Free Republic

MANCHESTER, N.H. — As candidates spent the weekend trying to catch up to Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, with the primary just two days away, a longtime supporter of Newt Gingrich donated $5 million to a “super PAC” backing his presidential bid, providing a major boost to Mr. Gingrich’s ailing campaign.

GOP New Hampshire primary debate tonight on ABC at 9pm ET By Nate, on January 7th, 2012 Tonight will mark the first of two debates this weekend focused on the New Hampshire Republican primary. This evening's debate will take place at Saint Anselm College and is sponsored by ABC News, Yahoo! and WMUR. Sunday morning will feature a GOP debate broadcast on NBC at 9am ET (yes, am) but look for more details on that later today. Air Time: Saturday, January 7th at 9pm ET / 6pm PT on ABC Live Stream: WMUR and Yahoo! News Participants: Santorum, Romney, Paul,...

Via The Hill: Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, will run full-page ads attacking Newt Gingrich in the Manchester Union Leader and The State in Columbia, South Carolina, the most prominent newspapers in the next two states to vote…. The decision to attack Gingrich is a curious one as Rick Santorum has emerged as Romney’s top rival for the GOP nomination after he virtually tied Romney in Iowa’s caucuses on Jan. 3. Post-voting analysis shows much of Gingrich’s support in that state ended up going to Santorum. Maybe I will be proven wrong about Santorum’s...

A New Hampshire restaurant owner says he is so fed up with the flurry of GOP presidential candidates at his Portsmouth eatery that he put up his own 2012 slogan: "No Politicians, No Exceptions." For months, politicians, their staff and news media have stormed New Hampshire restaurants during the campaign for the White House. [snip] “There is no forewarning and all of a sudden they come in and we are overrun by cameras and blah, blah and blah,” Colby told msnbc.com. “We’re trying to run a business here and this whole meet-and-greet and vote for me deal is very distractive...

Ready, aim fire. That’s apparently Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s idea of relaxation before returning to the campaign trail this weekend. Ahead of Saturday night’s ABC News-Yahoo-WMUR debate in New Hampshire Perry took a few moments to himself at an Austin-area shooting range. “Just relaxing a bit @ Red’s Range before we leave for New Hampshire!” @governorperry tweeted Friday along with a photo of himself wearing a green sweatshirt and a baseball cap with a firearm in hand. On the campaign trail, Perry, a staunch defender of second amendment rights, has not been shy about talking about his “long love affair”...

This is an appeal to all long-time conservatives. Let's start lining up behind Newt Gingrich, as Thomas Sowell, Art Laffer, JC Watts, Jim Robinson (Free Republic honcho) and others have. The hazzard of holding back an endorsement is that the media, pudits and PAC TV commercials will continue to shape negative opinion against Newt and we may lose our best conservative warrior. The result of the media, pundit and PAC TV onslaught may cause the nominee to be Romney or Santorum. Romney is a moderate and Santorum does not have the experience to Push the conservative agenda in the general...

The College Convention 2012 at New England College in Concord, New Hampshire provided a true test of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s religous views regarding gay marriage Thursday. The former Pennsylvania senator was one of four Republican candidates to attend the convention, as Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Buddy Roemer also attended the event. New England College has played host to the College Convention since the year 2000. Mr. Santorum countered questions about his views on gay marriage by comparing it to polygamy several times, while not actually defending his views regarding gay marriage. He became engaged in several back...

Two GOP presidential debates in New Hampshire this weekend will most likely have very little to do with the results of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. With the latest poll showing former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with a whopping 40% of support in the Granite State, the real show will be how the three remaining conservatives in the race perform.

What a difference a caucus makes. Rick Santorum who two months ago had one percent (1%) support among likely South Carolina Republican Primary voters now is running a close second there with 24% of the vote. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Palmetto State finds former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney still in the lead, earning 27% support from likely GOP Primary Voters, up from 23% in early November. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is in third with 18% of the vote, followed by Texas Congressman Ron Paul at 11%. Bringing up the rear are Texas Governor Rick Perry...

Several news reports have it that Romney did not win the Iowa Caucuses. Mr. True supposedly has a photo showing 2 votes for Romney, not 22, on a piece of paper. Barring any objective, verifiable proof that shows more than 12 votes mistakenly being credited to Santorum, Romney lost. On the flip side, if Romney did win, the Weekly Standard, in a news piece entitled "Answers from Iowa," says that Romney's 24.6% in the Iowa Caucuses was the worst ever (for either party) for a candidate winning the Iowa Caucuses. Romney spent millions in Iowa, had the worst percentage ever,...

