Free Republic

Florence, South Carolina (CNN) – South Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor Ken Ard announced Tuesday that his vote in the state’s Saturday primary will be for GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Ard is the highest office-holder in the Palmetto State to back the longtime Georgia congressman and former House speaker....

[SNIP leading up to the "advice" from a former GW Bush adviser] ....A win in SouthCarolina will be overwhelming proof that Romney is just “right” enough to win the nomination. If that were to occur, Romney would have won in the conservative Midwest, the more liberal/independent Northeast and the conservative South. Perry, Santorum and Gingrich need a win, place or show in SouthCarolina to continue to Florida. ...The real question will be one for Gingrich to answer. If Gingrich doesn’t come in a close 2nd or 3rd in South Carolina, will he engage in a “scorched earth policy” that if...

Newt Gingrich's fluent, policy-rich performances in the early debates, laced with derision for the media's attempts to question the Republican candidates, propelled him to the front of the GOP pack in early December. His command of the stage here in Myrtle Beach for the 16th (yep, there have been that many, and the next is in Charleston on Thursday) could just be the lifeline he needs to achieve the task he has set himself - overcoming Mitt Romney's clear lead in the South Carolina polls to win the state on Saturday. Romney was under pressure over releasing his tax returns...

Frank Lunz was on the FOX Post Debate Analysis last night after South Carolina Debate. He made the statement that in 16 years of following Debates, that was the first time he'd ever seen a candidate get a Standing Ovation. Newt did not just get a Standing "O" from his supporters but, by-and-large from the entire crowd when he defended his comment about Barack Obama being the "Food Stamp President" and his stance on young Blacks needing a work ethic rather than government assistance. Newt didn't just "knock it out of the park" once last night. He "knocked it out...

The GOP Debate on FOX News will pit favorite Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich against each other for the first time since New Hampshire. As you know Jon Huntsman bowed out of the race earlier today. Bret Baier will moderate the debate.

If former House Speaker Newt Gingrich does the impossible and somehow defeats Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination, analysts will look back and say the upset was sparked Monday night at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. The knowledgeable, rhetorically gifted Newt Gingrich conservatives love showed up at the Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate and shook the house. Instead of shining by attacking Romney, he thrived by battling his old antagonists: the “elite” media and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Asked by debate co-moderator Juan Williams whether he could understand why his comments that “black Americans should demand jobs not food stamps”...

ATLANTA - Beverly LaHaye has endorsed Newt Gingrich for president and will be joining Gingrich Faith Leaders Coalition as a national co-chairwoman, along with her husband, Pastor Tim LaHaye, who joined last week. “It appears it will be between two front-runners, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. I have worked along beside Speaker Gingrich and know he has a history of being a strong conservative,” LaHaye said. “I have chosen to back him because he supports the key issues and values that I consider most important....

Juan Williams tried to pin Newt down over his “poor kids should be janitors” answer from some time ago, and tried to make it about race. Newt took the opportunity to own Williams over asking the question, and got a partial standing ovation for it in the end.

Newt Gingrich was as tough as nails, and deserved extra praise for not taking Juan Williams’s race-baiting. “No, I don’t see that.” Every person who believes in a color-blind society, especially tonight, ought to thank Newt for that. He then went on to show (again) he will be able to challenge President Barack Obama on nearly every fact and anecdote that could come up should they ever debate. The standing ovation he received was more than well deserved. To paraphrase a little: When he is right, he is great. The ongoing problem is when he is wrong. But tonight he...

Via BuzzFeed. Between this, the exchange with Ron Paul on Bin Laden, and the zinger about 99 weeks being an associate degree, I’m thinking he might have turned South Carolina from a solid Romney lead into a nailbiter. Has any candidate at any debate had the crowd more riled up than this? Here’s the bit with Williams plus, via Breitbart TV, the OBL question. I hope Juan is reporting this as an in-kind contribution to Gingrich 2012. Exit quotation from Tom Bevan of RCP: “Newt really is the Honey Badger.”

