehensive reform. In the meantime, before tax reform is accomplished, Congress needs to decide what to do about the tax extender provisions that have expired.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Congress should finally do as Senator Hatch suggests and carefully examine each tax provision in the tax extenders group. It will find that if it treats the extenders as a small version of more fundamental tax reform, it will have given itself a useful guide for that more difficult task.

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Newt Pledges Moon Base By Second Term

kalel — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:53:09 +0000

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich took the opportunity of being on Florida’s space coast to revisit one of his favorite topics: space exploration.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” Gingrich said to applause.

He said the development would include commercial and private efforts, and will make apparent, “we clearly have the capacity that Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to us.”

Gingrich also said he would push to develop propulsion technology that would get man to Mars.

He emphasized that it doesn’t have to be expensive, exploration in partnership with private companies can lower the cost.

“If it’s cheaper and it’s faster and it works, do it,” he said.

He also said launch areas should be capable of launching multiple spacecrafts in a day, like an airport.

“Does that mean I’m visionary? You betcha,” he said.

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Florida primary pits tea party vs. cocktail party

kalel — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:42:34 +0000

Romney's crowds appear prosperous, while Gingrich's would fit in nicely at the dog track. | AP Photos

TAMPA, Fla. — As the Republican race moves to a state defined by the extremes in recession-era America — where the underwater and unemployed live just a few miles from the 1 percent — a sharp class divide is emerging between the two top contenders.

Mitt Romney’s crowds look like something out of the president’s suite at a University of Florida football game — prosperous, trim, Tattersall-clad, and supportive but not rowdy.

Newt Gingrich supporters, with their spray-painted signs, American flag tees, flip-flops and fanny packs, more closely resemble a group that would fit in nicely playing a few bucks at the dog track.

Exit poll data and unmistakable anecdotal evidence from their events reflects an unfolding campaign in which Romney does best with voters that are a lot like him — wealthy, well-educated and lukewarm about the populist tea party movement. Gingrich is appealing most to Republicans who earn under six figures, make up the core of the middle-class and are worried about their economic prospects and furious at the establishment.

It’s the Tea Party and the cocktail party.

Tampa attorney Paul Phillips illustrates the gap. He came to Romney’s Tuesday morning State of the Union pre-buttal dressed for a business meeting, sporting a blue pinstriped suit and a smart polka-dot tie.

“I’m an educated elitist,” Phillips said before Romney spoke in a warehouse that has closed during the economic recession. “I mean seriously, I don’t view the tea party with a very good light. Most of them quote the Constitution and don’t understand it. It’s pretty scary, actually.”

Phillips, who said he received an invitation from the Romney campaign to attend the event, said he’s supporting the former Massachusetts governor because his background is clear of the Gingrich scandals that the Romney campaign has sought to emphasize.

“They were the only two intellectual, credible people in the race. It was obvious that they would be the final two,” Phillips said. “However, given Newt’s past, I just don’t see him as someone I want in the presidency for four years.”

In contrast, Steve Bonnell, an HR manager from Lithia, Fla., said he came with a Gadsden flag and spray-painted “USA Hearts Newt” sign to the Tampa debate Monday because he was “trying to save America.”

“He’s able to articulate what the American people are thinking,” Bonnell explained about why he likes Gingrich.

And what’s that?

“We want our country back,” he said. “We want to abide by the Constitution. We’re nearly bankrupt in every sense of the word.”

Republicans prefer to ignore class differences within their auto mechanic and hedge funder coalition, but the establishment vs. insurgency battle between Romney and Gingrich increasingly resembles the beer track-wine track epic battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Gingrich detected the element of the Republican electorate that would have trouble warming to Romney and has begun wooing them with notes out of the hymn book of fellow McLean populist, Pat Buchanan. The former speaker now regularly rails against political correctness and New York and Washington elites while noting that much of the “Massachusetts’ moderate’s” financial support comes from Wall Street. And then, of course, there is Gingrich’s on-again, off-again assault on Romney’s tenure as buyout specialist at Bain.

“You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and making $20 million for no work, to have some fantasy this far from reality,” Gingrich jabbed Wednesday, using Romney’s newly disclosed assets to mock him for saying illegal immigrants would self-deport.

The populist opening Gingrich sees is apparent in the results from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

In the first three states, Romney finished, respectively, in a very narrow second, a decisive first and a distant second. But according to exit polls, he ran away with the country club vote in each.

Among the wealthiest voters, the former Massachusetts governor beat his nearest rival by 12 percent in Iowa, 34 percent in New Hampshire and 15 percent in South Carolina.

