Free Republic

New Ad by Gingrich Super-Pac

Philip Klein calls it the best anti-RomneyCare ad of the cycle. I agree. And thanks to the largesse of Newt’s billionaire buddy Sheldon Adelson, this one’s going on the air in Florida with a $6 million ad buy — so huge that WaPo political blogger Aaron Blake calls it “game-changing.” In fact, despite Newt’s post-South Carolina windfall of campaign cash, it sounds like his Super PAC will be doing the heavy organizational lifting from now on:

Mods, please remove if double post. Safe Link. http://htpolitics.com/2012/01/24/gingrich-greeted-by-large-boisterous-crowd-in-sarasota/ Newt Gingrich brought his rising campaign to Sarasota today, filling half of a hangar at Dolphin Aviation with an enthusiastic, flag-waving crowd that cheered his often harsh critiques of President Barack Obama. “He doesn’t operate on the same planet as you and I do,” Gingrich said about the president, who will deliver his fourth State of the Union address tonight. Joe Gruters, the Sarasota Republican Party chairman, said some 4,700 tickets had been requested for the event. Gingrich said the crowd was indicative of the “grassroots, insurgency campaign against the establishment”...

With contributions coming in, allies of Newt Gingrich have just purchased $6 million in advertising in Florida, to further build up the former House Speaker after his victory in South Carolina. The first ad labels Romney as "the inventor of government run health care" suggesting he is allied with President Obama. The ad is paid for by "Winning Our Future," a "super PAC" aligned with Gingrich. The organization has received $10 million in donations from one couple, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who have backed Gingrich since they met him in 1995 when legislation important to Israel passed the House.

Washington (CNN) -- Newt Gingrich might have led Republicans to their first House majority in 40 years in the 1990s, but the prospect of the former House Speaker becoming their presidential nominee is producing significant GOP angst. "If he's the nominee, it's a disaster. There is no way to sugar-coat it," said one GOP congressional strategist describing the tension after Gingrich won South Carolina. "There is a reason most people who know him best aren't supporting him," said a former House colleague still serving in Congress. Asked why he had endorsed opponent Mitt Romney if he had served with Gingrich...

Rasmussen conducted a national poll of 1,000 likely Republican primary voters yesterday, and it confirmed what Gallup’s tracking poll also shows — Newt Gingrich’s second boomlet is for real. In the Rasmussen poll, Gingrich has vaulted to a seven-point lead as Romney settles back into the mid-20s: After his game-changing win in South Carolina, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich continues to ride his surge to the front of the pack among likely Republican primary voters nationwide. He now leads Mitt Romney by seven points. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters shows Gingrich with 35%...

Gallup Daily Tracking

Tampa, Florida (CNN) - Newt Gingrich reached his $2 million goal Monday morning, mostly through an online 'money bomb' fundraising push, press secretary R.C. Hammond said. The campaign kicked off its latest fundraising boost on Saturday after the former House speaker's decisive win in South Carolina. Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker

I watched the beginning of the NBC debate last night but had to wait until today to actually watch/listen to the whole thing.  The talking heads seem to be talking mostly about how Newt didn't do as well as in previous debates because NBC made the audience be silent.  While it is true that he didn't have any rabble rousing memorable moments like in last week's Fox News debate, I would argue that he will benefit the most from this debate for the following reasons: 1.  Santorum was a non-entity.  Because NBC was trying to get Newt and Romney to...

South Carolina represents the heart of the conservative movement because its Republican voters are fierce fiscal and social conservatives, which means they fervently support the Tea Party and evangelicals. These voters are now popularly referred to as “Teavangelicals” and, predictably, dominated the Palmetto State’s primary. According to exit polling from Saturday’s first-in-the-South primary, 64 percent of those who voted in the GOP primary in South Carolina supported the Tea Party and another 27 percent were neutral. Only 8 percent opposed. In addition, 65 percent of primary voters were “Born-Again or Evangelical Christian.” What happened in South Carolina is important for...