Dear Mitt Romney Sellouts: I’m ready to sell out, too. Like you, I’m ready to abandon my conservative principles, ignore Mitt’s big-government legacy and his obvious disdain for the right — if it means a guaranteed winner in November. But before I lift my conservative skirts for another H.W. Bush/Dole/McCain moderate because I’m supposed to suck it up and “back a winner,” is it asking too much to expect the guy to, you know, win something first? I get politics. I used to run campaigns. In fact, I ran a GOP primary in South Carolina against Strom Thurmond. Not only...

CONCORD, N.H. — As Rick Santorum sprinted Thursday through New Hampshire, a state with fewer social conservatives than Iowa, his views on social issues like same-sex marriage were quickly challenged. A midday event in front of a gathering of college students here turned into a testy exchange in which Mr. Santorum compared allowing gay couples to marry to polygamy, apparently equating the two as equally undesirable. “If you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that O.K.?” he asked. The students booed Mr. Santorum during the 10-minute exchange and loudly booed when he left the room. The...

“This is not a time for us to shrink. This is a time for us to have bold colors, not pale pastels.” -- Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum campaigning at the Rockingham County Nursing Home in Brentwood, N.H. It doesn’t look like Mitt Romney could lose New Hampshire, but then again, he can’t really win it either. Even a 20-point landslide by Romney in New Hampshire would be instantly discounted as merely meeting expectations for the former governor of the neighboring state who keeps a summer home there. The only way Romney could make news in New Hampshire would be...

As the results of the Iowa caucus dribbled in, Americans got to see how the GOP candidates greeted victory and defeat. Top vote-getter Mitt Romney was gracious toward Rick Santorum, who came in second by eight thin votes, but uninspiring as he pledged to get America back to work. Santorum pronounced, "Game on," then hailed his Italian grandfather's decision to leave Italy to dig coal, if that's what it took to bring his family to the United States. Ron Paul, who came in third, saluted the work of his enthusiastic volunteers and credited his success to his role as a...

Rep. Larry Rappaport (R - Colebrook) led a news conference Tuesday by a handful of legislators in Concord to explain their argument before the Ballot Law Commission that President Obama is not a U.S. Citizen and should not be on the ballot next November. Here’s part of it as detailed in a legislative wrap-up story by NHPR’s Dan Gorenstein: “I’m Representative Larry Rappaport, and today concerned New Hampshire State Representatives delivered a signed affidavit to state Attorney General Michael Delaney that we believe that Barack Obama was possibly not eligible to be President of the United States. This is not...

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...

Though Romney is personally not working with any pro-Romney super PAC(s), can Romney at least tell them or ask them to cease any potential negative attack ads aimed at Gingrich or someone else? If he doesn't, is he still taking the high road? Secondly, how could pro-Romney forces ask pro-Obama forces to do the something if they won't? How can pro-Romney RINOS and CINOS berate Obama surrogates for saying something about Romney if pro-Romney surrogates do the same to GOP candidates?

CONCORD, N.H.—GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich pummeled front-running rival Mitt Romney as "a moderate Massachusetts Republican to the left of the vast majority" of their party, displaying a tough new tone in New Hampshire after a disappointing performance in Iowa's caucuses. Gingrich launched a blistering attack on Romney in what is essentially the home turf of the former Massachusetts governor, who owns a house here. The former House speaker said Romney had run a Senate race "to the left" of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and had transformed into a moderate to run for governor. What's more, Gingrich said, Romney was...

New Hampshire election law officials previously rejected their request to remove President Obama's name from the ballot in advance of next week's presidential primary, but that hasn't stopped several state representatives, who yesterday presented what they said was proof that officials had unfairly denied their challenge to the president's citizenship.

Failed GOP White House hopeful Herman Cain, who dropped out after a woman who said she was his mistress went public is staging a comeback of sorts, he announced on Monday--on the eve of the Iowa caucus. "Our mission continues, and we're on fire for 2012 and beyond!," Cain said in an e-mail, highlighting a list of media interviews he has booked. Cain is looking to regain some spotlight in a week heavy with Republican presidential politics--that he is no longer a part of. "....I will soon be announcing a major new initiative. This is a crusade so critical to...