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20225 3:16 Florida Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) currently leads in Florida’s Democrat gubernatorial primary race, a GBAO Strategies/Crist internal survey released Wednesday found. The internal survey found Crist with a “commanding lead” in the Democrat primary for governor, leading challenger Nikki Fried (D), Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, by double digits, 54 percent to 28 percent. State Sen. Annette Taddeo (D), who served as Crist’s running mate in his failed 2014 gubernatorial bid, comes in third place with just seven percent support. Overall, 11 percent remain undecided:

There’s no question that the first set of debates and the fallout from some of the post-debate interviews have shaken up the race a bit. But have things really changed all that much? Polls have tightened, but many of the stubborn realities defining the Democratic nomination process remain. And yet The Hill has definitely swizzled their own analysis this week and come to a rather shocking conclusion. According to them, Joe Biden is no longer in the lead and the new frontrunner is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. (Emphasis in original) The first debates are done, second-quarter fundraising totals are...

@OliviaNuzzi NYMagazine - A source close to the Biden campaign tells me his staff is “freaking out” about his poor performance tonight. The source said that internally, field staff says the campaign-organized debate watch parties in early voting states have been “awkward” and that Biden isn’t playing well to those who attended. According to Biden’s staff, he isn’t listening to his debate prep and he’s “set in his ways,” the source close to the campaign tells me.

As the Donald Trump phenomenon endures, it's become fashionable to make a certain kind of excuse for the boorishness of his backers, if not The Donald himself. "Don't blame them" is the theme of front-page stories and much-discussed magazine essays. The economy left them behind, the world doesn't work like they were promised it would as young people, and we have to understand. They're angry, and should be.

Sen. Ted Cruz speaks to a crowd gathered at Prime Time Restaurant in Guthrie Center, Iowa on Monday, January 4, 2016. (Photo by Rebecca F. Miller) SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — There are the perks: the swelling crowds spilling out the back, the luxurious-looking bus shuttling you through the snow-dusted cornfields and the media stampede trailing you everywhere.Then there are the less desirables: the constant broadsides courtesy of rivals big and small, the logistical headaches on and off the road, and well, the media stampede trailing you everywhere you go. Such is Ted Cruz's life as the Republican frontrunner in this critical...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz speaks with reporters during an event in Iowa on Nov. 28, 2015. (Photo by Patrick Svitek) The Big Conversation Ted Cruz returns to Iowa today to kick off a six-day bus tour of the key early voting state. He also enters the week, as the Tribune's Patrick Svitek reported Sunday, "as a bona fide frontrunner and all the scrutiny — fair and unfair — that comes with it."That scrutiny includes attacks by his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination as well as outside groups. Svitek's report singled out attempts by Mike Huckabee and his allies to...

Presidential contender and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz speaks with a supporter at the opening of his first Iowa office in Urbandale, Iowa on Sept. 26, 2015. (Photo by Patrick Svitek) The last time Ted Cruz campaigned in Iowa, about a month ago, things were looking up: A recent poll had shown him rocketing to second place in the Republican presidential race there. Everywhere he went, he was greeted by crowds eager to see a candidate on the rise. While there have been no signs since then that Cruz's momentum in Iowa has slowed, he will head back to the Hawkeye State...

Louisiana voters headed to the polls on Saturday to choose a successor to Governor Bobby Jindal, but experts and surveys suggest the race may go to a runoff after a faltering campaign by early favorite, Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter. The contest, dubbed a "jungle primary"......little interest from the electorate....Light early-voting numbers have led most pollsters to forecast low overall turnout,

**Exclusive** Late Thursday evening, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign launched a new fundraising drive, 'Meet The VP' -- just as Romney himself has narrowed the field of candidates to a handful, sources reveal. And a surprise name is now near the top of the list: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice! The timing of the announcement is now set for 'coming weeks'. MORE

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum -- in a neck-and-neck race with Mitt Romney in Michigan -- joined his rival in releasing new TV ad footage on Tuesday aimed at the state's voters. Santorum's spots tout him as a "trusted conservative" and the choice of supporters of the "tea party" movement, social conservatives and evangelical Christians, all important elements of the Feb. 28 primary in Romney's home state. One of the ads uses mainly written words -- praise in the form of quasi-endorsements and favorable quotes -- from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, among others -- over an urgent sounding symphonic...

Santorum Fights the Liberal Bulldozer Feb 13, 2012 R.R. Reno Rick Santorum was impossible thirty years ago. If Rip van Winkle woke up today he would be dumbfounded. How could such an overtly religious and socially conservative politician have so much traction on the national scene? The answer comes from the Left. Since the Sixties our liberal elites have become increasingly anti-religious, increasingly opposed to traditional moral norms, and increasingly aggressive. As a result they have made our national politics much more extreme. To a great extent, post-sixties American politics has been shaped by liberal aggression. As Lyndon Johnson knew,...

