Free Republic

Newt Gingrich in the wake of two losses in deep South States is seeking a justification for remaining in the race. When challenged by Brett Baier, Gingrich was unable to name a single state that he could win. Indeed, after playing hard as a "Southern Candidate" Gingrich has lost three straight Southern States including two deep South States near his home state of Georgia, so it's hard to imagine Gingrich winning elsewhere. Still Gingrich claimed a role in the race. His argument for continuing is that he and Senator Rick Santorum are playing a "tag team" that is denying Romney...

Rick Santorum is regarded by many of his supporters as the “real” conservative in the GOP presidential race, and most Democrats pay him the unintended compliment of considering him an arch-conservative. Undoubtedly, Santorum is a conservative of a certain type, but how far to the right was his voting record during the three terms he spent in the United States Senate? To answer this question, I went to the American Conservative Union’s ratings archive for 2006, Santorum’s last year as a senator, and looked up the lifetime ratings of those who were in the Senate at that time. One could...

Chicago - The Republican race for president looks like a two-man contest in Illinois Thursday night. Mitt Romney is ahead of Rick Santorum among Illinois Republicans, even after Santorum’s big victories in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday. But Santorum is within striking distance for next Tuesday's primary. An exclusive FOX Chicago News poll found a six point lead for Romney among those likely to vote in the March 20 presidential primary. Romney had the support of 37 percent on Wednesday. Rick Santorum earned 31 percent of the vote.

Despite his losses in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, Mitt Romney appears to have expanded his delegate lead on Tuesday. The most recent projections from AP show Rick Santorum took 31 delegates from Alabama and Mississippi, while Newt Gingrich took 24 delegates and Romney got 23 But this morning, Romney was projected to win all nine delegates from American Samoa’s caucuses, and he also won the Hawaii caucuses by a large margin. AP projections show Romney beat Santorum 18 delegates to four in those jurisdictions. So, as of this morning, Romney has won 41 delegates from Tuesday’s contests, compared to...

....Newt Gingrich is not getting out of the race any time soon. Here’s why: Gingrich firmly believes that staying in the race is the best way to prevent Mitt Romney from clinching the nomination before the convention in August. And he actually may have a point.... Gingrich knows that it is virtually impossible for him, or Santorum for that matter, to beat Romney on delegates, but he makes the case — and it is not far-fetched — that unless Romney starts winning delegates at a faster pace he won’t clinch nomination by end the end of the primaries.... “My expectation...

It’s true that in reality, the “win” didn’t change the delegate count all that much. Give or take, all candidates still split the delegates about 2:1 for Santorum. And it’s true that there are clearly enough “winner take all states” that play to the Gingrich game plan that he could still get to the convention with the most candidates, none having 1,144. But it is also clear to me after analyzing the data, I must intelligently weigh the situation for what is the best prospect to beat Obama and sell conservative policies to the American people to save this Republic....

Adelson Cutting Off Gingrich? MARCH 14, 2012 B ED MORRISSEY (snip) CNBC’s John Harwood. Harwood told Rachel Maddow last night that the main funder of Newt Gingrich’s super-PAC, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, has written his last check for Gingrich in this race: Greg Sargent spoke with the head of the super-PAC, Rick Tyler, who acknowledged that he’s in for some rough days ahead: (snip) The super PAC’s operations have been largely funded by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, whose money has effectively kept Gingrich’s candidacy afloat. John Harwood of the New York Times last night quoted a friend of Adelson...

GOP being Punk’d? We know that Democrats are crossing over in open primaries, such as Mississippi and Alabama, in order to vote for Rick Santorum, a big union candidate, their votes intended to throw the Republican National Convention into a contested balloting process. This tactic was written up at the Daily Kos. Big union money has even invested for the Santorum campaign. Pardon me for not having all the pertinent facts and I confess I don’t even have time to search for them all, today, to say nothing of presenting and formatting them, here. Can you help? Place further information...

Another Tuesday, another failure by Mitt Romney to line up the party faithful behind him. Not only did Romney lose yesterday's contests in Alabama and Mississippi, but he finished third in both, putting him behind Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Even though Romney remains well ahead in the delegate count and even though he'll still likely win the nomination, he just can't put those nagging doubts among conservatives to rest. CNN political contributor Paul Begala writes for The Daily Beast that Romney has gone from inevitable to unelectable: "Somebody strap him to the roof of one of his Cadillacs and...

