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Duncan, S.C. After spending days locked in a bitter fight with some conservatives over his attacks on Mitt Romney as a corporate raider, Newt Gingrich made it clear tonight that he wants to change the topic and get back to attacking Romney from the right. Calling Romney "too liberal for South Carolina," Gingrich told reporters Friday evening that over the next few days there are "going to essentially be, I think, three themes" of his campaign. Gingrich then made the case against Romney on abortion, guns, and taxes: "The first is a clear contrast between the Romney record in Massachusetts...

Gingrich is a perverse product of political system byTimothy P. Carney Senior Political Columnist posted January 11, 2012 at3:26pm with26 Comments One reason to deplore our corrupt revolving-door politics and crony-corporatist economy is that it has produced a man like Newt Gingrich. Through his defenses of his pro-corporate welfare lobbying efforts and his facile attacks on Mitt Romney's profits, Gingrich has emerged this election as an enemy of the free market -- an unlikely distinction for a member of the Republican Party, which is supposed to stand for the free market. The pious preachments of liberal college professors, the foolhardy...

PPP Poll (SC): Romney 29%, Gingrich 24%, Paul 15%, Santorum 14%

Quelle horreur! Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has been skewered in a new political attack ad - for speaking French. The ad, released by rival Newt Gingrich, seeks to draw unflattering parallels between Mr Romney and another Massachusetts politician, John Kerry. Entitled The French Connection, it features a clip of Mr Romney talking in French when he ran the Winter Olympics. Video at link

Over the next week, we’re going to see a lot of polling in South Carolina, and note the consistencies and the differences between them, and Ramussen and ARG get us off to a good start today. Both polls released today show Mitt Romney in the lead, and both show Newt Gingrich in second place — but the two diverge at that point: Mitt Romney leads the South Carolina Republican presidential primary with 29%. Newt Gingrich is in second place with 25% and Ron Paul is in third place with 20%. Paul has gained the most and Rick Santorum has lost...

With Newt Gingrich breaking out of the pack as the conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney in South Carolina, he came under attack Friday from an old friend and colleague in Congress, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Santorum had largely avoided political attacks against Gingrich, whom he once considered a political mentor. But on Friday, the glove came off as Santorum took the former House speaker to task for being insufficiently conservative on climate change, free markets and health care. "Conservative alternatives don't go out and attack the capitalist system as he has done. Conservative alternatives don't promote...

From writing books, to creating, leading and sustaining National Review Magazine, to his 33-year run as the host of Firing Line on television, Bill Buckley became the indispensable intellectual advocate from whose energy, intelligence, wit, and enthusiasm the best of modern conservatism drew its inspiration and encouragement. It was not until William F. Buckley, Jr., founded National Review Magazine in 1955 that the tide began to slowly turn for conservatives. National Review was a lonely voice of conservatism in an overwhelmingly liberal establishment. Buckley began what led to Senator Barry Goldwater and his Conscience of a Conservative that led to...

Newt Gingrich has called on the Super-PAC funding a series of ads critical of Mitt Romney's job creation record at Bain Capital to fix inaccuracies in the ads or remove them from the air. “I am calling for the Winning Our Future Super-PAC supporting me to either edit its “King of Bain” advertisement and movie to remove its inaccuracies, or to pull it off the air and off the internet entirely," Gingrich said in a statement released Friday. “Furthermore, I am once again calling on Governor Romney to issue a similar call for the Super-PAC supporting him to edit or...

Newt Gingrich has called on the Super-PAC funding a series of ads critical of Mitt Romney's job creation record at Bain Capital to fix inaccuracies in the ads or remove them from the air. “I am calling for the Winning Our Future Super-PAC supporting me to either edit its “King of Bain” advertisement and movie to remove its inaccuracies, or to pull it off the air and off the internet entirely," Gingrich said in a statement released Friday. “Furthermore, I am once again calling on Governor Romney to issue a similar call for the Super-PAC supporting him to edit or...

If you are a conservative and believe in their principles, you may be upset with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Their vicious attacks on Mitt Romney and capitalism have been relentless, and the fallout is just beginning. Perry has lost a top supporter in Barry Wynn who hates the anti-capitalism rhetoric. Gingrich has garnered sharp criticism from Republican heavy weights like Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani.