With voters who have post-graduate degrees, Romney also won in every state, besting his nearest opponent within the ranks of JDs, MDs and MBAs by two percent in Iowa, 16 percent in New Hampshire and two percent in South Carolina.

The question wasn’t asked in Iowa, but in New Hampshire and South Carolina Romney performed his best among those voters who described their family’s financial situation as “getting ahead” and worst with those said they were “falling behind.”

And with those opposed to or neutral about the tea party movement, Romney scored strongly in all three states, only coming up short in New Hampshire because of Jon Huntsman’s appeal to non-Republicans.

The danger for Romney is if Gingrich wins Florida and becomes the de facto leader of the Tea Party cause.

“The Romney campaign has been the cucumber sandwiches on silver trays campaign,” said GOP strategist Alex Castellanos. “Newt is running a torches and pitchforks campaign. Who do you think Republicans would want to storm the castle with? When you’re storming the castle you don’t care if your leader has slept around, is on his 50th wife – you just want somebody who says, ‘Let’s go kill them!’”

The demographic differences between Romney and Gingrich come to life at their campaign appearances.

Take the dueling election night parties last Saturday in Columbia, S.C.

Romney’s was a well-organized affair filled with well-scrubbed and well-tailored men and women who could’ve stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalog.

The cars in the parking lot both at Romney’s gathering and the Columbia hotel where many of his out-of-state supporters stayed were dotted with late-model Lexuses and Mercedes.

Meanwhile, the Gingrich event was steamy, disorganized, featured a DJ, cash bar and a motorcycle repairman who repeatedly interrupted the victory speech with shouts of encouragement.

“Wipe the floor with him, Newt!,” bellowed a North Carolinian Slate’s Dave Weigel identified as Vincent Sbraccia after the candidate floated his longstanding hope for a Lincoln-Douglas debate with President Obama.

Sbraccia, sporting a bandana, US Army-sponsored NASCAR driver’s suit and Gadsden flag button, responded to Gingrich’s Saul Alinsky reference with another tea party standard: “You forgot Bill Ayers, Newt!”

A similar scene took place earlier in the day when the two candidates made back-to-back appearances at Tommy’s Ham House, a campaign trail favorite in Greenville, S.C.

Linda Tollison, a supporter of Romney in 2008 and this year, arrived at the diner sporting a Ralph Lauren riding jacket and matching equestrian pants and boots.

The Gingrich crowd featured the likes of Dean Allen, a tea party activist who has authored a book titled, “Rattlesnake Revolution: The Tea Party Strikes!”

Allen wandered the crowded parking lot filled outside the pig palace, weaving between people holding handmade signs professing their love for Gingrich, handing out his card and promoting his book.

The jarring differences have been on display in Florida this week, as well.

B.J. Patel, a Tanzanian-born cardiologist dressed in a white shirt and tie, attended the Tampa State of the Union speech and praised Romney’s business background — but said he wished the former Massachusetts governor was more feisty in battling Gingrich.

“I think he has the business sense to run the country, but people need to know that besides business, he can fight for other things that the nation needs,” Patel said.

Down the coast at a Gingrich rally in Sarasota Tuesday, a decidedly different crowd showed up.

Diann Franks was recently laid off from JC Penney.

Wearing khakis, black New Balance tennis shoes, a worn brown leather jacket and fanny pack, she came to the event carrying a copy of a Gingrich book.

“Just in general we need a leader,” said Franks. “Somebody who can just put their foot down and say we’re mad as…and we’re not taking it anymore.”

The sense of anger is palpable among Gingrich’s middle-class supporters. They’re often fearful about their own financial situation and think Washington doesn’t need to be changed — it needs to be blown up.

David D. of Tampa, he wouldn’t share his full last name, was at the pre-debate rally Monday, sporting jeans and a “Tea Party Patriots” t-shirt.

David, who works in accounting, said he had been a Herman Cain supporter but moved over to Gingrich after his first choice dropped out.

“The people who work, the people who pay taxes are just tired,” he explained. “We don’t have leaders who will take it to him. Romney won’t go aggressive like Newt will with Obama. What you saw in that debate in South Carolina was passion.”

Cindy Phair from Inverness was nearby hoisting a Gingrich sign, too.

She’s a retired RN, but is going back to work part time to pay bills.

“I’m afraid we’re heading for another depression,” she said.

Romney backers acknowledge their candidate’s difficulty with the most stirred-up element of the GOP base, but argue that Gingrich’s decades in the capital will eventually undermine his claim on outsider status.

“He’s never going to be the candidate that appeals to that anger and rage among people toward Washington,” said a Romney adviser. “The fact is, though, he’s the only candidate who hasn’t spent his entire adult life in Washington. Newt only really understands the economy from the Washington perspective.”

