Free Republic

The real story of the three results from Tuesday night is not that Rick Santorum picked up some wins -- though that is big. No, the real story is that three states held votes and nobody came. Almost nobody, that is. Consider that the total turnout for Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota combined was barely over half of the turnout of South Carolina alone and -- worse yet -- barely over half the turnout for the same three states in 2008.

Rick Santorum is about to see the kitchen sink up-close. So far he hasn’t been a threat, so he hasn’t faced much harsh scrutiny, much less the attacks that are about to come his way. His candidacy is for real, and Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney both know it. While Gingrich thought he could isolate Romney and become his lone real competitor, yesterday’s results, combined with a deflating Gingrich campaign, have allowed Santorum to leapfrog Gingrich as the more viable Romney alternative today. It’s not in Gingrich’s nature to give up. Attacking Romney hasn’t gotten him to where he thought...

As Rick Santorum counted up his victories Tuesday night, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney signaled the campaign would take a tougher approach toward his resurgent rival and portray him as a Washington insider.

Matt Drudge is the Howard Hughes of the Internet. Like Hughes, he lives in splendid isolation, communicating only through a small group of trusted friends. Like Hughes, his influence has quietly helped shape Republican politics for a generation. But while the eccentric Hughes used money to put his pals in the White House, Drudge has always relied on blogs and Tweets. The Drudge Report, which started life as an emailed gossip column, now receives millions of unique visitors per month. One study found that it drives more traffic than Twitter and Facebook combined. Drudge’s claim to be the authentic voice...

For many years, the Drudge Report has served as a clearinghouse for many conservatives about the news of the day. But according to the not-too-conservative Politico, Matt Drudge's news aggregation website leaves Gingrich "looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud." Matt Barber is director of cultural affairs at Liberty Counsel. He says it is obvious that Drudge is "all in" for Mitt Romney. "Matt Drudge has decided to completely sell out and has signed on with the moderate Republican establishment and is pushing the Mitt Romney campaign and is acting as the attack dog against Newt Gingrich," Barber comments. "And...

MIAMI — Facing the unthinkable here just seven days ago — a second loss in a row to Newt Gingrich — Mitt Romney’s campaign team hatched a two-part plan to win in Florida: make Newt mad and Mitt meaner. In a call last Sunday morning, just hours after Mr. Romney’s double-digit loss to Mr. Gingrich in the South Carolina primary, the Romney team outlined the new approach to the candidate. Put aside the more acute focus on President Obama and narrow in on Mr. Gingrich. Find lines of attack that could goad Mr. Gingrich into angry responses and rally mainstream...

The 2012 Republican primary race has passed well beyond the rabbit hole into some extra-dimensional bizarro world where up is down, black is white and the allies of the candidate who disavowed Reaganism would have us believe that the leader of the “second stage of the Reagan Revolution” is somehow insufficiently Reaganesque. It’s no secret that the GOP establishment backs Mitt Romney. The same folks who gave us John McCain and Bob Dole have picked their winner. When Mr. Romney is down, their panic shows. They start floating desperate ideas like late-entry candidates or a brokered convention. They also pull...

Its back.

I would like ideas for a good central source for news now that Drudge has his lips firmly attached to Romney's ass. I want to take Drudge off of my Favorites list.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) on Sunday attacked Mitt Romney for "unseemliness and overkill" in his aggressive campaign against Newt Gingrich, the candidate Thompson has endorsed.

Facing the unthinkable here just seven days ago — a second loss in a row to Newt Gingrich — Mitt Romney’s campaign team hatched a two-part plan to win in Florida: make Newt mad and Mitt meaner. -snip- A team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich, much of it finding its way to the influential Drudge Report, which often serves as a guide for conservative talk radio and television assignment editors and to which Mr. Rhoades has close ties. The...

It would be perverse to suggest the recent Matt Drudge-delivered blitzkrieg against Newt Gingrich was anything but a massive, coordinated propaganda campaign to incinerate his candidacy to cinders and ash. Of course, it would also be unfair to insinuate Newt is anything but the father of many of his own current struggles. But, be that as it may, it is hard to see how such a scorched earth policy against a lively and talented Republican with vast leadership experience helps the GOP or harms Obama. Such propaganda campaigns are not unknown in politics, but are rare in healthy democracies. That...

