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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I didn't see the undercard. I had other things going. I just didn't watch. And I haven't seen any replays. The only thing I know about the undercard is everybody's raving about Bobby Jindal. And Bobby Jindal apparently had some sort of very clever insult of Christie. He's gonna give him a participation ribbon and a juice box. Anybody know what that juice box thing means? (interruption) Hmm. (interruption) Juice box... (interruption) No, I think there's more to it than that. I think... Well, I don't feel comfortable 'cause I'm not sure what it is here. But...

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire—Rep. Ron Paul's campaign called on the rest of the Republican field to drop out of the race and unite behind him in order to defeat Mitt Romney. “We urge Ron Paul’s opponents who have been unsuccessfully trying to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney to unite by getting out of the race and uniting behind Paul’s candidacy,” campaign chair Jesse Benton said in a statement. Read the full statement below: LAKE JACKSON, Texas – Ron Paul tonight scored an historic second-place victory in the 2012 New Hampshire Primary. Below please find comments from National Campaign Chairman...

According to the survey, which was released Monday, 28 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support Perry as their party's presidential nominee, with Romney at 21 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is at ten percent, with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who's making his third bid for the White House, former Godfather's Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, all at seven percent. The poll indicates that Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is at four percent, with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at three...

GOP regulars claim the "electability argument" will deliver the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney. They say things like, "Mitt Romney can win the general election by appealing to the middle. Rick Perry can't win in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Milwaukee." Simple enough -- but wrong. Romney's no stronger on this front than Perry, the frontrunner in the polls. The core reasons: Perry's support among the party's base, and his strength on the key issues of the economy and job creation. Based on what we know today, next November's election will be decided on the economy and as a referendum...

Today, GOProud, the only national organization of gay conservatives and their allies, called on Michael Steele to resign as Chairman of the Republican National Committee after he made comments critical of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Christopher R. Barron, Chairman of the Board: "Michael Steele's comments regarding the war in Afghanistan are inexcusable. These comments are not just another gaffe that can be explained away, they represent a fundamental failure to understand the importance of winning the war on global extremism. "Chairman Steele shouldn't need to be reminded that the war in Afghanistan was not a ‘war of Obama's choosing.'...

He didn't mention her name, but in brief remarks at the Los Angeles Press Club's annual awards gala on Sunday night, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger swiped at Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, calling her proposal to eliminate 40,000 state worker positions "bogus talk" and praising journalists for asking where those cuts would be made.

Ever See An Ad That Was So Irritating It Caused You To Change the Channel So You Did Not Have To Watch It? The negative circus ads Whitman is running about Poizner were horrible the first 300 times. Fingernails on a chalkboard, cover the ears time, reach for the remote and Somebody tell Whitman to....

In a recent article in Pioneer Local http://www.pioneerlocal.com/westernsprings/news/2039124,western-springs-dillard-021110-s1.article state Sen. Kirk Dillard blames former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan for his possible loss in the Feb. 2nd Republican primary. The last all of us heard regarding the election results was state Sen. Bill Brady led Dillard by close to 500 votes in the gubernatorial race. But this being Illinois, us common folk haven't learned anything since, so what else is new? So, Dillard picks on Jim Ryan because such criticism would do the least harm to his political future. Though I didn't agree with the way Ryan conducted himself as...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – An old rivalry flared up again at the annual Values Voter Summit on Friday, when Mike Huckabee took aim at the health care system in Massachusetts that was implemented in 2006 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney. Huckabee — who did serious damage to Romney's presidential hopes last January by winning the Iowa caucuses and has made clear his disdain for the former Massachusetts governor — told the crowd at the conservative conference that the Bay State health care system is a model for the kind of government-run health care President Obama wants to implement. "It's going to bankrupt...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) camp is not happy with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele's suggestion that base Republicans had a problem with the 2008 presidential candidate's Mormonism. On Monday, Romney's camp responded to the comments Steele made Friday while guest-hosting a conservative radio show, comments a Romney spokesman said were ill-considered. . . . . . Camp Romney fired off a quick response: "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip you miss the target. This is one of those times," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told The Hill. After the Romney team expressed its displeasure, Steele offered an...

The battle lines for the Republican primary next year in the race for Texas governor are becoming a bit clearer. As most of us thought, current Gov. Perry is trending further to the right as he fights to reduce spending, keep taxes where they are or lower and continues his tradition of fighting against abortion. Some of us weren’t quite so clear on his almost officially announced challenger, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.A few of the moves she has made lately indicate that she will try and pick up the left side of the Republican vote, as well as try...

