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A couple of polls came out from Public Policy Polling this weekend showing that Santorum seems to be replacing Newt Gingrich as the main "not Romney" candidate in Minnesota and Colorado. There seems to be a desire to "give another conservative a chance" as well as to potentially field a candidate without as much baggage as Newt so that Mitt Romney's negative ad carpet bombing will not be as effective. I think though that this reasoning is fallacious and switching support from Newt to Santorum at this point would be a major mistake. Let's just look at what I believe...

Sometime late last night or early this morning Eastern time, the final results in Nevada were released: Romney........16,486......51.1% Gingrich......6,959.......21.1% Paul..........6,175.......18.8% Santorum......3,277.......10.0% Romney came in with a 1% lower percentage of the vote than in 2008, but more significantly, both Romney’s actual number of votes and Republican participation in the caucuses was way down from 2008. Over 44,000 votes were cast in 2008 to just under 33,000 in 2012. Romney received 22,646 votes in 2008 versus 16,486 in 2012. Spin away.

First, he called Adelson to convince him to stop adding financial support of Gingrich via his SuperPAC. When that didn’t work, he piled on some more of his own money, and those who fund the SuperPacs advocating on his behalf or at least slamming his competitors. When that didn’t work, some shills in the press dropped the conspicuous rumor that Newt’s “…hold a press conference after the Nevada Caucus on Saturday, raising new speculation about his future in the race,” implying he would get out Saturday evening. This was solely to try to undermine the vote in Nevada in Romney’s...

Upon further review, the only trait that Santorum has of being the good son is his resentment, while he falls woefully short in the purity of goodness department. And by short of purity, I mean simply applying Santorum's own standards for judging Newt's and Mitt's conservatism. By his very own standards, the former Senator from Pennsylvania has some 'splainin' to do. To be sure, the only reason Santorum has gotten away with this is that no one has taken his candidacy seriously enough to bother to look. He has not been above the fray. He has been off to the...

In a meeting room at the Palazzo hotel in Las Vegas over the past week, Newt Gingrich mapped out a detailed strategy that would keep him in the presidential race all the way to the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., in August. The crux of the former House speaker's new plan is math: a complex analysis of each state's delegates, how they're awarded and how many, reasonably, Gingrich can expect to win... The winning candidate needs 1,144 delegates to claim the nomination..... Gingrich's team has studied the convoluted rules. Using targeted phone lists and targeted mail and focusing on more...

Gingrich: Goal is to get to Super TuesdayBy Erik Wasson - 02/05/12 11:05 AM ET GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Sunday that following his loss in the Nevada caucuses to Mitt Romney this weekend, his campaign is betting on the March 6 Super Tuesday primaries. “Our goal is to get to Super Tuesday where we are in much more favorable territory,” Gingrich said on NBC's Meet the Press. He said prospects look good in Georgia and Tennessee on that day as well as for Alabama on March 13 and Texas on April 3. “By the time Texas is over,...

LAS VEGAS — Newt Gingrich is wooing NASCAR voters. As he charts a possible course to the Republican nomination, aides say Gingrich will paint frontrunner Mitt Romney as the candidate of the PGA golf tour while the former House speaker pursues the blue collar mantle of Dale Earnhardt. It’s a strategy that exploits the class warfare Gingrich professes to oppose. Still, it could pay dividends once the GOP race again swings South. Gingrich sees delegate-rich Texas as a firewall in April. But he must slog through more than 30 contests before that....

Instead, if Mr. Romney loses the nomination, it is likely to be because of the one region that has yet to give him a victory: the Midwest. A contiguous block of eight swing states containing 95 electoral votes — Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — determine the winners and losers in most presidential elections. When at least six or seven of these states are added to the state bases of the Democratic or Republican candidate, he or she is all but guaranteed a victory. (Barack Obama won seven of them in 2008). Only when they are...

Ann Coulter, the columnist who just defended RomneyCare, told Bret Baier that the Tea Party would prove they are hypocrites if they vote for the candidate who “influence peddled” at Freddie Mac: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO It’d be one thing if she were saying this as a supporter of Santorum, but Romney? C’mon.

MONTROSE, CO - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took a new jab at Newt Gingrich, saying he wants to "endanger" the former Speaker. The dig came during a campaign rally in Montrose, CO., as Santorum railed against the federal government's environmental regulations. "These are your lands! Oh but they always say we're doing it for your benefit," Santorum decried. "We'll make sure that you don't do something to scar the land or you don't do something to endanger a newt. No not that Newt, different newt. I want to endanger that Newt - that's a different story." The line drew...

