Free Republic

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said Tuesday that he plans to start campaigning in North Carolina next week ahead of the state's May 8 GOP presidential primary. He talked by phone with staff writer Rob Christensen about his prospects, his differences with the other candidates, and his hopes for a brokered convention. "Look, Sen. Santorum voted against the right to work law. He voted for every minimum wage increase. He actually offered a minimum wage increase of 21 percent himself. He voted consistently for Davis-Bacon to help big labor and increased the cost of construction for every local...

Newt Gingrich held A Town Hall style event at Louisiana Tech Student Center, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana.

To my friends who are Rick and Mitt supporters – we have already agreed to disagree. Please respect my opinion. I’m furious. Negative ads, establishment vitriol, media bias, media blackouts – all of these factors have helped push Newt into third place. It is nearly impossible for Newt to win – in the delegate count, but Newt can still win! How, you ask? By making sure that nobody wins in the delegate count! As long as nobody gets the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination on the first ballot, Newt can win. In fact, he would be the...

That cheery, DIY effort masks a different campaign, one that is slowly expiring in all the usual ways of terminal campaigns at the end-stage: cash is running low, supporters are griping about not getting paid and aides are valiantly trying to convince themselves as much as the press that, really, there is a path forward.......To a degree rarely seen in presidential politics, Gingrich is his own strategist, scheduler and press secretary.“He makes the decisions about 99.9 percent of the campaign,”.........“They never build any structure to live past the next state,” complained one GOP strategist who advised Gingrich in one key...

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With both President Obama and his chief strategist David Axelrod attacking Newt’s $2.50 gas plan this weekend, it is worthwhile to take a look at who is really trying to sell the American people “snake oil.” President Obama has been traveling the country making demonstrably false excuses for his failures on energy policy. To borrow a line from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, “I won’t attribute motivations…I’ll just say that anybody who says these things doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” “WE’RE DRILLING ALL OVER” FALSE: “Do not tell me that we’re not drilling. We’re drilling all over this...

On Saturday, March 3, Romney stood with Santorum and Gingrich on the floor of a shuttered DHL warehouse in Wilmington, Ohio, ....The three candidates discussed the nominating process. Romney raised the possibility of an unvetted candidate getting into the race and spoke of the perils such a scenario presented for the party. Not surprisingly, the other two assented and each agreed that he would reserve his support for someone now in the race. R.C. Hammond, a spokesman for Gingrich, said the consensus that emerged from the conversation was that the Republican nominee was among “the four of us” and not...

A brokered convention is more plausible this year than it has been for a generation, as the fight drags on for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. The scenario leaves many GOP insiders petrified of the damage the party could suffer. Yet some dissenting voices insist there would be a silver lining to the cloud. They hold out the possibility of a convention of such drama and intrigue that it would energize party activists and mesmerize the broader public. “It could turn into a free-for-all, and be somewhat unseemly, and no-one wants that,” Keith Appell, a Republican strategist who is not...

Turnout for the GOP Primary in Puerto Rico higher than expected. It helps that the local parties are having their own primaries, and you just walk from the local to the GOP primary next door. As they didn't have many election officials (only one at my voting station), people were voting openly right there at or near the registration desk. I saw a lot of Santorums and Gingrichs, but not a one Romney - the heavily favored PR GOP establishment candidate.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1989, Rick Santorum and a fellow associate at the Pittsburgh law firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart left work to drive to Three Rivers Stadium for the firm's annual softball game. Sitting behind the wheel, Santorum popped in a tape, and on came the reedy voice of a man lecturing as if to a classroom. “Listen,” Santorum said. “Newt Gingrich.” “Who the hell is Newt Gingrich?” the co-worker asked. Santorum explained that Gingrich was a congressman from Georgia, and that he was the guy to listen to if you were considering a future in politics. “At the...

The Problem as I see it with Romney is that he will be such a mediocre President that even if he does win he will be so middle of the road as to “not upset the apple cart” that the economy will not bloom and then in 4 years it will assure that the democrats take back power on the whole meme that the “economy didn’t recover”. Not to mention any GOP president is going to be so damned hated no matter how “moderate” they are. Mittens will get so damned gun shy that he will be ineffective and the...

