Cruz, Jindal shine as Paul fades

The Texas Republican senator began the event with a deeply religious and emotional speech, pacing the stage and speaking with the cadence of a preacher, repeatedly rallying the crowd to its feet and jumping into an eager throng of supporters after his address.

Crowds seemed far more skeptical of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who spoke just after Cruz. While they warmly welcomed Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), he responded with a lecturing speech that earned few applause.

Paul tried to make a case for how his libertarian ideals would mesh with their religious fervor. But his reception to the faithful was tepid, with many skeptical of his seemingly ambivalent comments on abortion earlier this year despite his focus on the issue during Friday's speech.

Jindal likely put himself on the map with his warmly-received speech that wove his personal story together with conservative red meat and witty jokes and jabs at Obama.

Though he polls in the bottom three of most surveys of the potential GOP presidential field, it seemed clear on Friday that Jindal would make an aggressive candidate if he runs, and would find considerable support among the GOP’s social conservative base.

Prior to Jindal’s address, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins praised all the potential candidates, but said Cruz got people excited because of his blunt style.

“At the heart what they are looking for is leaders who will say what they mean and mean what they say. They’re not looking for nuanced speeches. I think that’s why Ted Cruz gets such a strong reception — he just says it like it is. He doesn’t kind of shuck and jive, he says what he means," he told The Hill.

Cruz delivered a speech that veered from the emotional to the fiery, running from his family's own struggles when his father briefly left to the persecution of Christians abroad. He drew standing ovations when he called on the crowd to "vote Harry Reid out" and when he said when a Republican wins the White House in 2017, (drawing yells of "you, you" from the crowd), the party would repeal “every word of ObamaCare.”

Paul sought to merge his libertarian-leaning philosophy with social conservative beliefs on Friday, telling the religious crowd at the summit that the two go hand-in-hand and calling for a religious "revival" in the U.S.

"Where there is liberty there is always plenty of space for God," Paul concluded at the end of a speech at times punchy and professorial.

Paul drew applause when he said President Obama "acts like a king" and effectively worked the crowd's fury at oppression of Christians abroad, saying that until Asia Bibi, a Christian sitting in prison in Pakistan, "is freed, Pakistan should not receive a penny of U.S. aid."

But he avoided gay marriage, and while he sought to assure the social conservatives he was with them on abortion, the way he framed it leaves question marks for the movement, especially after comments this spring on Roe v. Wade that many read as ambivalent.

"The debate isn't really about whether government has a role in protecting life. The debate really hinges on when life begins," the ophthalmologist told the crowd. "Don't tell me that 5- and 6-pound babies have no rights simply because they're not yet born."

Perkins admitted that Paul isn't fully trusted by the movement, though he said it was clear Paul was looking to "bolster those credentials" on opposition to abortion with his opening video focused on the issue.

"His needle points more toward the libertarian viewpoint. There is a skepticism of libertarianism," he said.

Santorum, who placed second in the 2012 GOP presidential primary with the help of social conservatives, received standing ovations when he arrived and departed, but for much of his speech the room was dead silent, a stark contract to Cruz and Jindal’s receptions.

The Pennsylvania former senator delivered a somber and hectoring speech focused on "existential threats" from the Middle East and a push to keep the GOP from abandoning social issues like gay marriage and abortion.

"Quit being scared and start being activists and making things happen in America," he said in one of the few lines of the speech that drew applause. "Do something."

Jindal offered both an indictment of the Obama administration, which he said doesn’t stand up for religious liberty and has made “America not only weaker but the world a more dangerous place,” and a vision for rejuvenating the American Dream “that my parents taught me.”

He described that as an “America where we are forever young, an America where our best days are ahead of us, not behind us, an America where circumstances of your birth don’t determine your outcomes as an adult, where we’re not guaranteed equal outcomes, we’re guaranteed equal opportunity.”

Perkins said Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), who spoke Friday evening, often gets the same type of response; the evangelical leader said the social conservative movement is “just looking for somebody who’s going to speak the truth and not make apologies for their conservative views.”

Huckabee held his own in the evening session, mixing folksy humor and his Baptist preacher background to slam Obama's foreign policy — and by extension, Clinton's.

He keyed off former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign ad featuring a ringing phone at 3:00 a.m. to argue that Obama isn't answering the call of the presidency.

"I think we know who we don't want to answer it," he said to laughs and claps from the crowd.

"On Sept. 11 two years ago the phone did ring and I guess it went to voicemail because when the desperate calls for help came from Benghazi, Libya, nobody answered that call," he said. "And today the phone's still ringing. The phone is ringing in Syria where ISIS has set up shop."

