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When all polls close by 8 p.m. Eastern tonight in Florida, the winner of the state’s Republican primary may not initially be apparent. After all, the winner takes all, which means the candidate who gets the most votes gets all of the delegates. But the state, with 10 different media markets and a cultural mélange that ranges from Alabama South to Cuba North, is by no means homogeneous. Here are five crucial indicators to keep track of as the returns come in: Absentee VotersThe first key factor is, about a third of Florida voters have already cast their ballots, and...

IN the five days since his almost-victory in the Iowa caucuses, Rick Santorum’s critics have tried out an unusual line of attack against the former Pennsylvania senator. Not content with the many targets that Santorum’s record presents, they’ve gone after the way he and his wife, Karen, handled the premature delivery and death of their fourth child, Gabriel, in 1996. At 19 weeks of pregnancy, Gabriel was found to have a potentially fatal fetal abnormality. After a risky intrauterine surgery, Karen Santorum came down with an infection that ended up triggering labor. The baby lived for just two hours, and...

If Rick Perry was a legitimate conservative (which I always warned he was not) he would have dropped out of the campaign today and endorsed Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich. Yet "Pay-for-Play" Perry stays in, and heads for South Carolina. So what's the deal? The big winner of Perry staying in, by far, is Mitt Romney. The big loser is the conservative movement and the candidates who appeal to that movement. Keeping in mind my long-held view that Perry is not conservative, just a "pay-for-play" guy, what is in it for Perry? 1. Perhaps Romney offered Perry a...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — If this is Mitt Romney’s idea of a victory rally, one shudders to think what would have happened if he had lost the Iowa caucuses. The day after his impossibly thin eight-vote victory, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination flew here for a town hall meeting at Manchester Central High School, where he was to bask in the endorsement of his 2008 arch rival, John McCain. But the senator grimaced when he was introduced, and as Romney delivered his own stump speech, an increasingly impatient McCain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch. McCain gave...

It seems like only yesterday that Sarah Palin stepped into a pair of red, Naughty Monkey peep-toe pumps and blew up every assumption about the Republican Party and women. With a briefing book in her hands, a baby on her hip, and a party enamored with her, Palin created the impression in 2008 that the GOP was not only willing, but eager, to elect a women to the highest, or at least second-highest, office in the land. On the high heels of Palin-mania came a slew of fresh Republican faces like governors Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Susanna Martinez...

Traveling around Iowa to cover today's caucuses, Washington Blade journalist Chris Johnson met up with some often overlooked voters: young gay men willing to confess Republican-leanings. Well, five of them, anyway. "I come from a farming family, so it’s conservative or Catholic," said a 21-year old, Bryan Pulda. "Our personal views are more reflected in the Republican candidates.” Ryan Schrader also traced his political leanings to his family, saying, “I come from a very conservative background myself. My family is very conservative Baptists." Like Pulda and so many other Iowa voters, Schrader's faith also influences his political preference. In this...

Michele Bachmann had high hopes going into this Presidential campaign. She saw herself as the second coming of Sarah Palin. A new and improved version of Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, Bachmann is not a new Sarah Palin nor an improved Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann is in last place in most of the polling. Every recent poll put Bachmann in last place heading into the caucuses, a far cry from her summer win in a state GOP straw poll. But top campaign advisers vowed she would prove the recent surveys wrong by activating a support network built through her visits to small...

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) -- Daniel Bradshaw, a young barber at Platinum Kutz in central Des Moines, hovers over a customer's half-trimmed head, clippers in hand, talking about the good old days of 2008. "Yeah, I was all for Obama. He was the man!" proclaimed Bradshaw, 32, whose friends call him "Mr. Puerto Rico" and whose colleagues sometimes refer to him as "Mr. Steal-Your-Client." As he brushed the hair clippings off his apron, he goes on: "I even got to meet him, once. He was all that." Or so he thought. Bradshaw, like many of his fellow Democrats, feels let...

In Monday afternoon Fox News interview, ex-Alaska Guv praises Santorum again and adds "Donald Trump has a lot to offer." Palin: "I did praise Rick Santorum and I'll praise him again...

(VIDEO AT LINK) With the Iowa caucus just hours away, Ron Paul's supporters released a new long-form video featuring the endorsement of a Mitt Romney impersonator and highlighting Paul's many policy positions. With the January 3 Iowa caucus approaching quickly, Republican presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul returned to Iowa on Monday. Paul had been in Texas to ring in the new year and to take a breather from the hectic campaign activity that has become a standard practice in this volatile GOP presidential primary. And true to their activist grassroots form, Paul's passionate supporters turned up the heat on New...

