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TRUMP TRIES OUT FOR NEW ROLE: PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE The Republican nominating process has evolved for a moment just such as this: helping a damaged frontrunner stave off a challenge from a conservative insurgent and avoiding the threat of a chaotic convention. What nobody knew was that the frontrunner this year would be Donald Trump. And as Trump showed both in his remarks after his resounding victory in his home state and the promise of big money for the Republican consultant class, he is willing to try to play the part that was written for another player: Mr. Inevitability.

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

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A couple of polls came out from Public Policy Polling this weekend showing that Santorum seems to be replacing Newt Gingrich as the main "not Romney" candidate in Minnesota and Colorado. There seems to be a desire to "give another conservative a chance" as well as to potentially field a candidate without as much baggage as Newt so that Mitt Romney's negative ad carpet bombing will not be as effective. I think though that this reasoning is fallacious and switching support from Newt to Santorum at this point would be a major mistake. Let's just look at what I believe...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will win the Republican presidential nomination, Dave Keene, former chairman of the American Conservative Union, tells Newsmax. “Romney has the discipline,” Keene says. “”He has the money. He has the organization.”

Broadcast on: CNN Broadcast time: 8pm EDT/5pm PDT The Candidates: Michele Bachmann Bachmann is serving her 3rd full term in the U.S. House. Founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, she earned a Master of Laws degree, worked as a tax attorney, and was a foster mother for 23 teenagers. She is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Herman Cain Cain is the former chief executive of Godfather's Pizza and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He lost the Georgia Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 2004. He was recently...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that he regrets making a commercial with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the need to address climate change. Gingrich, who partnered with Pelosi while she was Speaker for the 2008 ad, said the spot was "misconstrued," and for that reason, he wouldn't do it again. "I was trying to make a point that we shouldn't be afraid to debate the left, even on the environment," Gingrich said on WGIR radio of the 30-second television commercial. "Obviously it was misconstrued, and it's probably one of those things I wouldn't do again." That commercial...

Republicans, including Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani, made a "strategic blunder" by making a joke of Barack Obama's work as a community organizer, Newt Gingrich says in a new book about the radical ACORN group.It was "not helpful" for Palin and Giuliani to mock community organizing in their speeches at the 2008 Republican National Convention More at The American Spectator Gingrich is right. I don't KNOW that he's right, but I'm taking his word for it. If anyone knows STRATEGIC BLUNDERS it's this guy.... It was a STRATEGIC BLUNDER to go on a cruise while his campaign was still...

"I thought NBC this morning, in a program that had nobody on camera, nobody quoted by name, that quoted reporters talking anonymously about cowardly people, who, frankly, lied about my wife..."

The problem was the wife. Aides to Newt Gingrich have resigned from his presidential campaign in protest of what they felt was a takeover by Callista Gingrich, the candidate’s wife since 2000. The euphemism offered by departing staffers was they disagreed with Gingrich’s “strategy” for the campaign. Indeed, they did disagree. But it was a strategy – a part-time campaign, in effect – that Gingrich’s wife favored. Several aides, including campaign manager Rob Johnson, met with Gingrich on Thursday morning and told him of the senior staff’s unanimous decision to quit. Gingrich later put out a statement saying he was...

Gingrich 2012 campaign manager Rob Johnson quit along with top strategists Sam Dawson and Dave Carney, and spokesman Rick Tyler quit as well. Meanwhile consultants Katon Dawson in South Carolina and Craig Schoenfeld in Iowa tendered their resignations as well. They quit because they wanted to promote what they told Politico would be a “different vision” for the campaign. .....Conservative and mainstream media reporters speculated and provided considerable evidence that Perry is likely to benefit form the departures and that he is closer to declaring he will run for the Republican nomination than ever before — even though he has...

Newt Gingrich's presidential dreams are in tatters this afternoon after his entire high command resigned in a mass exodus today. The Republican hopeful's campaign manager, senior strategists and key aides in early delegate-selection states all walked out this afternoon, but refused to say why - other than a 'difference in direction'. Rick Tyler, Gingrich's spokesman, said he, campaign manager Rob Johnson and senior strategists were among those who had resigned. 'When the campaign and the candidate disagree on the path, they've got to part ways,' Mr Tyler told the Washington Post this afternoon.

She says that she definitely has the fire in her belly to fight to put America back on the right track: "I think my problem is that I do have that fire in my belly. I am so adamantly supportive of the good traditional things about America and our free enterprise system and I want to make sure that America is put back on the right track and we only do that by defeating Obama in 2012. I have that fire in my belly."Right before this Sarah also took another slam at Newt Gingrich, and a good one too: You...

Newt Gingrich said today that he wasn't referring to Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan when he uttered the words "right-wing social engineering" last Sunday -- a comment that has earned the former House speaker a barrage of criticism that ultimately let him to call Ryan and apologize. In a live interview with Rush Limbaugh Thursday afternoon, Gingrich said he hadn't actually criticized Ryan's plan in his Sunday appearance on "Meet the Press," and that he wasn't referring to the Wisconsin congressman when he said those words. "It was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to...

Another Republican operative said he had spoken with an old friend of Gingrich's in the South who had been planning a fundraiser for the campaign. There were 18 co-chairs for the event until Gingrich's appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, where he labeled Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) proposed budget "radical" and "right-wing social engineering." "He said like 13 of them dropped off within 24 hours of 'Meet the Press,'"