Another Romney adviser was more derisive of the Anybody But Mitt Republicans.

“They like preachers,” the adviser said of the tea party demographic. “If you take them to a tent meeting they’ll get whipped into a frenzy. That’s how people like Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich get women to fall into bed with them.”

Gingrich allies, meanwhile, are delighted about the continued focus on Romney’s wealth and are nearly giddy that he’s still emphasizing his CEO experience even as his troubles with down-scale voters become apparent.

“Our party can’t be led to victory by someone who also has never run a business, or a state,” Romney said on Election Night Saturday in South Carolina.

Chortled Craig Shirley, a Gingrich supporter who’s writing a biography of the former speaker: “Can you imagine going to a garage mechanic in Daytona and saying, ‘We need an executive in Washington?’ He’d hit you with the wrench I’d hand him.”

Reid J. Epstein, Juana Summers and Ginger Gibson contributed to this report.

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Which Presidential Candidate Will Help You Sleep Best at Night?

kalel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:44:38 +0000

Here is a nice infographic entitled “Which Presidential Candidate Will Help You Sleep Best at Night?” which provides a glimpse into each of the current presidential candidates and their stated positions on important issues of our time. It is provided by Latex mattress.

[Infographic by Latex mattress]
Get The Embed Code to Add this Infographic to Your Site.

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Gingrich Fends Off Romney’s Best Punches at Florida Debate

kalel — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:39:43 +0000

Hot off of a double-digit win in South Carolina, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stepped into a Florida debate ring on Monday night as the new heavyweight front-runner in the presidential contest and managed to bob and weave his way through a flurry of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s best punches.

Newt Gingrich gestures during a Republican presidential debate Monday Jan. 23, 2012, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

“Romney went for the jugular, and it didn’t work,” declared Democratic pollster Doug Schoen immediately following the debate. “Newt Gingrich was cool, calm, and collected. The momentum was with Newt Gingrich going into the debate. It’s still with Newt Gingrich. It’s going to be a Pier 6 brawl from now until next Tuesday.”

The 68-year-old Gingrich showed no signs of fatigue, as some observers speculated he might following an intense weekend schedule in which he gained an impressive 40-28 percent victory over Romney in Saturday’s first-in-the-South primary.

“Newt Gingrich took every shot that Mitt Romney could land and he walked off unbowed and seemingly unaffected,” Schoen said. “In South Carolina, Romney was the focus of attention. Here, the focus of attention was Newt Gingrich. But I think Newt Gingrich managed to dodge all the bullets tonight. Tonight made it clear the new front-runner is Newt Gingrich.”

Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman tells Newsmax that, although he saw no clear winner in the debate, he thought Romney managed to reassert himself in the mix and regain his debate footing after bad stumbles in South Carolina.

“If he did as bad tonight as he did last week, he’d really be in bad shape,” said Blakeman, a Newsmax contributor, who was a member of President George W. Bush’s senior staff. “I thought that Romney rose to the occasion. I thought that he put the speaker on the defensive and I thought that this is the Romney that should have appeared last Monday and Thursday.”

Blakeman said former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had some good exchanges, but Texas Rep. Ron Paul had a flat performance.

“Paul certainly isn’t a contender in Florida. He doesn’t have the organization, nor does he have the funds necessary to mount a serious challenge. He’s really nowhere without the debates,” Blakeman said. “Santorum is trying to get things started, but the clock is ticking in Florida.”

With that in mind, Romney wasted little time attacking Gingrich’s record as speaker during the 1990s.

“I think as you choose the president of the United States you are looking for a person who can lead this country in a very critical time — lead the free world — and the free world has to lead the entire world,” Romney said. “I think it’s about leadership and the speaker was given an opportunity to be the leader of our party in 1994 — and at the end of four years — he had to resign in disgrace.”

Romney said Gingrich became an “influence peddler in Washington” while Romney was running the Olympic winter games.

NBC’s Brian Williams, who was the debate moderator, pointed to Romney’s pledge only last week that he would refrain from negativity in the debates.

Romney said the negative attacks against him in the Palmetto State drove him to re-examine his approach.

“I learned something from that last contest in South Carolina. And that was I had incoming from all directions, was overwhelmed with a lot of the attack,” he countered. “And I’m going to sit back and get attacked day in and day out without returning fire? I would like not to have the kind of attacks that came against me.”

Gingrich challenged Romney’s facts with respect to his tenure as speaker, calling Romney a good financier but a terrible historian.

“Apparently your consultants aren’t very good historians,” jabbed the new front-runner. “What you ought to do is stop and look at the facts. And the fact is we won the House for the third time in 1998.”