Furious conservatives have taken to blogs and Twitter on Thursday to vent their ire against what they allege is a conspiratorial dumping of twisted and manipulated negative attacks on Newt Gingrich. The target of their fury: The Drudge Report. For the last 48 hours, the conservative Web site led by Matt Drudge has become a virtual campaign arm for Mitt Romney, featuring huge, screaming headlines about Mr. Gingrich and his past. That prompted conservatives who support Mr. Gingrich to accuse Mr. Drudge of selling out to the Republican establishment — many of whom have come to Mr. Romney’s aid as...

. . . of online media manipulation isn’t exactly new. In fact, it goes back well before Romney’s 2008 campaign got underway in earnest. It seems to date back to sometime in 2005, when RNC operatives arranged a meeting between Matt Drudge and Matt Rhodes — a highly placed operative in the Romney organization. Last year, a delegation of RNC officials flew to Miami Beach, where Drudge lives, for a dinner at the Forge steakhouse to introduce the Internet maven to Matt Rhodes, the party’s new opposition research director. Due to Drudge’s now-close friendship with Romney’s chief aide and longtime...

E! ECONOMIST EDITOR & PUBLISHER EMIRATES 24/7 ENT WEEKLY FINANCIAL TIMES FORBES FOXNEWS FOXNEWS NATION FRANCE 24 GAWKER HOT AIR HELLO! HILL H'WOOD REPORTER HUFFINGTON POST HUMAN EVENTS

Due to bias shown by Matt Drudge I pledge to boycott the Drudge Report. Please pledge the same if you feel so inclined.

It has no name yet, but something akin to “Operation: Newtralize” is building into an onslaught against Newt Gingrich’s drive for the presidency. -snip- By late Thursday the conservative blogosphere was in open revolt, with right-wing bloggers aiming their fury at Drudge for what many perceived as an attack coordinated with Team Romney.

Just said it on his show. Couldn't believe my ears.

You’re being manipulated. A well respected, highly influential news source has cast aside all journalistic integrity to shill for the liberal, GOP establishment candidate in this presidential race. The New York Times, you say? MSNBC? The Washington Post? No. We all gave up on those “progressive” rags a long time ago. Regrettably, the latest media outlet to assume a decidedly yellow hue during this heated primary cycle is the Drudge Report. It pains me to even write this. Drudge has always been both my first and last internet news stops of the day.

If you’re an independent voter or Democrat who is getting a bit tired of the Internet powerhouse Drudge Report’s political positioning of news items and/or have been turned off by some of its big news scoops that didn’t quite pan out in terms of the HUGE HEADLINES (the ones that have simply vanished off the site with no explanation) there are alternatives. Or, if you’re a Drudge fan and like that format and are looking for others that you can visit and get a news summary at a quick glance there are some excellent alternatives. Even if you ARE a...

Forget the so-called liberal media. Right now Newt Gingrich's most ardent critics are conservative pundits and columnists, many of whom have launched aggressive campaigns to discredit him and trip up his run for the Republican nomination.

The Drudge Report saw a drop in traffic yesterday of two million hits in the wake of proprietor Matt Drudge's two-day attack on Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.Drudge started his attack on Gingrich Wednesday evening with a banner headline accusing Gingrich of insulting former President Ronald Reagan. Drudge carried on the attack all through Thursday, at one time having fourteen anti-Newt headlines at once.The assault on Gingrich prompted many supporters to announce they were swearing off the Drudge Report with some saying they would stop using it as their home page.According to statistics posted by the Drudge Report, the site's...

Ron Paul and Romney are winning this vote

Drudge versus history Posted by William A. Jacobson    Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 9:31am Politico’s homepage top headline is The right drops a bomb on Newt featuring photos of Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, Elliot Abrams and Matt Drudge.Just like in December, the rise of Newt has caused panic in Republican circles.In December the charge was led by National Review, and now it’s being led by Matt Drudge, as reflected in this image from Marooned in Marin:  For several days Drudge has been running almost around-the-clock negative banners against Newt, hyping negatives and burying news which contradicts the Romney campaign narrative that Newt was anti-Reagan.Against...

MOUNT DORA, Florida -- After an appearance before several hundred Tea Party supporters at a lakeside resort, Newt Gingrich reacted to the latest wave of criticism directed at him from members of the Washington-based conservative establishment. Members of that establishment, he said, are "sitting around in a frenzy, having coffee, lunch, and cocktail hours talking about how do we stop Gingrich." I asked Gingrich to react to a new column by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., longtime editor of The American Spectator in which Tyrrell called Gingrich "conservatism's Bill Clinton" and hinted that Gingrich might be the subject of new allegations...