Here's Rick Santorum's latest ad, and in my opinion, it's his most powerful broadside against Mitt Romney and the Washington establishment. REBELLION This comes on the heels of another Santorum ad that does exactly what the Not-Romneys should all be doing--demonstrating that there is no difference between Romney and Obama. EASY ANSWER These hard hitting ads should put to rest any ideas that Rick Santorum is running as a stalking horse for Romney or for the Vice Presidential slot. Santorum is doing exactly what many of us hoped he'd do--hit Romney hard, again and again. Win or lose, you've got...

This video (via Leslie of Temple of Mut) of Rick Santorum has made the rounds as evidence that Santorum is hostile to the Tea Party movement. The key sentence, in which he expresses and intention to “vocally, publicly oppose” the Tea Party, is ambiguous. Was he saying he would oppose the Tea Parties, or only those in the Tea Parties who in his view are distorting conservatism? Regardless, I find the dialogue troubling. I would describe myself as a “conservative with a libertarian streak,” and I think that description probably would be used by a lot of Tea Party supporters....

For those coming in late, let me summarize*: both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have been excluded from the Virginia Republican primary by the Virginia GOP. This has placed the VA GOP in an awkward situation, given that: they have excluded the current national and Virginian front-runner from their own ballot; have currently no write-in option on the ballot; do have an open primary that anyone can vote in; and generally have created an environment peculiarly suited for conspiracy theories involving Mitt Romney (and ones that won’t contain the word ‘Mormon’ anywhere in their description, by the way). The current...

Fresh Rasmussen (national) poll now has Newt ahead of not just Mittens but Obama in a a 2012 matchup... so can we put-to-bed the tiresome Romney-the-Electable speil for good now? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Newt Gingrich surge has moved him to the top of the polls in Iowa, big gains in New Hampshire and now a two-point edge over President Obama in a hypothetical general election match-up. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters finds Gingrich attracting 45% of the vote while President Obama earns support from 43%. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent...

Special to South Florida Times MIAMI — Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain swept through South Florida last week with an early morning stop in Sweetwater. At the Claude and Mildred Pepper Center there, Cain was serenaded to strands of the enduring Cuban patriotic song Guantanamera and was applauded by senior citizens who said they admired el negro – the black man. Soon after, Cain’s red campaign bus took him to Versailles Cuban Restaurant in Little Havana, where throngs of supporters from Cuba’s exile community had waited nearly two hours for his arrival. “Hola, hola, hola, hola,” Cain greeted the cheering...

NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The candidates may be spending Thanksgiving in Iowa or New Hampshire instead of at home this year as the primary calendar quickly comes to an end with just six weeks until the first votes are cast. As noted last month, each month the story line seems to take a new shift, and yet again this month we have another new story with the rise of Newt Gingrich. Among Republicans, one in five (19%) would vote for Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain in the GOP primary while 16% would vote for former Massachusetts Governor...

Cain will sit for an hourlong taped interview with the Union Leader, publisher Joe McQuaid announced on Twitter on Monday... Just last week, Cain backed out of a Union Leader interview because the paper insisted on a 60-minute, on-camera sit-down, as opposed to the 20-minute, camera-free conversation Cain hoped for. The newspaper blistered Cain in a Monday missive titled, “Recording Cain: What’s he afraid of?” McQuaid told POLITICO’s Reid Epstein that Cain’s spokesman “called me up this morning and wondered if they could come in one day next week for an hour-long interview and have C-SPAN there.”

Iran-inspired Shiite Muslim men beating themselves to pulp in a sick religious display. Coming soon to a shopping mall parking lot close to you in the USA. OUR HERO Translation to English Synposis Provided by Freeper "AmericanInTokyo":(Original Iranian Article: "時期米大統領候補、イスラム教徒に侮辱的な発言" (Next Presidential Candidate, Makes (Insulting Comments to Islamists")(MY SYNOPSIS): "Herman Cain is the Republican candidate for the next U.S. presidential election, and much was made by him of the so-called Muslim extremist presence in the United States. According to Mefuru press reports on communications coming from Candidate Cain, he claimed "(and) what with special attention to trends regarding extremist...

Herman Cain spoke with passion and conviction today before a Capitol Hill audience about the essential importance of repealing Obamacare and replacing it with “market-driven, patient-centered reform.” He spoke at a forum organized by the Congressional Health Care Caucus, chaired by Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, M.D., that was inundated with dozens of reporters and televisions cameras. They got a big dose of health reform when what they really wanted was to ask him about the National Restaurant Association sexual-harassment controversy. He didn’t take those questions. Instead, he talked about the destructive impact of Obamacare, which is driving up costs and...