Free Republic

....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...

..A few of Newt Gingrich’s… Not-So-Greatest Hits: August 30, 2004: “Now he’s back, preaching the gospel of party moderation. At an Aug. 30 forum held by the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, Gingrich heralded the GOP’s new, bigger big tent. “Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve argued in favor of electing the moderates,” Gingrich said… He even chastised the fiscally conservative Club for Growth — a group that finances primary challengers to Republican incumbents they deem too liberal — for not getting with the program. “Their strategy is explicitly wrong,” Gingrich said. “The key is to elect more Republicans and have a...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich praised President Obama's acceptance speech Thursday before the Nobel Committee in Oslo. "I thought the speech was actually very good," Gingrich told NPR's The Takeaway. (snip) The comments mark the second time in a month that Gingrich has given President Obama's performance a positive nod.

Two top Republicans sided Sunday with President Barack Obama on his scheduled speech Tuesday to school children. “I have been in communication with Arne Duncan and the team at Department of Education,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on "Fox News Sunday." “I believe this is going to be posted. People are going to see it in advance. It is going be a totally positive speech. If that is what it is, it is good to have the president of the United States saying to young people across America stay in school and do your homework. It’s good for America.”

Standing outside the White House, the unlikely trio of Sharpton, Bloomberg and Gingrich briefed reporters on their education conversation with Obama. Key points: • Gingrich, an Obama critic, praised the president for showing "courage, during the primaries when it was difficult he showed support for charter schools."• Bloomberg presented NYC as a model for school reform — and brushed off a question about AF1's Manhattan flyby. • Sharpton, like the others, said the trio was committed to working "across our political and ideological lines."

<p>“I do not believe that the people of the United States are going to take people who’ve been here for a quarter of a century … [and] separate them from their families and expel them,” Gingrich said during a discussion about illegal immigration and border security. “I do believe we should control the border. I do believe we should have very severe penalties.”</p>

Webster City, Iowa (CNN) - As Newt Gingrich denies he was paid to lobby Republicans for mortgage giant Freddie Mac, fellow Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Wednesday challenged Gingrich's denial. "Whether former Speaker Gingrich made $300,000 or whether he made $2 million, the point is that he took money to also influence senior Republicans to be favorable toward Fannie and Freddie," Bachmann said after a campaign event in Webster City, Iowa.

(snip) ...the candidate says he isn't worried his association with the now government-controlled firm makes him look like a Washington "insider" -- if anything, he said Wednesday on CBS News radio, he embraces the label. "There's no question when you serve 20 years in the House and as speaker of the House for four years, you know a fair amount about Washington," Gingrich told CBS News radio correspondent Dan Raviv. "We just tried an amateur for the last three years, and it didn't work very well... The country would be better off with someone determined to change Washington and who...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday that he strongly supports a federal mandate requiring citizens to buy health insurance – a position that has been rejected by many Republicans, including several who likely will be running against him for the Republican presidential nomination. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gingrich told host David Gregory that he continues to advocate for a plan he first called for in the early 1990s as a Congressman, which requires every uninsured citizen to purchase or acquire health insurance.

Newt Gingrich was full of praise for the man besting him in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, calling Mitt Romney "an enormous improvement" over President Obama. Given an opportunity to take a free swing at Romney during Saturday's CBS/National Journal debate, Gingrich demurred.

Newt Gingrich came in for some serious criticism on today's Morning Joe for his attack on Paul Ryan's health care proposal. Reacting to footage of Newt on Meet the Press alluding to Paul Ryan's health care proposal as "radical," Joe Scarborough accused Gingrich of being in "the mushy middle." Pat Buchanan came with the unkindest cut of all, saying Gingrich is "out on the left wing of the Republican party." View video here.

Democrats once flirted with running Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava for the seat Rep. John McHugh will soon vacate in NY-23, but now that she's a leading contender for the GOP nod, they are rushing to bolster conservative concerns about her alleged tax troubles. Soon-to-be-former state Democratic Chairwoman June O'Neill today confirmed reports that Scozzafava's husband, an upstate labor leader, talked with key local Democrats and union heads about the possibility of his wife running on Row A if the party's presumed first choice, state Sen. Darrel Aubertine, takes a pass. "Her husband spoke with several Democratic officials and, you know,...