I am writing as a Newt supporter so there are bound to be many who will disagree with my assessments; but these are my personal opinions with little room for argument. Here are the reasons why Newt should stay put: 1. Santorum v. Obama, the best we can do? I thought the number one goal for most people here is to beat Obama, i.e., ABO, not ABR (anybody-but-Romney). It makes sense for us to rally behind a candidate ONLY IF that candidate is the best we can muster to match up with Obama, not because he is the current non-Romney...

Along with the realization that Conservatives can win in a Conservative-leaning country, comes the ugly truth that the “establishment” Republican apparatus is – just like the Chicago politician – more concerned with maintaining power and “selecting” candidates than doing the hard work of administering to a bottom-up organization – such as the Republican Party was chartered to be. Today’s Republican establishment is, for all practical purposes, a mirror (or converse) image of the Democrat Party; an organization structured from the top-down. This power-hoarding of the hierarchy is evidenced by the ridiculous move to award convention delegates proportionately, a move more...

The Rev. Franklin Graham says President Barack Obama has “given Islam a pass,” including ignoring atrocities against Christians in the Muslim world — so much so that the evangelist says he cannot “categorically” say Obama is not a Muslim. In a stunning interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, the renowned Christian leader and son of the Rev. Billy Graham expressed shock that Obama was doing little to protect Christians across the Muslim world against a wave of persecution.

Mar 15, 2012 Newt Gingrich Says Illinois Primary ‘Largely Will Be Romney, Santorum’ ELGIN, Ill.–After two days of campaigning in Illinois, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told reporters that he believes the race in Illinois “largely will be Romney and Santorum.” A poll last week from the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV, showed Gingrich at 12 percent support in the state, while Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were neck and neck, with Romney at 35 percent and Santorum at 31 percent. Illinois congressman and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who endorsed Romney for president, told reporters on a fly-around of the...

I have known Newt Gingrich for 27 years, beginning at a time when he was relatively obscure except to C-SPAN devotees who saw him chronically criticizing the majority leadership in the U.S. house of representatives (he was a minority backbencher). That continued to the Republicans’ surprise upset victory (much of it designed by him) in the 1994 elections which led to him being elected speaker of the house, and then to his resignation four years later, followed by a decade-long career in speaking, creating public policy think tanks and authoring and co-authoring numerous books on American history. Mr. Gingrich is...

To Newt Gingrich’s profound joy, the White House has continued to tangle with him over his promise to bring gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon, giving a sort of shout-out to his struggling campaign and a little weight to his contention that only he can go toe-to-toe with the president. Without mentioning Gingrich, Obama said: “There is no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to high gas prices. There’s no silver bullet. ... The president also mocked “a lot of the folks who are running for a certain office -- who shall go unnamed” -- for...

Newt Gingrich demanded Friday that Mitt Romney stop the barrage of TV attack ads that badly damage him and Rick Santorum each time they seemed poised to make big strides in the GOP presidential race. Admitting to Louisiana voters that he can't match Romney and a pro-Romney super PAC in fundraising, Gingrich repeated a plea that thus far the front-running Romney has ignored. "I challenge Gov. Romney and his super PAC to pledge to take every negative ad about every Republican off the air, because it dishonors them, it weakens the Republican Party, and it helps Barack Obama," Gingrich told...

The wife of a close friend of mine returned from lunch with an older, female, Tea Party supporter and immediately had to tell me all about it. “She was 100% a Santorum supporter,” my friend’s wife said. I of course am fascinated by this, so I couldn’t wait to find out two things. “Why?” and, “Did she stay that way?” You see, my friend’s wife is a no nonsense, salt of the earth, Catholic Tea Party heroine. She’s one of those women without whom the Early West would have ended up as a an American version of Afghanistan. You know,...

FAVORABLE (first)VS UNFAVORABLE(second): Barack Obama 50%, 47% The Democratic Party 48%, 44% Mitt Romney 39%, 49% The Republican Party 39%, 52% Ron Paul 35%, 44% Rick Santorum 35%,47% Tea Party Movement 30%, 51% Newt Gingrich 23%, 67%