Gingrich said that he was the only speaker since the 1920s who led the Republican Party to three consecutive victories, then turned to a discussion of Romney’s record.

“By the way, in 2006 when you chaired the governor’s association, we lost governorships, and in the four years that you were governor, we lost seats in the Massachusetts legislature,” Gingrich said. “So I think as a party builder, the 20 years I spent building the House Republican Party stands pretty good as an example of leadership.”

Gingrich also vowed Monday to “overthrow the regime” of Fidel Castro if elected president.

Responding to a question by Williams with respect to U.S. policy toward Cuba, Gingrich said he would press for a “Cuban Spring” much like the Arab Spring, which has been sweeping the Middle East.

“We will not tolerate four more years of this [Castro] regime,” Gingrich said.

Castro has been in power in some form for more than 50 years, and Cuba remains one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Gingrich said he would accomplish the goal of ousting Castro by “using every asset” the U.S. government has, including support of a popular uprising and encouraging Cuban youth to take to the streets.

Romney, who suffered major blows in last week’s debate over his reluctance to release his income tax returns, sought to diminish those attacks against him in Monday’s contest. Before the debate, he announced that he intends to release two years of returns on Tuesday.

“Oh I’m sure people will talk about it,” Romney acknowledged when Williams pressed him. “I mean, you’ll see my income, how much taxes I paid, how much I paid to charity. You’ll see how complicated taxes can be. But I pay all of the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.”

His chief rival chose not to attack Romney on the 15 percent in taxes that he paid.

“I’m prepared to describe my 15 percent flat tax as the Mitt Romney flat tax,” Gingrich declared. “I’d like to bring everybody else down to Mitt’s rate not try to bring him up to some other rate.”

Overall, Monday’s debate in Florida was far more tame than the two last week in South Carolina, where Gingrich racked up at least three standing ovations — most notably when he criticized CNN moderator John King for opening Thursday’s debate with “trash” and accusing the liberal media of attempting to protect President Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.

Those strong debate performances are credited with his recent spike in the polls.

Fueled by Saturday’s primary victory, Gingrich has now surged past Romney in two separate polls of likely Florida voters, a momentum that is unlikely to be disturbed by Monday’s debate.

An InsiderAdvantage poll released late Sunday night showed Gingrich besting Romney by 8 points among likely Republican primary voters while the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of 750 likely Florida Republican primary voters — also taken Sunday evening — finds Gingrich with 41 percent of the vote compared with Romney’s 32 percent.

Although much of the focus of Monday’s debate remained on Gingrich and Romney, Santorum attempted to re-establish himself as a contender in Florida.

“I think if you’ve learned anything about this election — that any type of prediction is going to be wrong. The idea that this was a two-person race has been an idea that has been in fashion now for eight months and it’s been wrong about eight times,” said Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses.

“We’re looking at this race trying to paint a positive vision for our country. You asked my path to victory — my path to victory is to tell the people of Florida and tell the people of this country I’m someone who is here that presents a very clear contrast with the president of the United States, someone that will make him the issue in this race, not the Republican candidate.”

Paul, who finished fourth in South Carolina behind Santorum, acknowledged that he had not won any of the electoral contests to date but insisted that he is perhaps as electable as anyone on the stage.

“Why don’t we take on the first three states and take everybody 30 years and under. I’m doing pretty darn well. I’m winning that vote,” Paul said. “But what about if you compare my name to Obama. I do quite well — if not better than the rest. So to say that there has only been three races, and talk about not being electable, I think is a bit of a stretch.”

From Newsmax

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Gingrich: It’s Wrong to Silence Debate Audiences

kalel — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:45:39 +0000

Republican Candidates Debate In Tampa, Florida

Newt Gingrich has vowed not to allow future GOP presidential debate moderators to tell the audience not to applaud following Monday night’s subdued performance in Tampa.

And the former House speaker attacked Brian Williams’ decision, saying he believed he made the request because he was terrified the crowd would make the media look bad.

“I wish in retrospect I had protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Gingrich told Tuesday’s Fox and Friends. “He took them out of it because the media is terrified that they’re going to side with the candidates against the media.”

He said he “was simply not going to allow” moderators to keep the audience quiet.

“That’s wrong. The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be able to applaud if they want to,” Gingrich added. “It was almost silly.”

Gingrich’s normally bombastic style was muted in Monday’s debate as the zingers that he and the other three candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum shot at each other were greeted with near silence.

In the past two debates in South Carolina, Gingrich received standing ovations and clearly had the crowd on his side, but that was not the case on Monday.

From Newsmax

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)