Free Republic

A focus group of Iowa conservative activists gathered recently to discuss the upcoming caucuses. The group, organized by TheIowaRepublican.com in conjunction with McClatchy newspapers, included a retiree, a college student, Tea Party members, a GOP county co-chair, and some influential consultants. No one in the group has fully committed to a candidate and most were undecided.The focus group offered wide-ranging views on several of the candidates. This was conducted last week, a few days prior to the most recent debate.Here is a look at some of their responses in regards to the GOP presidential field:Newt GingrichThe focus group offered praise,...

DECEMBER 17, 2011 Gingrich of Freddie Mac The Speaker's defense is hurting him as much as his $1.6 million payday. Newt Gingrich's opponents aren't letting up in their criticism of his lucrative ties to the failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac after he resigned as House Speaker in the late 1990s. More damaging to his Presidential candidacy is that Mr. Gingrich doesn't seem to understand why anyone is offended. In his first response after news broke that he'd made $300,000 working for Freddie, Mr. Gingrich claimed he had "offered them advice on precisely what they didn't do." As a "historian," he...

Check out this interesting story: Updated: 13 SC Tea Party Leaders Blast Bachmann Tactics – Patch Nearly a month after a SC spokesman for Rep. Michele Bachmann accused Newt Gingrich of trying to buy off the state’s Tea Party leaders by bringing them on as staffers, more than a dozen of the movement’s leaders are fighting back. In a strongly worded letter issued Friday afternoon, 13 leaders of the SC Tea Party movement accused her of “attacking the tea party movement by accusing tea party supporters of Newt Gingrich of being bought off” and said she has escalated the battle...

Newt Gingrich tried to quiet unrelenting campaign criticism that he acknowledged had taken a toll as Mitt Romney stepped up insider attacks Saturday in hopes of regaining front-runner status with the first presidential vote less than two weeks away. Gingrich, the former House speaker enjoying a late surge in the polls, pledged to correct what he said were his rivals' inaccurate claims about him. Romney, the ex-Massachusetts governor looking for a rebound, portrayed Gingrich as a well-heeled lobbyist since his service in Congress and predicted that conservative voters will reject Gingrich as they learn more about his lengthy Washington record.

Retiring Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., sees President Barack Obama easily winning another term in office if matched up against former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 2012 election, The Hill reports. Frank says Obama would have no problem winning reelection but would not say if the president would surpass his 2008 victory totals. Gingrich capturing the GOP presidential nomination, "would be the best thing to happen to the Democrats since Barry Goldwater," Frank recently said. Frank told The Hill Gingrich could carry most of the southern states but predicted Obama's electoral count would be "in the 300s" against the Republican...

First there was the Reagan Revolution, then Newt's Republican Revolution, and now the Tea Party Revolution. In each successive revolution, the lovers of liberty threw off a bit more of the yoke of the oppressive ruling class to reestablish some vital part of our God given liberty and freedom. Pro-life, small government, big defense Ronald Reagan set and accomplished the goal of bringing down the socialist Soviet Union as a threat to the world and reestablished free America as the dominate superpower. He rescued America from the hapless Jimmy Carter who had dragged the nation down into to the depths...

Romney/Gingrich or Gingrich/ Romney? — Could this be the ticket for 2012?Certainly there is recent historical precedent— Ronald Reagan battled George H.W. Bush in 1980 before a Reagan/Bush ticket was successfully formed and John Kerry fought John Edwards in 2004 before their union was solidifiedThen, in 2008 after a brutal primary fight many Democrats, especially women, were hoping for an Obama/Hillary ticket. But the scuttlebutt was (if the ticket had been formed) Mrs. Obama did not want the Clintons, especially the Mrs. hanging around the White House deflecting attention from the new king and queen.So is it probable that Mitt...

My one problem with Newt is his idea of allowing people who have lived 25 years in the country to remain and to set that decision in the hands of local officials. Why? Consider. That stand almost immediately got praise from both clinton and schumer. http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/nov/27/picket-schumer-and-bill-clinton-plant-kisses-death/ Soon after, the LA Times ran a story that said 60% of illegals have been in the USA for 10 years or more. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/60-percent-illegal-immigrants-report.html Why would partisan democrats praise newt’s idea. Why would the LA Times run the story that 60% of illegals have been in the country have been in the country for...

Although I think that it admirable that Newt has chosen to avoid attacking the other candidates, I wonder if it is going to hurt him and conservatives. No one, including the "conservative" media seems to want to examine Romney's record or his actions. Instead they just lap up what ever the flavor of the week that he is spewing. Since no one is actually discussing his record, Romney is able to pretend to be the conservative choice. Personally I don't see much daylight between Zero and Romney. Both support socialized healthcare, support weapons bans, support global warming, appoint liberal judges,...