Mitt Romney's top ten is made up of Goldman Sachs, followed by Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Morgan Stanley, Barclays (UK), Bank of America and JP Morgan. In contrast Romney's co-frontrunner in Iowa, Ron Paul, has a top three donor list made up of the US Army, US Navy and US Airforce.

Welcome to the Post’s new politics and culture blog, “She the People: The World as Women See It.” Though dedicated to the proposition that politics properly understood encompasses just about everything, I thought we’d start with some predictions about Tuesday’s caucuses in Iowa, where a bunch of our writers rang in the new year with Republicans. My own bet is that Rick Santorum will indeed score the surprise of the night, just as he told me he would . Yet even if he wins outright, four years from now in Iowa, I further predict that we in the media will...

I have recently been very critical of Congressman Ron Paul on WeArePolitics for a myriad of different reasons that main one of which is that I feel that he is very detrimental to the Republican Party. A party that he has absolutely no loyalty to nor allegiance. Paul, as I have written before, has run a slash and burn campaign in Iowa, and it is certainly working for him....At the expense of a few of the other candidates and in particular former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Paul's campaign has been running non stop ads in Iowa about Newt that contain...

I vote for Newt! --- * Newt Gingrich? * Mitt Romney? * Rick Perry? * Michele Bachmann? * Rick Santorum? * Jon Huntsman?

Iowa is not one those states that dominates the news around the year. But every four years, Iowa gets a real chance to lead, when the primaries roll around. This year the Republicans have a large field of announced and unannounced candidates. Sarah Palin is not running, yet. But she certainly has imprinted on the GOP base, and Tea Party, and were I in Iowa, and able to write in my choice I would write in Sarah's name. Would that hurt other announced candidates? Certainly. It would hurt Bachmann, and Paul and maybe Santorum. And they all have their strengths,...

The 2012 White House contender Michele Bachmann is projecting herself as “America’s Margaret Thatcher” ahead of the January 3aucuses. “What we needed [in 1980] was the most articulate conservative we had to hold Jimmy Carter responsible and we got Ronald Reagan. And at the same time across the ocean there was another country, an ally of ours called Britain. Britain was also suffering under socialist policies. They needed a strong conservative too and up rose a woman and her name was Margaret Thatcher,” The Telegraph quoted Bachmann, as saying. “She was the Iron Lady and she led Britain back to...

NEWTON, Iowa -- As they waited for a bus dubbed the "Constitution Coach" to pick them up at the Des Moines airport and bring them to their makeshift lodgings late Tuesday, about two-dozen college-aged Ron Paul volunteers mingled in the cold night air. The sudden appearance of a reporter's notebook and tape recorder drew comments befitting a group of young people who proudly wear their skepticism on their sleeves. "What's the article you're going to be writing, man?" "Yeah, what's the spin, bro?" Asked where they had flown in from, the answers ranged from California to Virginia -- with one...

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination hots up, the candidates have been dropping hints about their possible running mates. Newt Gingrich today said he would 'certainly' consider asking Sarah Palin to join him on the ballot, while Mitt Romney was accompanied on a campaign stop this morning by Chris Christie, the popular Governor of New Jersey. Both those GOP heavyweights were thought of as potential candidates for the top job before announcing that they did not intend to run. Mr Christie endorsed the frontrunner Mr Romney in October, but Mrs Palin has yet to give her support to...

The man who ran Herman Cain’s Iowa campaign, before he dropped out of the presidential race, announced he is now supporting Newt Gingrich. Larry Tuel was Cain’s state campaign director until Dec. 3. Friday he endorsed Gingrich in an email to The Des Moines Register. Tuel said in his email that the former House speaker "is intelligent, positive and has the best grasp of policy and the role of government as it relates to tax, spending and regulatory power. I particularly appreciate his national tax policy, welfare reform, and ideas for reducing and refocusing regulatory authority to solve our deep-rooted...

Iowa GOP Presidential Poll – 12.28.11 Among Registered Voters Who Will be Voting in Iowa's Republican Presidential Primary InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research 2011 1. If the Republican presidential caucus or primary were held today, would you vote for Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, someone else or do you not know who you would vote for? (CHART AT LINK)

Fresh off of his endorsement from former KKK Grand Wizard and former Congressman from Louisiana David Duke, we find this photo of Congressman Ron Paul with former Klansman, former Nazi and current radio show host and moderator of Stormfront.org Don Black. Pictured next to Black in the cool hat appears to be his radio sidekick and son Derek. (Here's an interesting note....Derek's mother is David Duke's ex-wife. Que the banjos.)