Thursday, Bloody Thursday the Day the Drudge Report Sold Out It may be the Drudge Report sold out a long time ago and I was just too blind to see it. No one has ever accused me of being the smartest guy in the room. But if someone of the unwashed masses like myself has come to see that he has sold out, it must be quite clear to everyone. On this day he is maliciously and brutally battering a Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States by the name of Newton Leroy Gingrich. I have read the...

So much for Matt being fair and balanced and showing just headlines and stories others will not...no...he has 14 stories front and center all anti-Newt right now. No excuse for this...not even ABC/NBC/CBS have 14 anti-Newt stories on their front page. Bias? What bias? Conservatives can trust about nobody in media today and this proves exactly why.

If Ann Coulter’s frantic unhinged rants on Bill O’Reilly’s and Sean Hannity’s show are any indication of Team Romney’s current mood and moral, Florida is Mitt Romney’s Alamo. From Matt Drudge, who apparently has ties to Romney advisor Matt Rhoades, to the National Review and all the lesser imps in between, it is apparent Romney is sounding the bugle and rallying the troops to man the walls for a last stand in Florida. Why else would some of the greatest conservative names and publications write blistering articles about Newt Gingrich they know themselves to be filled with half truths...

Newt Gingrich better hope voters who lapped up his delicious hits on the “elite media” and liberals don’t read the Drudge Report this morning. Or the National Review. Or the American Spectator. Or Ann Coulter. If they do, Gingrich comes off looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud. It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real, and they need to come clean about the man they really know before it’s too late. This is just a sampling of what’s hitting Newt:

I’d like you to take a look at DrudgeReport. There is an all-out war on Newt Gingrich, not merely by the left-wing media, but particularly on the right side of the political divide. Drudge has run as many as nine negative articles about Gingrich simultaneously, but he is running few negative articles about Romney, and those he does run are only half-negative, so it’s becoming clear that Drudge is trying to manipulate the outcome in the direction of a result he prefers. I surely hope conservatives realize that nobody in media is pure, because everybody has biases. In the case...

For several days Drudge has been running almost around-the-clock negative banners against Newt, hyping negatives and burying news which contradicts the Romney campaign narrative that Newt was anti-Reagan. Against the anti-Newt crusade stands a wealth of counter-viewpoints of people who were in a position to know and who share very different recollections of Newt and Reagan, via Josh Painter in the comments: Reagan Nat’l Security Advisor Bud McFarlane: http://bit.ly/zd9eAF Reagan Economist Art Laffer: http://bit.ly/xEDETiReagan WH political director Jeffrey Lord: http://bit.ly/zw2ZMbReagan Policy Analyst Peter Ferrara http://bit.ly/zq1QxIReagan media consultant Richard Quinn: http://on.msnbc.com/y2sPM2Reagan’s Speechwriting Dir. Bently Elliott: http://thedc.com/xOkDvAReagan’s older son Michael Reagan: http://bit.ly/yYVy7L Reagan’s beloved...

Check out Drudge. He has EIGHT articles that are negative on Newt Gingrich right now, including the headline.....as Sarah would say, this guy has his panties all in a wad over Newt. Another Republican elite insider for Mitt Romeny. What else is new?

Are you tired of the slanderous attacks against Newt Gingrich from Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge, Fox, and the establishment GOP? We must give Newt a BIG grassroots FLORIDA victory! Newt encourages grassroots citizen participation. The other candidates just want your vote and then they don't want to hear from you again. Please go to newt.org and volunteer to make calls or volunteer on the ground to get out the vote in Florida. Let's "bury" Romney and the elite in Florida!!!

Newt Gingrich better hope voters who lapped up his delicious hits on the “elite media” and liberals don’t read the Drudge Report this morning. Or the National Review. Or the American Spectator. Or Ann Coulter. If they do, Gingrich comes off looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud. It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real, and they need to come clean about the man they really know before it’s too late.

