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Marco Rubio emerged from a razor-thin second-place finish in South Carolina's presidential primary on Sunday with the Republican field narrowed and his target clear: Donald Trump. -snip-Trump is long on rhetoric but short on specifics, Rubio said on CBS's "Face the Nation," challenging the front-runner, who finished 10 points ahead in South Carolina, to provide them."If you're running to be president of the United States, you can't just tell people you're going to make America great again - I think you need to begin to explain exactly how you're going to do it, policy-wise," Rubio said, referring to the Trump...

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for president, the senator's staff confirmed to the Washington Examiner. Hatch is one of the highest ranking Republicans in Congress, and he is third in the line of the succession to the U.S. presidency as president pro tempore of the United States Senate. The six-term senator had previously endorsed Jeb Bush and sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. Hatch's endorsement could be interpreted as a sign of the party's governing class rallying to Rubio.

Donald Trump is "far and away the front-runner," for the GOP presidential nomination and the establishment is "living in a fantasy land," by denying that big changes are happening, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday. "Trump is tapping into something in the country that's real," Gingrich told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "If you take Trump's vote and Cruz's vote and Carson's vote -- the three outsiders -- they are once again at about 62 percent in South Carolina, and they have been consistently above 60 percent everywhere in the country. If you pull together all of the...

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Monday he’s fired campaign communications director Rick Tyler, after his top spokesman promoted a video that wrongly depicted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as trash-talking the Bible. The Texas senator announced that he's asked for the resignation at a press conference Monday afternoon.

Ted Cruz asked for the resignation of national spokesman Rick Tyler on Monday. Cruz cited a social media posting from Tyler on Sunday about a comment Marco Rubio supposedly made about the Bible.

Donald Trump's Perfect Foil How the real-estate mogul's attacks against Jeb Bush fueled his rise Peter Beinart 9:19 AM ET If Jeb Bush hadn’t run for president, Donald Trump would have had to invent him. The former Florida governor was Trump’s perfect foil. First, because Jeb was prim, proper, and incapable of expressing the rage—especially towards Muslims and Mexicans—that many Republicans currently feel. Second, because Jeb’s candidacy represented the reductio ad absurdum of the campaign finance corruption that Trump, alone among GOP candidates, calls out. ...snip... In a searing column last week, the former Marine J.D. Vance, author of the...

Unlike more moderate New Hampshire, Ted Cruz needed to do more than merely finish well in South Carolina - he needed to win. The Cruz campaign pulled out all the stops in a manic effort to secure victory. Instead, it appears he will finish a distant second or third to Donald Trump. It is a finish that has his donors reconsidering the longer term viability of a campaign that is now for the first time in weeks, said to be spending far more dollars than it is taking in. And where Marco Rubio now appears poised to receive an influx...

The official road map for the GOP candidates

If you think the arguments between the Republican candidates have been bad, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Pundits, reporters and political analysts are going to really have at it. Two competing theories about the Republican race are about to come to a head, and both of them can claim a victory of sorts after South Carolina. The first theory is simple. It can be summarized in one word: Trump! The more detailed version would argue the following: * Trump has easily won two of the first three states. * Trump is ahead in the polls in pretty much every...

The Donald Trump campaign began courting top staffers with the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity late last year, in order to bolster its ground game ahead of big primary nights in March, according to BuzzFeed News. The billionaire businessman's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is a former AFP state director whose intricate knowledge of New Hampshire paid dividends in that primary. One top AFP staffer in a March primary state said he was approached by Lewandowski, who told him Trump "was for real. He's going all the way." "Anecdotally, I'd say a lot of people have been approached," another source close...

Yesterday’s South Carolina Primary and Nevada Caucus gave us much of what we expected and a few surprises. The Winners: Trump – He came, he saw, he kicked some butt…again! As Trump won South Carolina, his supporters anxiously awaited his appearance by chanting USA!, USA!, USA!. It sounded like the stadium in Lake Placid cheering on the US hockey team in 1980. And, that is the magic of Trump. Trump is the All-American problem solver. People don’t care if he hasn’t been in politics his whole life. People don’t care if he’s not a policy wonk. People are jobless, hurting,...