Before the results from the Nevada caucuses came in, there were lots of rumors that Newt Gingrich would drop out of the race. But in an unusual post-caucus news conference, the former House speaker made it clear he has no intention of giving up the possibility of being the presidential nominee. No matter how slim. “I am a candidate for president of the United States, I will be a candidate for president of the United States,” Gingrich said. “We will go to Tampa.” He accused Romney’s campaign of starting “the rumor that they believe I will withdraw, which is of...

Mitt Romney won last night’s Nevada caucus. It’s no shocker: he took the state by 51 percent in 2008 and it’s packed full of Mormons. But the media is predicting a sunny spring for Mr Romney, with likely victories across February. By Super Tuesday in March, he could have enough momentum to knock out Gingrich and claim the nomination. Newt was not happy with the result. During his concession speech, he lashed out at his opponent's "shameless untruths" and the media's willingness to promote them. He left the podium with a smile. Gingrich lost the Nevada caucus but won his...

Mitt’s money. Newt’s lunar landing. Rick’s abortion advice. Ron’s rip-it-all-up rhetoric. Followers of America’s Republican primary contest could easily conclude that the adults have left the political playground. And with unrefereed mud wrestling matches set to roll across the country until summer, it’s a sure bet that no candidate will be coming out as Mr. Clean. It’s a far cry from the pundits’ prediction for a short sharp contest, with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (“Senor Smooth”) felling former House speaker Newt Gingrich (“Mr. Mean”) in a round or two, and Pennsylvania hopeful Rick Santorum (“The Saint”) flat on the...

-Newt AND Santorum stay in and get as many delegates as they can until 1 April, while we have proportional primaries. - 1 April there are more winner take all primaries so the one with the most delegates stays in, second place drops out. - Second place is promised VP. An alliance is better than an endorsement. This is the path the victory. Without my plan Romney is nominee. Santorum's delegates will ignore any endorsement and vote for Romney - especially the married women. An alliance, on the other hand is much different...

Raleigh, N.C. – It looks like Mitt Romney is headed for a decisive victory in the Florida primary tonight, but beyond the Sunshine State, he has more work to do to wrap things up. Newt Gingrich still looks pretty strong in Missouri and Ohio, but the candidate with the greatest potential to challenge Romney, in the Midwest at least, is Rick Santorum. Santorum is by far the best liked of the four remaining candidates in these two states. And not only does he do well in the horseraces, but if the race is winnowed to him and Romney, he would...

Newt Gingrich’s post–Nevada caucus speech included about three minutes of inspired moments about issues and ideas in his usual imaginative and intellectually robust style. So why does he not just stay with that — given that he often seems more dynamic and glib than Romney in his attacks on Obama, and not long ago gained ground despite the attacks against him? Instead, he now turns ad nauseam to the tired reasons why he loses — yes, including lots of Mormons in Nevada — and ends up as Richard Nixon not going to get kicked around any more. But whether he...

I’ll post the Nevada results later. Romney won big there in 2008 (51.1%) because of the heavy Mormon turnout at the caucuses and is expected to do so again. The big story was the revelation in The NY Times that the Romney campaign, both directly and through Jewish emissaries, has been trying to convince Sheldon Adelson to cut off further funding of a pro-Newt SuperPAC:

Here is complete video of a combative Newt Gingrich holding a Press Conference tonight after finishing a distant second or third (still unclear) in the Nevada GOP Caucuses. Gingrich said he is going to stay in the GOP Presidential Race until the end – all the way to the Convention in August. He predicted he will be back as the frontrunner by the time of the Texas Primary (April 3), and plans to focus on March 6 Super Tuesday states in the weeks ahead. Gingrich slammed Mitt Romney over and over again, calling him “fundamentally dishonest,” and saying he has...

Those who continue to believe that Romney can be stopped are focused — as is the campaign of Newt Gingrich — on the possibility of a long delegate fight. They have largely given up hope of anyone winning a knockout victory over Romney, hoping instead that some other candidate can prevent the former Massachusetts governor from wrapping the race up before the Republican National Convention, which is set for Tampa, Fla., in late August. “We have never gone through a delegate fight like this,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential conservative and the head of the Iowa-based Family Leader organization....

– The Newt Gingrich campaign held a meeting with approximately 60 donors Friday in Las Vegas, including casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a source with knowledge of the session told CNN. Gingrich, who attended the meeting, had a brief discussion with Adelson at the session, the source said. The long-time friends are legally barred from speaking about the Adelson family's $11 million contributions to the super PAC supporting Gingrich's White House bid.