Free Republic

As Don Imus might say, there was a "tension convention" on the set of today''s Morning Joe. Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace got into it over Marco Rubio's future. Scarborough repeatedly argued that Rubio should get out before the Florida primary, or risk ruining his political future. Wallace made the case that Rubio has the right to remain in as much as Kasich, both their strategies being to survive to a hopefully brokered convention. Scarborough would surely say his was simply the voice of political reason. But watch the clip, and see if there isn't something more at work. As...

Mitt Romney's plastic and philosophically vapid campaign secured an easy victory in Florida on Tuesday night. Sunshine state GOP voters swallowed his "electability" argument whole, according to the exit polls. It appears that country club Republicans have succeeded again in duping the GOP electorate into crowning a "centrist" Republican. Never mind that "centrist" Republicans rarely win the center. They usually lose the center while sapping the spirit of the party's conservative base. Out of Bob Dole's and John McCain's tattered Big Tent steps another "reformed" RINO, Mitt Romney, who will receive, should he win the nomination, a similar thumping from...

Will the Tea Party be asking (demanding!) that Senator Marco Rubio (VERY PUBLICLY) ask Mitt Romney's campaign to shut down their "Tom Brokaw" ad -- in light of the fact that when Sen. Rubio VERY PUBLICLY inserted himself in the Florida GOP Primary battle, Newt Gingrich pulled that Romney ad ? Does the Mitt Romney ad of a 14 year old NBC news lead story about Newt Gingrich (charges he was cleared of) offend Sen. Rubio or will he sit silent? Is Sen. Rubio merely an "immigrant issue" politician or is he a fair representative of ALL Floridians? NBC has...

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. [snip] If Mr. Romney does win here on Tuesday, it will have been through a blistering and unrelenting series of attacks. His campaign has pressed everything at its disposal into service to eviscerate Mr. Gingrich, painting him as an erratic, unreliable Washington insider in mailings and television advertisements, at two critical debates here (where his team made sure Mr. Romney had...

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – Newt Gingrich said today he was not happy with his uncharacteristically flat debate performance Thursday night, when he seemed passive despite repeated jabs from a hard-charging Mitt Romney. But he said it was not his fault. “You cannot debate somebody who is dishonest,” Gingrich told reporters. “You just can’t. People say I’m a good debater. I can’t debate somebody who won’t tell the truth.” Gingrich said he was stunned by Romney’s repeated distortions. “A couple of scenes you can go back and replay,” he said. “I was staring in amazement. I know what he’s saying...

In throwing their support to Newt Gingrich, a group of Florida tea party leaders risk throwing away their clout and credibility, observers of the movement say. "The Florida Tea Party Coalition With Newt" endorsed the former House speaker on Thursday, saying they would "help defeat Massachusetts Moderate Mitt Romney and then President Barack Obama." “It is clear to me and many others in the tea party movement that Newt is the Reagan conservative that America needs,” said Peter Lee, founder and director of the East Side Tea Party of Orlando. Lee was joined by statewide tea leader Patricia Sullivan, who...

MIAMI -- With most of his major rivals focused on the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is spending his Thursday evening 1,300-plus miles south in Florida. The former New York City mayor is scheduled to attend a rally in Hialeah, a heavily Cuban-American suburb of Miami. He has made winning Florida a central focus of his campaign, as he was predicted to do poorly in early states Iowa and New Hampshire. Rivals Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain are focusing on those traditional states. A memo written by a Giuliani campaign strategist earlier this week outlined the...