The first hint that the night might not go Mitt Romney's way was his decision not to have a victory party at all, which I first heard on the Hugh Hewitt show. As I said at the time, that's an odd decision, considering the free media coverage one gets from the inevitable candidate speech. Perhaps that should have tipped us off that the early exit polls had missed the mark, and that the Romney campaign knew full well they would come in third in both Mississippi and Alabama.However, despite the disappointing results in the two southern states, Romney ended up...

March 14, 2012 - Favorite Son Santorum Thumps Romney In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Santorum Ties Obama In Fall Matchup Pennsylvania Republicans are going for favorite son Rick Santorum big time, giving the former U.S. Senator a 36 - 22 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the Keystone State's presidential primary, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul has 12 percent, with 8 percent for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In a head-to-head matchup, Santorum tops Romney 52 - 32 percent among Republican voters, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll...

Since this is an AP wire, I believe we are allowed to post links only, right?

...This was blue collar vs blue blood. The pundits tried all evening to sound intelligent as they attempted to explain the vote. They failed miserably. In his victory speech, Rick Santorum nailed it, "This campaign is about ordinary folks doing extraordinary things, just like America." As he ended his speech he told his supporters the campaign was about "Free people, a free economy, the integrity of the family and the centrality of faith in our lives". Just as he finished that line, a campaign worker informed the candidate that he had also won Mississippi. The entire room broke into an...

Newt Gingrich says, "Between us, Santorum and I are stopping Romney."

Santorum Wins Mississippi and Alabama Primaries By Michael O'Brien, msnbc.com -- Rick Santorum scored victories in the Mississippi and Alabama primaries on Tuesday, depriving Mitt Romney of a signature win in a conservative stronghold and raising fresh doubts about the viability of Newt Gingrich's campaign. The former Pennsylvania senator made his case for being the lone, serious Republican challenger to Romney for the remainder of the primary by besting Gingrich in states the former speaker's campaign had previously said were essential to its long-term viability. “We did it again,” Santorum said to wild applause from supporters in Louisiana, and amid...

5 PM ET: NETWORK EXITS SHOW ALABAMA TIGHT; ROMNEY TAKES MISSISSIPPI... DEVELOPING DRUDGE POLLS HAVE CORRECTLY PREDICTED EVERY RACE

Thankfully, former Speaker Newt Gingrich is every bit a social conservative as the former senator from Pennsylvania, and so would have that historical advantage that, along with the “It’s the economy, stupid” rule, regularly results in the election of Republican presidents and congressional majorities. So how did the young whippersnapper who previously won our Super Tuesday endorsement by avoiding anti-Bain venture capitalism-pile-ons while also contrasting his unblemished record against individual health care mandates as opposed to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts RomneyCare and 2009 advocacy for the individual mandates in ObamaCare? Unprompted, he essentially took the economy off the table for the...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama --- Obie Evans walked into tonight's GOP presidential forum at the Alabama Theatre in shorts, a tall floppy red, white and blue hat and two candidate stickers pasted on either side of his white sports shirt. On his left side was a Rick Santorum sticker. On his right, a Newt Gingrich sticker. "I really, really could not decide between those two," Evans said of Santorum and Gingrich. Four hours later, Evans walked out of the old theater still with both stickers showing but his mind almost made up. "It's not 100 percent, but I think I'm going to...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama ---Republican presidential primary candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, vying for the image of the most conservative candidate, spoke to a packed audience in downtown Birmingham tonight. The candidates, speaking at a forum at the Alabama Theatre sponsored by the Alabama GOP, both heavily criticized President Barack Obama while also critiquing the other candidates, even if it wasn't always by name. "You need to look to a leader that believes in you, and that's where I lie," Santorum said. The crowd was friendly to both candidates but seemed most warm to Gingrich, as was apparent by multiple cheers...

President Barack Obama's approval rating has plunged below 50 percent, and Republican front-runner Mitt Romney would beat him if the election took place today, a poll showed Monday. The survey, by ABC News and The Washington Post, indicated that only 46 percent of Americans now approve of the way Obama is handling his job, and 50 percent disapprove as he took a hit from rising gas prices. The situation was a reversal from early February, when 50 percent approved of the president's performance and 46 percent disapproved. The survey was released as the battleground for the Republican presidential nomination moved...