Gingrich 35%    Romney 28    Santorum 16    Paul 10  Well, that happened quite a bit quicker than I expected- Newt out 7 points on Mittens nationally.  If you missed it, Gallup already had the Former House Speaker hypothetically in a statistical dead-heat with Obama, too... maybe he's 'electable' after all, eh. And another thing you hear from the other side is stuff about Newt’s considerable ego and ‘megalomaniac’, etc. Well, consider this: the ball is REALLY teed up for any who’d like to be a conservative hero of all time… think about it. The opportunity is right there,...

Allen West, in discussing what the Republican Party needs to do to get black voters into the Republican party, was asked which presidential candidate has the conservative principles to help turn the tide of high unemployment in the black community, and he was quick to point out that despite those on the left accusing Newt of race-baiting, he believes that Newt is the one who is diagnosing the problem well and is trying to open a dialogue with the black community by offering to speak before the NAACP.

Popular former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is predicting that the makeup of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s inner circle of advisers, which includes several strategists who ran former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s ill-fated Senate campaign against conservative standard-bearer Marco Rubio, will hurt Romney’s image with Florida voters. In an exclusive Newsmax interview Monday evening, McCollum said Sunshine State voters “will not be favorably inclined to that, because most Republican primary voters in Florida know that Charlie Crist flopped on them. He went over to the Democrats’ side … it just wasn’t the same Charlie Crist they thought they’d elected.”...

CNN reported back in 1999 that Newt’s college course that the Democrats tried to make hay out of in saying it was a major ethics violation was vindicated and proved legitimate by the IRS:

Newt then: I supported Rockefeller over GoldwaterNewt now: I supported GoldwaterDrudge had this up on the frontpage earlier today, but now it's gone. Still in the cache though:

NASHVILLE — State legislators leading Newt Gingrich's Republican presidential campaign have returned from a weekend trip to South Carolina saying the former U.S. House speaker will be poised to repeat his Palmetto State victory in the Volunteer State. "We wanted to see how we're dovetailing (in Tennessee) with what they were doing in South Carolina," said state Rep. Tony Shipley, R-Kingsport. "I can say now that Team Tennessee is ahead of where South Carolina was on election night. We're going to shock people when we roll out our ground game." "It was electrifying," said Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, of the...

He [Rubio] and Gingrich have known each other for years. The freshman senator brought a photo of the former House speaker to his Washington office. And Gingrich wrote the forward to Rubio's book, "100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future." Rubio wrote it before taking office as Florida House speaker. Gingrich has called the book "a work of genius." Rubio's personal friend and political ally, fellow Cuban-American U.S. Rep. David Rivera, is backing Gingrich. Rubio's former Senate campaign chief Jose Mallea is running Gingrich's Florida campaign. Rubio and Gingrich both will address the Hispanic Leadership Network's conference in Miami on Friday.

It appears that, bushy haired Chris Rock doesn’t like Newt Gingrich; or at least being asked questions about him. Maybe it was the fact that it was 4AM? As part of the Sundance festivities Rock was at a late night event at Tao when he was unexpectedly hit with a bunch of political questions. The New York Post reports, “A guy walked up to Chris and his entourage and said, ‘Hey, could I get a photo of you with my girlfriend? When rock turned around there was a video camera in his face, and someone asking him about Newt Gingrich....

Romney Takes It To Gingrich At Outset of Florida Debate Mitt Romney dropped the gloves within minutes of the outset of tonight's Republican presidential debate, assailing main rival Newt Gingrich as an unreliable conservative who could embarrass the GOP. The former Massachusetts governor, who suffered a 12-point loss just last Saturday to Gingrich in the South Carolina primary, went aggressively after Gingrich at the very top of tonight's NBC News/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times debate — reflecting his effort to halt any momentum Gingrich carries into Florida's Jan. 31 primary. "The speaker was given the opportunity to be the leader of...

Even with the major distraction of a Republican presidential primary, tonight’s State of the Union speech will guaranteed to, however briefly, capture the undivided attention of all political junkies. They’re not wrong: The annual tradition does matter. And yet the conventional wisdom about the importance of the speech tends to be almost exactly backwards. You can see the typical press approach in the New York Times preview of the speech earlier this week. The piece is almost entirely focused on Barack Obama’s strategies to win the American public to his side; we’re told that he’s expected to “dra[w] a stark...