This week at a tele-town hall hosted by Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, a caller asked Newt Gingrich if he would consider choosing former half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Gingrich responded by saying that Palin “is certainly one of the people you would look at” and told the caller that he is “a great admirer of hers.” "She is certainly one of the people you would look at. I am a great admirer of hers and she was a remarkable reform governor of Alaska, she’s somebody who I think brings a great deal to the...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is pretty much done for if he finishes too poorly in Iowa, where he has spent far and away the most of any candidate. Politico’s Mike Allen reports that “Rick Perry is the king of the airwaves,” having spent about $2.9 million on ads in December alone. His super PAC has spent an additional $1.3 million. Yet in the CNN-Opinion Research poll released Wednesday, Perry is in fifth place in Iowa at 11 percent. In RealClearPolitics’ average of Iowa polls, Perry is in fourth, with 12 percent. Perry’s days are numbered if he spends more than...

CNN's Wolf Blitzer sat down with Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney to talk about a wide range of issues from Mrs. Romney’s health to who convinced Mitt Romney to run for president again. Highlights from the interview are after the jump. Please credit all usage of the interview to CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer EMBEDDABLE VIDEO: Romney: I would vote for Ron Paul EMBEDDABLE VIDEO: Romneys discuss their darkest hour Highlight: Romney on Newt Gingrich THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. M. ROMNEY:...

New Hampshire CNN Poll released today: Romney 44% Paul 17% Gingrich 16% Huntsman 9% RS 4 MB 3 RPerry 2 none 5

Breaking: Michele Bachmann Iowa campaign co-chair endorses Ron Paul

Iowa’s Republican Party will count this year’s caucus results at a secret location in response to security concerns, according to multiple reports. The Occupy Caucus movement, organized by Occupy Wall Street protesters in the Hawkeye State, is gaining steam and could potentially disrupt the caucus votes taking place next week. “The Iowa GOP is taking additional safeguards to ensure the caucus results are tabulated and reported to the public in an accurate and timely manner,” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn told CNN. Occupy Iowa protesters met Wednesday to plan a week of protests timed to hit the Iowa caucus....

DES MOINES, Iowa – An offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement met Tuesday evening to organize and plan protests in Iowa’s capitol during the week leading up to the state’s caucuses next Tuesday. About 200 people involved in the Occupy the Caucuses movement met in East Des Moines and split up into groups by the GOP candidates they want to “occupy” this week. Protestors have said they will also camp out outside President Obama’s headquarters. At the beginning of the session, protesters aired grievances that they wanted to raise at the candidates’ headquarters this week, and then attendees split...

The Iowa caucuses are upon us, and with it the official start of the 2012 presidential election campaign. Therefore, it’s time to evaluate the Republican field. When you get to it, this race is really about one person: Newt Gingrich. This really is Newt, Part 2. For all of us who remember 1994, and the Republican Revolution, which is already 18 long years ago, we conservatives are playing jilted wife to that political lothario, Newt Gingrich. Should we take him back and give him another chance? Or is it a case of fool me once shame on you, fool me...

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee predicted Sunday that Mitt Romney will win the Iowa caucuses despite not having spent much time or money there. Huckabee, 56, made the prediction in an appearance on "FOX News Sunday," but warned Ron Paul could still pose a serious challenge to the former Massachusetts governor. "I would probably say that Mitt Romney will end up winning it today," Huckabee told host Chris Wallace. "Now, I think, again, Ron Paul, because of his organization, that is where Mitt is at a disadvantage. He doesn't have the devotion," he went on. "If the weather is good,...

With just days remaining before the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidates have gone into high gear in a last-ditch effort to win over the state's Republican voters. Having surged recently in Iowa polls (although the latest poll puts those numbers in question), Newt Gingrich is the headline-maker these days, and we know you have a lot of questions about how his plans and policies would benefit you and your family if he were elected president. That's why CafeMom is hosting a "Coffee Break" between moms, Newt Gingrich, and his wife Callista, at Java Joe's in Des Moines on Friday, December...

