Free Republic

Leadership: A great debater. Politically polarizing. Prone to error, but also prone to spectacular success. Steeped in history. Politically brilliant. Unorthodox. Audacious. All these qualities were once used to describe Winston Churchill. Today, you might use the same words to describe Newt Gingrich. Sound absurd? Not when you think about it. Churchill, like Gingrich, was a brilliant politician with a powerful sense of the occasion. Sometimes prickly, often witty, but never dull, his career had lots of ups and downs — ranging from being blamed for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in World War I to being credited as the father...

Newt Gingrich won tonight’s debate, which he needed to do, but not because he out-maneuvered his opponents. Santorum and Romney were simply too focused on each other, with Paul tag-teaming alongside Romney (ambition makes strange bedfellows). All of this gave Gingrich cover and also gave him the opportunity to be the only candidate that directly and repeatedly went after Barack Obama. He looked like a statesman. His answer on infanticide and shifting the focus from GOP and birth control to Obama and his campaign against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was the rhetorical feat of the night.

Newt Gingrich didn’t have a game-changing moment in Wednesday night’s Arizona debate. But the former House speaker’s newest approach to the Republican presidential race — staying above the fray, avoiding attacks and focusing on the issues — proved to be a winner for him anyway. “Newt’s last two outings were disjointed and low-energy,” said Rick Wilson, a GOP strategist who is unaligned in the presidential race. “Tonight was markedly better.” But Gingrich had more ground to make up than the other candidates in Wednesday’s debate. More than his GOP rivals, Gingrich has used his debate performances — often marked by...

Newt Gingrich took debate moderator John King to task for asking the candidates about contraception. Gingrich said King and the rest of the "elite media" did not bother to ask the 2008 Democratic candidates about "infanticide."

Now that all of the candidates have been properly vetted it seems pretty clear to me that Newt is the most electable GOP candidate. That is not to say that he will have an easy time against Obama as historically it is very tough to unseat incumbents (it took a Reagan to beat the disastrous Carter and even then it was pretty close until the debate a week before the election) but he would have the best chance out of the current crop. Mitt Romney would do more to fracture the GOP than anyone else in recent history and much...

Newt 2012 announced that it will be purchasing 30 minute blocks of time in key cities between now and Super Tuesday to air a twenty-eight minute address by Newt Gingrich on the subject of lowering gasoline prices, creating jobs and achieving energy independence. “The answer to Governor Romney’s 30 second attack ads filled with garbage is a 30 minute address filled with substance,” says Gingrich Communications Director Joe DeSantis. “Newt’s message about lowering gasoline and other energy prices is resonating and the Obama administration is on defense over their policies hostile to American energy production, which are causing pain at...

In the past 10 years – since the Columbia tragedy led President Bush to retire the Space Shuttle – we have spent almost $150 billion on NASA and the civilian space program. We have spent additional money on defense aspects of a space program. Yet the United States currently has no way to launch a human being into space, other than buying seats from Russia

I recently made a private vow not to use the term “Israel Firster” again, for two reasons: it’s derogatory (and it was, initially, my vituperative response to being called “anti-Israel” by assorted neoconservative blowhards) and it’s inaccurate–most of those who are, I believe, unduly aggressive about Israel’s national security believe that the national security of Israel and the U.S. are identical. But how does one describe Sheldon Adelson, who says–tongue slightly in cheek, it seems–that he could spend $100 million to support Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign…and who also is known to have only one public policy issue on his agenda:...

GINGRICH: The President of the United States is patriotic in a worldview that involves the writing of Saul Alinsky, and involves a radical reinterpretation. Clearly, his czars were unconstitutional; clearly, his recess appointments, when there was no recess, is unconstitutional; clearly, the use of the U.S. attorney in North Dakota to selectively prosecute oil companies over eight migratory birds is unconstitutional. Again and again, this is a president who routinely only obeys those laws he personally deems fit. I think that his attack on the Catholic Church is unconstitutional. It's a violation of the First Amendment. Now, I think that's...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will hold a town hall-style forum in Spokane on Thursday, Spokane County Republican Chairman Matthew Pederson confirmed. Details will be released later today, he said. Gingrich is the third GOP presidential hopeful to make a stop in the Inland Northwest. Rick Santorum spoke in Coeur d'Alene last week and Ron Paul held a rally at the Spokane Convention Center on Friday. Mitt Romney's son will visit Spokane Valley this afternoon. Gingrich, despite being from Georgia, has noteworthy ties to Inland Northwest politics that he may or may not dwell on in his visit....