GOP Debate

ATLANTA — Politics loomed large over the ceremonies held Monday, the federal holiday marking what would've been the 83rd birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as black clergy, elected officials and others tied King's legacy to the 2012 presidential election. They urged African-Americans to re-elect President Barack Obama, and condemned voter identification laws they warned are meant to suppress black voter turnout in November....

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (CNN) - Newt Gingrich delivered a staunch warning to South Carolina conservatives Monday: "Any conservative who votes for anyone but Newt helps elect a moderate as the nominee." Gingrich was speaking to a tea party-friendly audience in South Carolina's Horry County when he painted presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney as unelectable in a general election. "Ask yourself this simple question: Why would you want to nominate the guy who lost to the guy who lost to Obama?" "The only reason [Romney] is electable right now is because he has raised more money from Wall Street to buy...

@6:38 - Santorum: This is the kind of outright lies and the hypocrisy that Gov. Romney is engaged in, not just with Newt Gingrich now but with anybody who stands in his way. You can get away with it, obviously, if you’ve got millions of dollars to spend and you go out there lying and people don’t hold you accountable. Well, we are. And let me assure you that everybody else in this race is going to start to do the same. @8:48 - Ingraham: Are you going to take the gloves at the debate tonight? Santorum: Laura you know...

Newt's Super PAC ad asks: Think you know Mitt?(Here's the Youtube link: Mitt Romney on Abortion, Judges, Parental Rights, and Our Teenage Daughters )

As the South Carolina primary nears, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has mounted a hard-nosed campaign to try to best front-runner Mitt Romney. In faceoffs in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gingrich finished in the back of the pack and is doing what he can to ensure Saturday's primary won't be his third poor showing, CNN reported. During the weekend, two conservative politicians in South Carolina -- U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and U.S. Rep. Tim Scott -- predicted that if Romney wins the state's primary, he will have effectively locked down the GOP nomination. The former House speaker has prepared every...

<p>A civil war is breaking out among evangelical leaders over allegations of a rigged election and ballot stuffing at a Saturday gathering of religious and social conservatives.</p> <p>At the meeting about 150 religious conservative activists at the Benham, Texas, ranch of Nancy and Paul Pressler, Rick Santorum supporters claimed the former Pennsylvania senator was chosen on the third ballot as the consensus candidate to try to stop Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.</p>

The latest Insider Advantage / Newsmax poll of likely South Carolina voters, taken on Sunday, shows Mitt Romney opening up a commanding 11-point lead… and that was before Jon Huntsman dropped out of the race and endorsed Romney. Hell, Huntsman’s still a point ahead of Rick Perry in this poll. Mitt Romney - 32 Newt Gingrich - 21 Ron Paul - 14 Rick Santorum – 13 Jon Huntsman – 6 Rick Perry – 5 Strangely, according to the poll breakdown, Newt Gingrich scored exactly zero among the youngest cohort of voters, ages 18-29. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were tied...

The link above presents videos where Newt expresses his admiration of FDR - makes me very uncomfortable that we're running to a progressive/means justifies ends from an extreme progressive... [Newt's site under] Praise for FDR When the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor threw the United States into a global war against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt rose to the challenge. He led the allies in a global war with remarkable skill and built the greatest military in history. Newt believes that without FDR’s leadership as Commander in Chief during World War II, the 20th...

'It's fair to ask the (Romney) questions right now...  We need to be sure the person we nominate is clear enough, public enough, accountable enough that they can withstand the Obama onslaught.   Otherwise, I'm afraid we'll nominate somebody in a soft process... only to watch them collapse in the fall.' And did anybody notice after Friday's InsiderAdvantage poll showed Newt gaining ground fast -now in a statistical dead heat- Reuters rushed out another on Saturday that put Mittens out-front by a demoralizing 21 points...? Just consider the methodology... online, with registered voters (vs. likely), and with as many Democrats as Republicans (!)- what...