No matter the outcome, Ron Paul's strength indicates a resurgence of the libertarian and isolationist wings of the Republican Party. Judging by some of the television images of the 2012 Republican presidential race in Iowa, the contest is among a bunch of small-bore candidates courting farmers and born-again Christians out on the chilly prairie. Look again. The 2012 Republican contest in Iowa is very much a battle over what the GOP should stand for in the years ahead. Just as Republican leaders in Washington can't seem to reach a consensus on what they're for, so can't rank-and-file party activists here....

WEST DES MOINES -- To understand Steve Deace's feelings toward Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, one need listen no further than the one-minute canned introduction to the "Deace Show." The song "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who plays and we hear an inspiring quote from President Ronald Reagan. The music shifts, then we hear the voice of President Obama, followed by remarks by Mitt Romney. Then Obama, then Romney. Then more Obama. "We are no longer a Christian nation," Deace plays Obama saying, before switching to Romney talking about supporting gun laws, a woman's right to choose, and the...

Say, doesn’t this remind people of another debate challenge? One in which one candidate bet another a bunch of money as an intimidation tactic? Remember when the man who offered the bet claimed a refusal was an admission of error? Good times, good times: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday spurned a challenge from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, for a one-on-one debate in the run-up to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, but he dismissed the notion, suggested by Mr. Gingrich, that he was afraid to participate in such a faceoff....

Thanks to glowing commentary from Ron Paul suppporters I have been called a coward, a traitor, a neocon, a nazi, that I'm sick and a 'demeanor' of the modern day Thomas Jefferson all because I said what a lot of Republicans are thinking but won't say: Ron Paul is a Libertarian and not a Republican. (For the record, with due respect to the Congressman, Ron Paul couldn't hold Thomas Jefferson's quill pen.) Congressman Paul turned his back on the GOP in 1987 and resigned. Instead of trying to fix the problems that he cites in his resignation, he bolts and...

I want to preface this by stating the obvious: I am not a Ron Paul supporter. I am, however, a supporter of former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Now that I got my disclaimer out of the way I want to make comments about the Iowa Caucuses. Over the past few weeks poll after poll have been taken in Iowa. For a while, Gingrich had a hefty lead there, but now it appears that Congressman Paul has surged to a top tier status in the Hawkeye state, even passing Romney and Gingrich in one poll. But how can this phenomenon be explained?...

Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich was expecting to get two big endorsements in Des Moines Wednesday morning. But he likely didn't expect an outburst that lead to one protester being removed from the event. Kraig Paulsen, the Iowa Speaker of the House, and Bill O'Brien, his counterpart from New Hampshire, both endorsed Gingrich at the Statehouse. A few moments after Gingrich took the podium, a small group of protesters jumped up and tried to talk with the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. His security detail knocked one man into the American flag and pushed him out the...

Occupy Iowa Caucuses Occupy Wall Street is moving on with a variety of 2.0 rebirths with the coming winter months forcing protesters off the streets. Alongside occupying homes targeted by banks for foreclosure and repossession, the three-month old protest movement is targeting the political events of the presidential election year – first on the calendar: the Iowa Caucuses on January 3. The Occupy aligned protesters have a plan, according to the event’s website, to register as Republicans or Democrats on caucus day and submit their vote for “uncommitted.” We cannot consent to this broken system any longer. We will join...

Here's my bumper-sticker for Ron Paul: 'Go celebrate Christmas at your 'beloved' Islamic Fascist Republic of Iran' Seeing his dollars flowing in Iowa and outsiders-liberals stirring the polls there... Can one 'invite' liberal Islamists-appeaser Ron Paul to spend Christmas in his beloved Islamic Fascist Republic of Iran? Since he has more affection for them than for he greatest nation on earth. Since the Iranian mullahs are "so inncent" and "never" threatned the 'Big-satan little satan'... I am paying the ticket... one way.

Iowa radio host and weathervane of the state's evangelical political opinion raises fears for Iowa's first-in-the-nation status should it select Ron Paul on caucus day. "One thing is for certain," Deace writes. "if a candidate with Paul’s foreign policy views wins the Iowa Caucuses that will be the final nail in Iowa’s first in the nation status. Like it or not, the media and the Republican Party itself will simply discredit the results and start the process over in New Hampshire." Chris Wallace made a similar point on Fox News before last night's debate: "The Ron Paul people are not...

