Free Republic

In the middle of last night’s debate, I actually tweeted about it because the difference was audible: Mitt Romney’s applause, for the first time that I can remember, was louder than Newt Gingrich’s. The Gingrich campaign can think of just one possible explanation as to how Mitt Romney could have inspired such a response in his audience: He must have unfairly packed the hall. “They definitely packed the room,” Kevin Kellems, one of Gingrich’s senior advisers, told The Huffington Post early Friday morning. “The problem for them is their candidate, at several junctures, couldn’t remember what he had said before...

TAMPA, Fla. — As the Republican race moves to a state defined by the extremes in recession-era America — where the underwater and unemployed live just a few miles from the 1 percent — a sharp class divide is emerging between the two top contenders. Mitt Romney’s crowds look like something out of the president’s suite at a University of Florida football game — prosperous, trim, Tattersall-clad, and supportive but not rowdy. Newt Gingrich supporters, with their spray-painted signs, American flag tees, flip-flops and fanny packs, more closely resemble a group that would fit in nicely playing a few bucks...

Different crowds, different tones at events for the 2 top GOP candidates. The two leading Republican presidential candidates came to Central Florida on Wednesday, and their events — and reception by voters — couldn't have been more different. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney showed up at factory in Orlando on Wednesday morning, telling a politely enthusiastic crowd of about 400 that President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night showed that the president is out of touch with America. "We have a president who is detached from reality. He's detached from the people. He's detached from his own...