Free Republic

Herman Cain woke up Tuesday to another day of soaring polling numbers, showing him moving into second place behind Mitt Romney and pushing Rick Perry out of the spotlight. The day ended with the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO under attack from his rivals, both on stage and in a series of post-debate press releases meant to tear him down. But from his new center-stage spot next to Mitt Romney, Cain calmly weathered every jab from them, the moderators and even the Democrats, walking out from the Dartmouth auditorium having done little to hurt his standing.

Mitt Romney has finally found a groove on the right. But he could find himself stuck there if he wins the GOP nomination. With Romney’s recent move to wield the immigration issue as a club against Rick Perry — painting him as “soft” on a topic that resonates with the Republican primary electorate — the former Massachusetts governor is taking advantage of a rare opportunity to outflank Perry on the right among conservatives. After the Texas governor wounded himself with his remarks in the last debate, Romney seized on the issue of illegal immigration, trying to paint Perry as an...

Sarah Palin used to pronounce Mitt Romney's name "M-I-L-T." In one of the many embarrassing anecdotes about the former Alaska governor, former aide Frank Bailey writes in a leaked manuscript that Palin actually argued with some of her staffers about how to correctly pronounce Romney's name. During her own 2006 campaign for governor, when Romney was chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Bailey writes that Palin didn't seem to know much about the then-Massachusetts governor. “During the campaign for governor, when Romney was in the background of our Republican Governors’ mess, Sarah didn’t even have a clear idea who he...

Nikki Haley may have been the big winner in South Carolina Tuesday, but she isn’t the only Republican whose star is rising in an early state that is key to winning the GOP presidential nomination. Both Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, were also winners in the 2012 sweepstakes. They got behind Haley at critical junctures in her campaign for governor while the rest of the potential GOP presidential field either endorsed another candidate or stayed out of the fray completely. . . . . . . Former Arkansas Gov. Mike...