Newt Gingrich’s recent utterances about poor children–they “have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works”–reflect not only the inability of conservatives to talk seriously about poverty, but a mean-spiritedness that, unfortunately, largely eludes public scrutiny. Apparently, Gingrich and the approving Iowa crowd have never heard of “the working poor”–folks stuck in low-wage jobs (often more than one), but still unable to escape poverty. Based on the crowd’s reaction, Gingrich’s November 28 speech achieved a key objective. Conservatives enjoy being told that poverty is caused by the bad behavior of its victims, a belief famously reaffirmed by...

Commenters to my prior post about the PPP poll showing Ron Paul within a point of Newt Gingrich in Iowa pointed to the new Insider Advantage poll also released today: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich continues to hold a strong lead in Iowa, according to a new poll released Tuesday. Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has moved into third place ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Gingrich leads the field with 27 percent support while Texas Rep. Ron Paul comes in second with 17 percent (up from 13 percent in an Insider Advantage poll released in late November). Perry...

Rick Santorum is grateful for any help he can get from Sarah Palin. The GOP presidential nominee hasn't yet secured Palin's endorsement, he told Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, but he said he was grateful for the kind words she's offered recently. --snip-- Santorum has been fundraising off Palin's comments after she told Sean Hannity on Fox News earlier this month...

For the Republican candidates' debate in Iowa on Saturday night, Yahoo News posed real-time questions to those watching the event live stream to gauge their feelings about candidates' responses to moderators (and each other), and solicited comments on a live blog of the event. Here are the key takeaways from our audience feedback, along with other nuggets from the social sphere: Romney's $10,000 bet was a mistake Yahoo! readers watching the debate were not impressed by Mitt Romney's suggestion that Rick Perry take a $10,000 bet on whether the former Massachusetts governor was really for individual health care mandates. Viewers...

Dumb and desperate. That's Mitt Romney. And tin-eared, too. Romney is siccing the hounds on Newt Gingrich - toothless as they may be - in an attempt to blunt Gingrich's momentum, so reports the Washington Post. The Iowa caucuses are less than a month off. Romney, despite a better ground game in Iowa than Gingrich, fears that the former U.S. House speaker may be peaking at the right time. Gingrich's supporters trump Romney's voters in intensity, which translates into motivation to vote - vote without as much organization as is required by Romney, whose vanilla persona and mushy mix of...

On the eve of the debate in Des Moines, Rick Santorum's Republican presidential campaign added Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz to its growing list of supporters, according to a report in the Des Moines Register. A week after former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin slid into his corner but came up shy of a formal endorsement, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz on Friday announced he is formally backing the campaign of the former Pennsylvania senator for the GOP presidential nomination....

Mitt Romney tried to claim a firewall in Cedar Rapids between himself and his campaign's aggressive moves to define Newt Gingrich through surrogates, via POLITICO's story on the homepage: During a press availability he refused to repeat the attacks made on his behalf in a surrogate phone call arranged by his campaign Thursday. Asked about former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu’s criticism of Gingrich on the phone call and during an MSNBC appearance — mirroring talking points sent to congressional supporters by the Romney campaign Thursday — Romney deferred. “I can’t write a script for Gov. Sununu,” he said. Asked...

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and almost-kinda-sorta-not-really presidential hopeful, encouraged GOP candidates to attend Donald Trump's presidential debate. Trump proposed the debate, which he will moderate, on December 27. Trump's proposition was met with an interesting variety of responses, but most seemed to be based around the same premise: it wasn't something to be taken seriously. Jon Huntsman called the idea "a joke," Ron Paul called it "wildly inappropriate" and Mitt Romney recently declined the invitation as well. As it stands, only Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have confirmed their attendance. If things don't turn around soon, it will...

Republicans should “jump at the opportunity” to share the stage with property mogul Donald Trump in the Newsmax ION Television 2012 Presidential Debate, says former Ronald Reagan aide Jeffrey Lord. Trump’s record as a job creator makes him precisely the kind of person the GOP should embrace, Lord writes in an article for the American Spectator. And he said GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich hit the nail on the head: “If the candidates can’t handle Donald Trump, why in the world would anyone think they can handle [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad or [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez or al-Qaida?” Three candidates —...

Fresh TIME/CNN first-in-the-nation polls show Gingrich dominating Iowa, South Carolina and Florida — and within striking distance in New Hampshire. Iowa: Gingrich 33 — Romney 20 New Hampshire: Romney 35 — Gingrich 26 South Carolina: Gingrich 43 — Romney 20 Florida: Gingrich 48 — Romney 25 See the full results, including how the other candidates stack up, here. Halperin's Take-Static analysis: Gingrich will be the Republican nominee....