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Over at Hot Air, Wolf Howling penned a comment that perfectly sums up my feelings about the Florida primary. I’ve spent the last few weeks watching Romney run the most intellectually dishonest campaign against Gingrich that I could imagine. Romney isn’t making the case that he has a better conservative pedigree, nor that his vision for America is superior or more conservative than Gingrich’s. He spent 17 million doing nothing but trying to delegitimize and demonize Gingrich with gross distortions of history. I haven’t seen anything like this since what the left did to Sarah Palin. And the last time...

First, the new set of numbers out of the Palmetto State: With three days to go until the first-in-the south primary, Mitt Romney remains in the lead in the Palmetto State, but according to a new poll, his advantage over Newt Gingrich is rapidly shrinking. A CNN/Time/ORC International poll indicates that 33% of likely South Carolina Republican primary voters say they are backing Romney, with 23% supporting Gingrich. The former Massachusetts governor's 10 point advantage over the former House speaker is down from a 19 point lead two weeks ago. According to the survey, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Anyway, here's this New York Times story now. It's by Helene Cooper. "Now that Mitt Romney has squeaked through with the narrowest of victories in the Iowa caucuses, President Obama and his campaign aides are facing a conundrum as they decide how to tarnish the man they see as their likely opponent in the battle ahead. Do they go the flip-flopper route? Or do they go the out-of-touch, protector-of-Wall-Street route? The two tactics are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and in fact, the president’s re-election proponents have in recent days been gleefully highlighting both aspects of Mr. Romney’s...

s Newt Gingrich a realistic threat to win the GOP nomination? The Romney campaign certainly seems to think so. Ron Fournier, writing in National Journal, reports that “Romney’s campaign is in a state of near panic.” The campaign put together a conference call with reporters featuring prominent GOP officials who lambasted Gingrich in terms that you rarely hear within a political party: “The speaker is running as a reliable and trusted conservative leader. What we’re here to say, with reluctance, but clearly, is he is not a reliable or trustworthy conservative leader,” Sen. Jim Talent told reporters on a conference...

With less than 30 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich officially emerged as the clear Republican frontrunner this week, opening up a double-digit lead over presumptive nominee Mitt Romney in a series of new polls. A new CBS/New York Times survey released Tuesday evening is the latest to put Gingrich at the front of the pack among Republican caucus-goers in Iowa, a key early voting state. The poll finds Gingrich leading Romney in Iowa by 14%, with 31% support compared to Romney's 17%. The numbers match up closely with the new ABC News/Washington Post Iowa poll, also...

Back On Top: Mitt Surges Ahead In New Poll As Half Of GOP Think He Will Be The Nominee By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 13th November 2011 Mitt Romney has a growing lead in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination with almost half of the party's voters expect him to be the nominee. Twenty-eight per cent of Republicans backed the former Massachusetts governor, giving him a lead of eight percentage points over his nearest challenger Herman Cain in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken November 10-11. Romney was five percentage points ahead in a survey November 7-8. 'Most presidential': Almost half...

..money is the tool Mr. Romney has deployed the most widely. In the last three years, a constellation of political action committees set up by Mr. Romney in states like Alabama, Michigan and New Hampshire has tapped into his far-flung network of national donors. In turn, an analysis by The New York Times determined, those committees, under the names Commonwealth PAC and Free and Strong America PAC, have made contributions totaling more than $400,000 to about 300 local elected officials and party organizations in 31 states. Mr. Romney’s federal political action committee has donated an additional $1.2 million, including checks...

Is there anyone sane left in the GOP establishment? Does plain old common sense and gut instinct no longer matter to those who purport to speak for the party? Have conservative principles and traditional values become nothing more than meaningless rhetoric to those so desperate to hang on to imagined power? As the Republican establishment lines up like lemmings behind Mitt Romney, it would be illuminating and in fact critical to look at the news for just the last couple of days with regard to this untethered and pliable candidate. A good place to start would be Romney refusing to...

Told you this guy was BAD news... The Inevitable One Just popped over to Intrade to check out the latest odds on the GOP primary race, and although the punters are still piling the chips high on Romney, a harsh reality was laid bare... Not this one, people... NEVER! More news/views/humor at Reaganite Republican

Notwithstanding the fact that not a single ballot has been cast in any of the Republican primaries, there seems to be a concerted effort by the liberal media to bestow the GOP nomination upon former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. According to the Detroit Free Press, "Mitt Romney's steady-as-she-goes campaign for the presidential nomination is beginning to look inevitable." The Washington Post tells us that Romney "is suddenly attracting new support from major donors and elected officials… as people across the GOP grow more accepting of the presidential contender as the party's standard-bearer." Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times declares,...

I’m not saying every tea partier is against Mitt Romney, but many prominent Tea Party groups are saying no to Romney for President. FreedomWorks, an influential Washington-based group working within the Tea Party movement, say they do not support Mitt Romney for President, because of his moderate record as governor. The group’s communications director said, it’s because “Romney has a record and we don’t really like it that much.” Brendan Steinhauser, the group’s liaison to smaller, grassroots organizations said, Romney is, “inauthentic.” They also have some beef with RomneyCare. Also, the Tea Party organization’s president and CEO Matt Kibbe was...

"The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president," says a Republican adviser close to front-runner Mitt Romney. "She's making money, she's moved on, she's kind of an entertainer rather than a politician. She still has some sway with the grass roots, but she is not going to run." "I don't think she's going to run," says a Republican close to Tim Pawlenty. "She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she's doing now and say that she's found a way to get back in the story." Maybe these representatives...

Huckabee’s taken potshots at her from time to time, but between this fusillade from unnamed Mitt advisors and the furious counterattack on Romney at Conservatives 4 Palin, I’d say that the 2012 primary is now, at long last, officially on. In the immortal words of Greg Stillson, “The missiles are flying. Hallelujah.” Still, few express much regard for Palin’s ultimate chances. One adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and, by traditional standards, the putative 2012 frontrunner, says of Palin, “She’s not a serious human being.” Another Romney intimate warns, “If she’s standing up there in a debate and...

Alternate headline: “Obama hands devastating new attack ad to Romney opponents on a silver platter.” If you don’t have time to watch this now, no worries: You’ll be seeing the part about Mitt in eight thousand different GOP primary spots starting early next year. So brutal is it — think what kind of beating Charlie Crist is taking over the photo of him hugging Obama, then multiply by a thousand — that I’m tempted to believe The One set out to mention Romney with that idea in mind. If he can take out a potentially dangerous Republican nominee early in...