Had Senator John McCain been walking the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this week, he might have winced to hear his name taken in vain — over and over again. But Mr. McCain wasn’t anywhere to be found. In fact, he wasn’t even invited. Never a darling of the conservative movement, Mr. McCain appeared at last year’s conference as the candidate on the verge of capturing his party’s presidential nomination. The audience hurled boos his way when he mentioned his past positions on immigration policy. Conservatives had disliked him, in part because of his stance on...

Before an audience of conservatives on Thursday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., took aim at the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, and former President Bush for supporting the government's purchase last October of $700 billion in bad mortgages and debt held by struggling U.S. financial institutions. He even hinted that McCain, R-Ariz., might have won the White House last year had he staked out a position in opposition to the bailout. Congressional Republicans, last fall, offered a better, less expensive plan to rescue Wall Street and fix the economy, Huckabee said. But the Bush White House and Sen....

Not bipartisan? Try telling that to Sen. Olympia Snowe. On CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. John McCain scoffed at the notion that the support President Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal has received from Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, constituted bipartisanship. “[T]his agreement is not bipartisan,” McCain told moderator Bob Schieffer. “I've been in bipartisan agreements, many. This is three Republican senators. Every Republican congressman voted against it in the House, plus Democrats. And all but three Republicans stayed together on this. That's not bipartisanship. That's just picking off a couple of senators.” On Monday, Snowe took issue with that...

Sounds of discord are getting louder at the Republican National Committee as battles between conservatives and moderates intensify in the six-way race for the chairmanship of the national party committee that will set the course for the future of a party diminished in the wake of the 2008 elections. Conservatives are working to exert their influence over the direction of the party with a resolution circulated over the weekend that plainly expresses the party’s opposition to past and future bailout legislation. “I think the bailouts are just wrong and take us in a profoundly radical, left wing direction,” said prominent...

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino defended President Bush on Thursday from attacks leveled by his party's presidential candidate, John McCain. In an interview with the Washington Times, McCain attacked Bush and fellow Republicans on a variety of policies the Arizona senator said he would have handled differently. “We just let things get completely out of hand,” McCain said. Asked about the comments during the daily press briefing, Perino said, “the president stands by his policies. The president believes that Republican Congresses got a lot more done than the current Democrat-led Congress. He supports John McCain, and he still believes that...

ABOARD THE STRAIGHT TALK AIR — Sen. John McCain on Wednesday blasted President Bush for building a mountain of debt for future generations, failing to pay for expanding Medicare and abusing executive powers, leveling his strongest criticism to date of an administration whose unpopularity may be dragging the Republican Party to the brink of a massive electoral defeat. "We just let things get completely out of hand," he said of his own party's rule in the past eight years. In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. McCain lashed out at a litany of Bush policies and issues that he...

McCain slammed economic adviser Phil Gramm for his “mental recession” and “nation of whiners” comment. He said he didn’t agree with him and even proposed a position in a McCain administration -- ambassador to Belarus, “though I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that,” McCain said. “I don’t agree with Sen. Gramm,” McCain said at a news conference this afternoon. “I believe that the person here in Michigan who just lost their job, isn’t suffering from a ‘mental recession.’ The mother here who is trying to get enough money to feed her children, isn’t ‘whining.’” “Phil Gramm doesn’t...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mitt Romney and John McCain accused each other Monday of harboring liberal tendencies, a charge bordering on blasphemy in the increasingly caustic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney struck first on the day before the winner-take-all Florida primary, criticizing the Arizona senator for his legislation reducing the role of money in politics, for his position on immigration and for his support of an energy bill that he said would have driven up consumer costs. "If you ask people, 'Look at the three things Senator McCain has done as a senator,' if you want that...

NORTH CONWAY, N.H. - Taking aim at a rallying John McCain, New Hampshire front-runner Mitt Romney said Saturday that his GOP presidential rival had failed "Reagan 101" by twice opposing President Bush's tax cuts. Romney also sought to turn McCain's well-known maverick streak — a central theme in his campaign ads — against the Arizona senator. McCain's go-it-alone attitude, Romney suggested, will breed more divisiveness in Washington if he wins. "Anyone who's run something, whether it's a small business or a big business, knows that the No. 1 ingredient for success is building a remarkable team of people around you,...