Anne Coulter pal Matt Drudge has declared all out war on the Gingrich campaign. As of 7am Eastern time he has 9 negative mentions about Newt (none on Romney): NEWT FLASHBACK 1983: REAGAN RESPONSIBLE FOR NATIONAL 'DECAY'... NEWT 1986: 'The Reagan administration has failed, is failing... President Reagan is clearly failing'... NEWT 1988: 'If Bush runs as continuation of Reaganism he will lose'... VIDEO... INSIDER: GINGRICH REPEATEDLY INSULTED REAGAN R. EMMETT TYRRELL: William Jefferson Gingrich... COULTER: RE-ELECT OBAMA: VOTE NEWT!... CNN: Gingrich admits his ABC claim was false during debate... Gingrich tells UNIVISION: No perjury during my divorce depositions... Marianne...

I open my browser this morning and what do I find? "RUBIO RIPS TEAM GINGRICH" glaring across the front of Drudge Report... one of many negative headlines/stories related to Newt. So I guess the hit job continues. As others have pointed out, the bias he's displaying is obvious and sickening. Wonder what the reason behind this is? Newt kick his dog? Reject his advances?

The attacks by both Drudge and Beck on Newt are about as vicious as I've ever seen by either of them even on Obama. I turned off Beck some time ago due to his extreme doomer act and I'm starting to get to the point where I avoid Drudge as well. I understand that they might not be Newt fans but the force of their hatred toward him is stunning.

I am noticing that in a not so subtle manner his links tend to be anti Newt. Or am I imagining it ?

Sen. Rand Paul told his communications director this morning he was being detained by TSA in Nashville. @moirabagley, the Twitter account associated with Paul staffer Moira Bagley tweeted around 10 a.m., ET, “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.” A spokesman for TSA said the agency was looking into the matter but could not immediately comment. Paul apparently set off an airport security full-body scanner, “on a glitch,” a spokesman in Paul’s office told ABC News. The Paul staffer said TSA agents would not let Paul walk back through the body scanner and...

It is always here in the birthplace of the Civil War that things go bump in the night for presidential campaigns. In 2000, John McCain’s surge for the GOP nomination was derailed by rumors he had a love child. Four years ago, Bill Clinton injected race into the Democratic nomination in an effort to derail Barack Obama’s juggernaut campaign in South Carolina. But all the shady twists and turns of the past were nothing compared with the Spanish moss-draped soap opera that has unfolded here in the past week.

Everyone of the candidates except Mitt Romney is getting the Drudge Report Treatment.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: All right, folks, I just saw the Marianne Gingrich video, and I think, I'll be honest with you, I think the Democrats may have to give Newt a second look here. Well, follow me on this. Newt Gingrich, aside from the budget deal in '95 and being made to ride in the back of Air Force One, Newt got along with Clinton pretty well, if you recall, and Newt treated Hillary with respect, even sat on the couch with Nancy Pelosi. Now, there's an accusation out there that Newt wanted an open marriage, just like Bill and...

Exclusive... Developing...just headlines

It's an AP article so don't bother going there, but it's good to see Santorum go after Mittens. Go Rick!

Developing... (Fortunately for Newt, 99 per cent of the audience will be watching Tebow vs. Brady anyway)

Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time. The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School and elsewhere told ABC News that, despite UN denials, there is now a mountain of evidence suggesting the strain originated in Nepal, and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who came to Haiti to serve as UN peacekeepers after the earthquake that ravaged...

YOUR VOTE FOR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE NEWT GINGRICH JON HUNTSMAN, RON PAUL, RICK PERRY, MITT ROMNEY, RICK SANTORUM

At about 2:30pm on December 31st, the Drudge Report’s main page featured the following banner headline: “Final Poll.” As I have argued many times that the dishonest and essentially misrepresentative nature of political polling is one of the Establishment’s main weapons in its war against the citizenry, i.e. against rational consideration of candidates and issues, the headline itself was no surprise. Clicking on the headline, however, took me to a new level of amusement at the Establishment’s presumption of voter stupidity. The so-called “final poll” had not actually been released yet; in fact, it was not due to be released...

It’s sad to say, but yes he is. In the past few days we have seen the once reliable Matt Drudge make an all-out no pretenses dive into Willard Romney’s tank. The man who once typified the anti-establishment drive for balanced reporting has abandoned us. He has stooped to quoting The Politico’s “considered” opinion that Willard will win the Republican nod in Iowa as if this was next Wednesday morning. Drudge apparently thinks we don’t know The Politico is the extremely pro Democrat site that savaged Herman Cain and pushed him out of the race with an avalanche of empty...

Greek Bank Run Hits The Big Time... Joe Weisenthal Dec. 6, 2011, 2:00 PM On Drudge right now... the red link goes to this story about Greeks taking money out of their bank accounts.