Ron Brownstein of The Atlantic, Reihan Salam of the National Review, Mark Leibovich of the New York Times Magazine, and USA Today’s Susan Page break down presidential politics in the aftermath of the South Carolina and Nevada contests.

In this video report from CBSN before the South Carolina results came in, the reporter says that they have been hearing allegations that the Marco Rubio campaign was calling voters to tell them Jeb had suspended his campaign and to vote for Rubio instead. https://youtu.be/dhI5u1wP0Uc

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is finally getting off the sidelines to endorse Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in a final effort to defeat Donald Trump after the billionaire took early states in New Hampshire and South Carolina by storm. According to the Huffington Post’s Scott Conroy, Romney had been waiting for Jeb Bush to exit the race before endorsing Rubio citing “respect" for the former Florida governor.

Following Donald Trump’s victory in the South Carolina GOP primary, talk radio host Glenn Beck urged his Facebook followers to join him and his family “in a fast for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), our country and the Nevada caucus.” “I would like to ask you to join me and my family Monday in a fast for Ted Cruz, our country and the Nevada caucus,” Beck wrote on his Facebook page after the South Carolina election results showed a decisive double-digit victory for Trump, whose candidacy Beck has been staunchly opposed to.

I had a look at Liz Mair's twitter. She's the idiot that wanted Scott Walker to run a suicidal open borders campaign. Then they parted ways. This was the story that broke it all. http://www.mofopolitics.com/2015/02/01/scott-walker-once-employed-liberal-feminazi-liz-mair/ Why is The Mair of RINO feminazis retweeting this creep? I though the Trump-hater consultant types were sick of Trump's crude attacks on people. I assume Liz Mair is following this guy on twitter. Wilson said nasty things about Ann Coulter. He also threatened certain things about Trump. https://twitter.com/lizmair https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/701226786793910274 Liz Mair Retweeted Rick Wilson ‏@TheRickWilson 7h7 hours ago Also, @jebbush could never ask for...

Coulter, Mair debate what's best for GOP (Video)Republican strategist Liz Mair and conservative columnist Ann Coulter debate whether or not Ted Cruz should be able to run for president. LIZ MAIR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: In 2013, you were out there saying Ted Cruz was a natural-born citizen and eligible to run for office. People can check my Twitter feed, I retweeted your tweet from 2013 today. ANN COULTER: I changed my mind. LIZ MAIR: Well you were right the first time... Ann also said that Mitt Romney was the "perfect" and best Republican candidate. ANN COULTER: He was, there was no...

In a twist on the typically shadowy world of super PACS, a new anti-Donald Trump group is openly seeking donations for an ad that would flog the New York businessman for drawing and accepting praise from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Make America Awesome is also offering to pay commissions to people who bring in big donors. The size of the commissions is not disclosed in the appeal circulated early Friday by Republican operative Liz Mair, and she did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump took on the press and his most recently vanquished opponent at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan Monday night, telling the crowd he hates the press, but would never kill them like Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused. Trump said again that he was not offended that Putin praised him, even though he has been accused of killing journalists. "I don't like that. I'm totally against that," Trump said. "By the way, I hate some of these people but I'd never kill them." He pretended to reconsider, saying , "Let's see. No, I wouldn't....

A Republican operative who is organizing an effort to torpedo Donald Trump’s presidential campaign says she is starting a super PAC that could collect unlimited funds from individual donors. Liz Mair, former online communications director for the Republican National Committee, created a limited liability company in October called Trump Card LLC. The anti-Trump effort is focusing on the two states hosting the earliest nominating contests, Iowa and New Hampshire. In an e-mail to supporters, Ms. Mair said the group has reached out to 150 churches in Iowa, 50 community leaders in New Hampshire and media outlets in both states. She...