Free Republic

There’s Good Newt, Bad Newt, and now Righteously P.O.’d Newt. The image of Romney as a gutless, too-slick moneybags who’s paying others to do his dirty work for him while pretending that he’s powerless to stop them would resonate deeply if Gingrich can really push it over the next two weeks. But how’s he going to do that? There are no more debates scheduled before the caucuses and people are tuning out of politics for the holidays. And even if Newt decided to run ads about it, the likely beneficiary as Romney suffers and slumps in the polls would be...

Let me just get this out there. I don't hate Mitt Romney the man, I just despise Mitt Romney the candidate. I lived in Massachusetts and eagerly voted for Mitt Romney for Governor. Had the sign in the yard. Did the smile and wave thing on the corner. I was ecstatic to see a Republican win an election in the Liberal Lion's den. Life was good. Until... Well, we do not need to go into reasons why a conservative may have a few misgivings about what Mitt Romney did after he won the election. Those are well documented. Still, the...

NEWT HELPED FORMULATE CHRISTMAS December 21, 2011Every few years, heinous Democratic policies -- abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, Hillarycare, Obamacare, to name a few -- compel previously uninvolved Americans to leap into politics. This is great, except for two things: (1) We have to get heinous Democratic policies first; and (2) newcomers have short memories, sometimes no memories at all. The second point is the only possible explanation for why some conservatives seem to view Newt Gingrich as the anti-Establishment outsider who will shake up Washington. Newly active right-wingers would do well to spend a little more time quietly...

KEENE, N.H. — The stars may be aligning for Mitt Romney — and at just the right time. Four years after his failed White House bid, the former Massachusetts governor’s strategy in the 2012 Republican presidential race has long been premised on a respectable finish in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses followed by a decisive New Hampshire victory to drive momentum heading into South Carolina, Florida and beyond. To be sure, no one has voted yet. The outcome in Iowa will shape the race, the contest has been mercurial and Romney still faces hurdles, not the least of which is...

MANCHESTER, N.H. – A fiery Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, slipping in the polls following a barrage of negative ads in Iowa, hit back at rival Mitt Romney, who just this morning suggested Gingrich can’t take the heat of political campaigning. “I can take the heat plenty well,” said a combative Gingrich, who challenged Romney to a one-on-one debate to discuss the attack ads. “Go back, ask governor Romney, would he like to play in the kitchen? I don’t think so. I don’t think he wants to do anything except hide over here and pretend it’s not his fault that...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — With Washington deadlocked, Mitt Romney refused to say Wednesday whether Congress should approve a short-term payroll tax cut extension for 160 million workers — the latest pressing policy debate the Republican presidential hopeful has sidestepped. Rival Newt Gingrich, in contrast, castigated Congress for "an absurd dereliction of duty." "I'm not going to get into the back-and-forth on the congressional sausage-making process," Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said in Keene, N.H., as the day began. "I hope they're able to sit down and work out a solution that works for the American people. My hope is...

Despite Newt Gingrich's own admission that his campaign was "scrambling" to get on the ballot in Virginia, it looks like he will make the cut after all. "Passed req 10K signatures in VA, 600 from each district. On the way to 15K. Join us in Arlington Wed & Richmond Thurs," his campaign tweeted just now.

Newt Gingrich challenged Mitt Romney to a one-on-one debate in Iowa next week, sneering at Romney’s suggestion that he wouldn’t be able to “stand the heat” that the Obama campaign would hurl his way in a general election. “If he wants to test the heat, I’ll meet him anywhere in Iowa next week, one on one, 90 minutes. No moderator, just a timekeeper,” Gingrich told reporters here in New Hampshire. Romney said on MSNBC Wednesday morning — in response to Gingrich complaints about the level of negative advertising in the race — that if he can’t “stand the heat in...

Radio host Laura Ingraham asked Gingrich, "You said Mitt Romney should take down the super PAC ads, tell them to stop, and Mitt Romney said, well I technically could, but basically said if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen because Obama's going to deliver hell's kitchen in a general election. What's your response to that, you can't take the heat?" "My response to it is," Gingrich said bitingly, "defending the right to lie as a candidate is a pretty bad idea. The Washington Post just gave the newest Romney ad four Pinocchios. Do you know how...

An ad run by a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney levels a series of charges against GOP rival Newt Gingrich including a “pretty sleazy mischaracterization” of Gingrich’s stand on abortion, The Washington Post concluded in a fact check. The ad by Restore Our Future charges, among other things, that as Speaker of the House Gingrich supported “taxpayer funding of some abortions,” that he was paid $30,000 an hour by Freddie Mac, and that he was the only Speaker of the House in history to be reprimanded. The Post found that there was “no evidence [Gingrich] was actually paid $30,000 an...