Tim LaHaye​, an influential Evangelical leader and author of the best-selling Christian book series, Left Behind, and his wife Beverly, the founder of Concerned Women of America, have endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Their significant endorsement may signal other Evangelicals to unite behind Gingrich in South Carolina and beyond to defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential primary. “Now that the Republican Presidential Primary has wound down to two front runners who can win, I would like to publicly endorse the proven conservative speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as the most qualified candidate to become...

Bain Capital said Friday that it has invested $12 million in Edgar Online, a publicly traded data services company that helps businesses prepare regulatory filings in a new format that will be mandatory by 2012. As private equity firms slowly recover from the financial crisis, which had clamped down on the debt they need to make their deals, some are trying to make investments that don’t rely heavily on leverage. Among these transactions are public investments in private equity, known as PIPEs.

What Romney doesn't mention is that Steel Dynamics also received generous tax breaks and other subsidies provided by the state of Indiana and the residents of DeKalb County, where the company's first mill was built. The story of Bain and Steel Dynamics illustrates how Romney, during his business career, made avid use of public-private partnerships, something that many conservatives consider to be "corporate welfare." It is a commitment that carried over into his term as governor of Massachusetts, when he offered similar incentives to lure businesses to his state. Yet as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination, he emphasizes government's...

Like a lot of people, I was fairly startled by Mitt Romney’s new defense of his work at Bain: it was just like the auto bailout! “In the general election, I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins of General Motors and Chrysler, closed factories, closed dealerships, laid off thousands and thousands of workers. He did it to try to save the business,” Romney said on “CBS This Morning.” “We … had, on occasion, to do things that are tough to try to save a business.” The first thought is, didn’t Romney write an op-ed titled Let Detroit...

Instead of getting a bounce, Romney’s poll numbers are sinking in South Carolina. As I suggested, this ad attack is powerful. He’s followed it up by painting him as governing pro-abortion. Krauthammer is right — Romney’s got to show he can respond. If these attacks work in a Republican primary, imagine how effective Obama will find them in November. BTW, no signs yet that the negative ads are hurting Gingrich, either.

Wouldn't it be great if a Republican presidential candidate could just buy the support of just about every major conservative talk show host in America? Well, it may not be as far-fetched as you may think. Clear Channel owns more radio stations (850) than anyone else in the United States. They also own Premiere Radio Networks, the company that syndicates the radio shows of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, among others. Needless to say, Clear Channel basically owns conservative talk radio in the United States. So who owns Clear Channel? Well, it turns out that Bain Capital is...

Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the best-selling Christian book series “Left Behind,” and his wife, Beverly, plan to endorse Newt Gingrich’s bid for president, The Daily Caller has learned from three sources. The campaign learned of the endorsement from the influential Christian conservatives Thursday night, one source said. That person told TheDC that the campaign is “very encouraged” by it. (RELATED: Full coverage of Newt Gingrich’s campaign) LaHaye’s “Left Behind” series sold more than 63 million books. It’s the bestselling Christian fiction series in history, according to its website. LaHaye supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the 2008 Republican...

With Wall Street out of fashion this election season, can Mitt Romney fend off the attacks on his tenure at Bain Capital? Some GOP presidential rivals, especially Newt Gingrich, have laid into his private equity past, accusing him of "looting companies" and laying off workers. While those attacks may backfire now — conservatives have rallied to Romney's defense — they might work in the general election.

I don't know if it was always like this or if I am just noticing it this media cycle but it is just amazing how slanted RNME is in terms of their coverage of this race in favor of Mitt Romney. Romney is the only candidate who has seemed to escape any sort of vetting, RNME looks for reasons why you should vote for him as opposed to looking for reasons why not to vote for the other candidates and use intellectually dishonest arguments to promote him. On the vetting, have you noticed how the questions he receives are relative...

GREER, S.C.—Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday insisted he is "pro-life" and said he's raising the issue on the campaign trail to counter his rivals' attacks. "I understand that there are some attack ads coming my way that question" his commitment to life, Romney told reporters gathered at a motorcycle dealership in Greer, S.C. "Obviously it's important for me to remind people that I'm pro-life."