Just how much do the media want to prevent Newt Gingrich from becoming the Republican presidential nominee? So much that despite their total disdain for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), they'll even defend her from supposed sexist attacks by the former Speaker of the House (video follows with transcript and commentary): *snip* When's the last time you heard anyone in the liberal media say Michele Bachmann is a serious candidate? All year folks like Taylor have been claiming that Bachmann is crazy and has absolutely no qualifications for the White House whatsoever. But now that Gingrich has a chance at winning...

Gingrich 28% Romney 24% Paul 10% Bachmann 8% Perry 6% Santorum 4% Huntsman 2%

DES MOINES (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich fought back on Saturday against attacks over the more than $1.6 million in payments he received from mortgage giant Freddie Mac, insisting the money went to overhead for his firm and not to his wallet. On a teleconference with Iowans, Gingrich said he worked with Freddie Mac to help poor people get homes, and he wanted to "set the record straight." The payment received over a six-year period was spent mostly on overhead, the former House of Representatives speaker said. Gingrich's ties to the company have come under increased scrutiny in...

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Mitt Romney is mocking Newt Gingrich's long record in Washington and says conservative tea party voters eventually will reject the former House speaker who's Romney chief presidential rival. Romney tells reporters in South Carolina that he thinks the state's tea party voters will turn on Gingrich because of his work for the mortgage company Freddie Mac and his consulting time in Washington....

The Editors shortchanged them. I respectfully dissent from National Review’s Wednesday-evening editorial, which derided Newt Gingrich as not merely flawed but unfit for consideration as the GOP presidential nominee. The Editors further gave the back of the hand to the bids of two other prominent conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — a judgment that is simply inexplicable in light of the frivolousness of its reasoning and of the Editors’ embrace of Jon Huntsman, a moderate former Obama-administration official, as a serious contender. The editorial surprised me, as it did many readers. I am now advised that the timing was...

America's most incendiary political force is not the 99% but the 75%, that large unfading fraction of Republicans who want a candidate more conservative than Mitt Romney to run against Obama. With less than a month to go before the first primary votes are cast in Iowa, Newt Gingrich is emerging as that candidate. Many of us who have fiercely criticized Gingrich before did so recognizing his talent but wishing he were a more dependable ideologue in the mold of Ronald Reagan, rather than the inconsistent intellectual who lectures us to distraction and often ends up alienating other conservatives. When...

...Mr. Gingrich represents a new kind of Catholic, one very different from the Kennedys, who were Democrats, political liberals and cradle Catholics shaped by the Irish immigrant church...Mr. Gingrich is a culture wars Catholic for whom the church seems a logical home for conservative Republicans Generations removed from the Kennedy years when Catholics predictably voted Democratic, this is a new era in which conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants have joined forces in what they see as a defining struggle against abortion, same-sex marriage and secularism. Like many recent converts to the church, Mr. Gingrich is what Catholics call a “John...

I respectfully dissent from National Review’s Wednesday-evening editorial, which derided Newt Gingrich as not merely flawed but unfit for consideration as the GOP presidential nominee. The Editors further gave the back of the hand to the bids of two other prominent conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — a judgment that is simply inexplicable in light of the frivolousness of its reasoning and of the Editors’ embrace of Jon Huntsman, a moderate former Obama-administration official, as a serious contender. The editorial surprised me, as it did many readers. I am now advised that the timing was driven by the editorial’s...

Let us collectively make a list. Who do you think will endorse Newt in the next 60 days? Do think Rudy, Sarah, Mark Levin, Cain and Rush will eventually endorse Newt?

Mitt Romney has finally begun to engage Newt Gingrich. Yesterday, he went after Gingrich, if not by name, by attacking him as a creature of Washington. ... Federal law defines lobbying activity as “Lobbying contacts and any efforts in support of such contacts, including preparation or planning activities, research and other background work that is intended, at the time of its preparation, for use in contacts and coordination with the lobbying activities of others.” And a lobbying contact is “Any oral, written or electronic communication to a covered official that is made on behalf of a client with regard to”...

Trial matchups before a sample of all Ohio voters put Gingrich at 43 percent to Obama's 42 percent, an identical result to a potential Romney-Obama general-election contest in Ohio. Currently undecided voters could determine Ohio's outcome -- and if Ohio's role in recent elections is a gauge, the national outcome. Yet the new Quinnipiac swing-state poll provides a snapshot of the GOP field's competitiveness.In the Republican nominating race, Gingrich has a 2-to-1 lead over Romney among Ohio GOP voters, 36 percent to 18 percent, when counting the entire Republican field. No other GOP candidate in the primary field tops 7...