Gingrich's alleged "baggage" and doubts about his electability don't fully explain why, despite his high standing in the polls, the GOP establishment has been shunning the former Speaker of the House, when not showing outright hostility toward him... The current Speaker of the House, John Boehner, must be considered a prominent opponent, behind the scenes so far. Boehner, it will be recalled, led the rebellion to remove Gingrich from his post as Speaker back in 1998... Boehner is hardly alone in fearing a Gingrich presidency. A true insider, Gingrich knows who among his fellow politicians (from his day and since)...

Newt Gingrich isn't exactly chasing the gay vote. The Republican presidential candidate told a homosexual Iowa man at a campaign event on Tuesday to vote for President Obama. Scott Arnold, a Democrat and associate professor of writing at William Penn University, approached the ex-House speaker in Oskaloosa wanting to know how Gingrich would represent him as President, according to the Des Moines Register. "I asked him if he’s elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama," Arnold told the newspaper. The Gingrich campaign did not immediately...

Politico claims that Gingrich sides with Obama on payroll tax, but he just emailed Rush and said he stands by the Republicans in the House. So why do conservatives ever give credibility to anything Politico writes?

It’s becoming all too predictable.As soon as a GOP presidential candidate gains traction in Iowa, the bright lights hit him/her and they melt down like a cheap candle. The latest to follow the pattern is, of course, Newt Gingrich. Just 15 days ago, we measured Newt with a robust 30 percent. But everyone—including the merry elves at We Ask America—warned that Gingrich could soon travail down the Newt Chute due to the cyclical habits exhibited by GOP frontrunners and the former Speaker’s penchant for provocative barbs.Sure enough, Gingrich appears to be fading badly, but those who have dumped him seem...

Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich was expecting to get two big endorsements in Des Moines Wednesday morning. But he likely didn't expect an outburst that lead to one protester being removed from the event. Kraig Paulsen, the Iowa Speaker of the House, and Bill O'Brien, his counterpart from New Hampshire, both endorsed Gingrich at the Statehouse. A few moments after Gingrich took the podium, a small group of protesters jumped up and tried to talk with the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. His security detail knocked one man into the American flag and pushed him out the...

In Partial Defense of Newt Gingrich December 21, 2011 11:15 A.M. By Ed Whelan I’ve vigorously criticized Newt Gingrich’s proposal to abolish judgeships, and I also agree with Andy McCarthy’s critique of Gingrich’s idea that Congress should subpoena federal judges (and arrest them, if necessary) to explain their rulings to members of Congress. That said, I think that some of Gingrich’s other ideas have been subjected to unfair attack, and I’d like to sketch a brief defense of them here: 1. Gingrich is correct to contest the myth of “judicial supremacy.” As his “white paper” explains, he is not challenging...

Newt Gingrich isn't exactly chasing the gay vote. The Republican presidential candidate told a homosexual Iowa man at a campaign event on Tuesday to vote for President Obama. Scott Arnold, a Democrat and associate professor of writing at William Penn University, approached the ex-House speaker in Oskaloosa wanting to know how Gingrich would represent him as President, according to the Des Moines Register.

Arab League condemns Gingrich's remarks on Palestinians Mr Gingrich has defended his claim that the Palestinians are an "invented" people... The Arab League has condemned the Republican US presidential contender, Newt Gingrich, for calling Palestinians an "invented" people and "terrorists". Mohammed Sobeih, who handles Palestinian affairs for the regional organisation, said the claims were racist...

Bombshell legal documents reveal the tawdry truth about GOP Presidential contender NEWT GINGRICH’s dark past – his father was a wife-beater, a wife cheater and perennial drunk! And in an even more shocking disclosure, Newt’s mother asserts in the explosive documents that she was battered by her husband while pregnant with the future Speaker of the House. Despite those horrific charges, insiders reveal that Newt forgave his dad and they became fast friends. Now sources say the 68-year-old White House contender’s close relationship with his vio­lent father is bound to ignite a new scandal because the veteran politician has been...

Candidate has already proved his high office credentials as House speaker Almost all political commentators agree on one thing: The Republican presidential campaign is unlike any we have experienced. It is not a campaign of steady trends and continuities, but rather of emotional reversals and discontinuities. Perhaps this is so because the past three or four years have been a shocking time of discontinuities and reversals for America. Really, America has been bewildered, shocked and disoriented since Sept. 11, 2001. The economic collapse and the unprecedentedly statist policies of the past three years have just compounded the anxiety. The rise...