Cruz will need to eat into Huckabee's base if both run. The former Arkansas governor has led preliminary polls in early-voting Iowa, driven by his strong appeal to evangelical Christians in a state he won in 2008, while Cruz has lagged behind.

"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

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====== RICK SANTORUM'S Incredible CONSERVATIVE Voting Record ======

(Source: Free Republic's Psycho-Freep, 2012-03-05)

NEA

Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.

Bankruptcy

Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Defense and Foreign Policy

Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.

Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.

Voted for the START II Treaty

Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.

Voted to ban antipersonnel landmines

Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.

Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same payraises as uniformed military.

Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyranical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.

Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.

Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.

Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea

Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.

Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.

Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program

Nominations

Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture)

Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge

Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN

Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge

Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit

Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge

Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge

Voted for James Brady to be District Judge

Union Labor

Voted against National Right to Work Act

Voted against Real of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages

Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor

Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding

Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Voted for Job Corps funding

Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization

Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.

Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here
Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.

Voted to exempt IRS union representative from criminal ethics laws.

Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.

Guns

Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.

Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device

Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18.

Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools.

Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.

Reform

Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.

Voted twice for a Congressional payraise.

Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapits, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.

Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.

Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.

Voted for a McCain amendment to require State and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.

Immigration

Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators

Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens

Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.

Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to to the earnings of their sponsors.

Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border partrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.

Taxes

Voted against a flat tax.

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.

Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.

Voted twice for internet taxes.

Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.

Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.

Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.

Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.

Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.

Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.

Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.

Welfare

Voted against food stamp reform

Voted against Medicaid reform

Voted against TANF reform

Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion

Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.

Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.

Government Waste

Sponsored An amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million

Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA)

Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion

Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.

Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million

Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL)

Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry

Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation

Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.

Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%

Voted against transferring $20 million from Americorps to veterans.

Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.

Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.

Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.

Spending and Entitlements

Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies an new entitlement.

Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.

Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.

Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.

Health Care

Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.

Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.

Voted against a allow consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.

Education

Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing

Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.

Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.

Energy

Voted to allow the President to designate certain sites as interim nuclear waste storage sites in the event that he determines that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site for a permanent waste repository. Those sites are as follows: the nuclear waste site in Hanford, Washington; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Barnwell County, South Carolina; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.

Voted to make fuel price gouging a Federal crime.

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====== NEWT GINGRICH'S GREAT 2012 CAMPAIGN SPEECHES ======

CPAC 2012 Speech -- Newt Gingrich, U.S. President Elect

CPAC 2012 Speech -- Sarah Palin, U.S. Vice President Elect

Nancy Reagan (1995) : Ronnie turned that Torch over to Newt

NRA Second Amendent Speech -- Newt Gingrich

U.S. Energy Independence in 2012 -- Speech

U.S. Energy Independence in 2012 -- Newt Gingrich

"America's Space Renaissance" in Florida !

Newt Gingrich -- Vision for America in Space Again

Why is Newt Gingrich So Angry ?

Newt Gingrich : South Carolina Victory Speech (2012-01-21)

Newt Gingrich : Christmas Day in 1776 George Washington's "Victory or Death"

Newt Stoutly Defends the Second Amendment (Right to Bear Arms)

Newt Gingrich – Constitutional Removal of Radial-Liberal Federal Judges

Newt Slams an "Increasingly Radical" EPA

Newt Defends Israel and Shows how the Palestinians are an "Invented" people !

Newt Warns against the Proposed 9-11 NYC Islamic Mosque and Islamic Sharia Law

Gingrich Compares Radical-Isalmics Muslims To Nazis

Newt Gingrich On The Threat Of Radical Islam

Newt Gingrich – America’s Defense of Judea-Christian Ideals and Defense against Islamic Fascism

Gingrich: Aggressive Prosecution of Radical-Militant U.S. Muslim Groups

Newt Gingrich: Response to CNN’s John King “Divorce Question”

Newt Gingrich to Juan Williams: Americans Want Paychecks, Not Food Stamps

Gingrich BLASTS Chris Wallace for his "Gotcha" Questions at Iowa Debate

Newt Destroys Ron Paul's Foreign Policy Vis-à-Vis Killing Osama bin Laden

Gingrich: My Credential Is 4.2% Unemployment

Newt Slams Obama's Stupidity on the Keystone Pipeline

Gingrich attacks Federal Reserve (Bernanke and Geitner) Deception and Corruption

Newt Discusses Job Creation and Dismantling Federal (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)

Newt: No American President Should Bow to a Saudi King

Newt Gingrich: Super PAC Committee Is Washington's Dumbest Idea

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