Newt tells it like it is. If this is under the wrong category, mod please move for me. Great, truthful words.

GINGRICH: No. It just means that we're going to have to pick up all those delegates in late May, just before the California primary, when we hope to pick up more delegates out here. That still means that on super-Tuesday, we're looking at Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, we're looking at Ohio. It means the week after super- Tuesday, we're looking at Alabama and Mississippi. Now, we have hopes that we're going to keep picking up delegates everywhere and continue. This race is going on for a long time, I think. And what Texas moving back means, combined with California being in...

Rick Santorum made an odd comment in North Dakota on Wednesday. Praising the state for its energy production, he warned his audience that its success in the field might lead to terrorist attacks. CNN reports: Rick Santorum warned a quiet North Dakota audience Wednesday that their state’s booming oil industry positioned the region as a prime target for terrorism. “Folks, you’ve got energy here. They’re going to bother you

Pop quiz: Which Republican presidential candidate supported the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor? Hint: It’s the same one who endorsed a pro-abortion-rights presidential candidate in an earlier campaign. Give up? The answer is Rick Santorum. Santorum was rightly known as a conservative firebrand during his 12 years in the Senate, but the 1998 confirmation vote for Sonia Sotomayor to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals was a notable exception, and so was his endorsement of Arlen Specter’s bid for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination

Hang on to your hats folks! this election could go on for quite sometime. "Gingrich planners projected that with only 396 delegates chosen in March, no clear frontrunner is likely to emerge until Texas (155 delegates on April 3) and there too the endorsement and help of Gov. Perry is to their advantage." It is a long and winding road until any candidate wins over 1,000 delegates needed to become the nominee. Read more on Newsmax.com: Evans: How Gingrich Wins the GOP Nomination

In 2008 when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Listen in this video how Santorum passionately endorsed and elevated Mitt in his bid for the Oval Office.) Just three years ago in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans: “If you’re a conservative, if you’re a Republican, there is only one place to go, and that’s Mitt Romney.”

No one can say they don’t know what Newt Gingrich will do after his inauguration. He’s got big plans… He pledged to have a full list of his proposed executive orders and presidential findings published online by October, so that every voter will know exactly what they’re getting. He wants every Republican candidate to campaign with him on a pledge to hit the next Congress in a monster jam session that repeals the job-killing centralized corruption of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley by the time he’s sworn in… … and that’s just an appetizer. Within two hours of plopping his Dilbert...

Sarah Palin blasted the political establishment Sunday, saying many elected lawmakers, Republicans included, haven't done enough to cut government and spending. But asked by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace who specifically she considers part of this elite class of her party, mentioning specifically House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, she demurred. "I consider anyone part of the establishment, those who today are fighting to keep the status quo," Palin said. "Those who are allowing government to grow , who are allowing the president that plastic credit card that’s increasing debt and they are not engaging in...

Three-quarters of Georgia’s likely GOP primary voters are evangelical Christians and half are “very conservative” -- and they heavily favor Newt Gingrich, according to a Mason-Dixon Poll conducted for the Georgia Newspaper Partnership, of which the Ledger-Enquirer is a member. In addition to evangelical Christians and very conservative voters, Gingrich especially appeals to rural voters, residents of north Georgia, those with less than a college education and those with incomes below $50,000. Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/02/12/1929776/georgia-presidential-primary-poll.html#storylink=cpy

ROANOKE, VA -- The Virginia Attorney General's office is investigating the campaign of Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, over claims of ballot signature fraud. At the end of December, Gingrich told CNN that the reason he did not qualify for the Virginia primary, is because one of the people his campaign hired falsified a lot of signatures. The attorney general's office tells WSLS that the State Board of Elections asked it to investigate the claim. A spokesman for the attorney general's office emphasized that the investigation is not looking into Gingrich himself.