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 and Ron Paul's slim hopes of winning the Republican presidential nomination depend primarily on their ability to triumph at a contested convention in August. The idea is that if front-runner Mitt Romney falls short of the 1,144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination outright before the convention, his rivals will seize the opportunity to win over the Republican faithful during the convention process. That long-shot strategy depends on Gingrich and Paul actually getting on the convention ballot. And it now appears that may be a problem. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution has noticed a little-known rule - No. 40(b),...

Rick Santorum makes an excellent point that “past performance really does indicate future results.” I completely agree—but not just “in Mitt Romney’s case.” Rick Santorum became the third-highest ranking Republican in the Senate in 2001 at a time when Republicans inherited balanced budgets, surpluses, and conservative, pro-life majorities. Senator Santorum and his big spending GOP allies proceeded to squander this inheritance. The leadership of the Rick Santorum Republicans proved disastrous: * The Rick Santorum Republicans never passed a single balanced budget, after inheriting balanced budgets and record surpluses. They racked up $1.7 trillion in deficits and increased the average number...

There are good reasons for Mr. Obama’s discomfort. First is the almost immediate hit to the president’s popularity when gasoline prices go up. Rightly or wrongly, Americans hold him accountable. In fact, the president is vulnerable on this topic. He has consistently portrayed fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas as energy products of the past while expressing an almost unimaginably naïve optimism about the potential of alternatives. His attachment to high-cost “green” energy has played well with environmentalists but for most of the country – the roughly 50% not concerned about global warming -- it is increasingly...

SHREVEPORT, La. - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich talks to the press tonight in Shreveport about his plan for reducing energy prices. The candidate for the GOP nomination will respond to President Obama's criticism of his $2.50 gas and energy plan. Gingrich's campaign says he will also outline his American energy plan to lower gas prices, create jobs and make the United States energy independent. Gringrich has scheduled a campaign stop Tuesday at Strawn's Eat Shop Too at 1643 East 70th Street. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends an hour later.

The Newt Gingrich presidential campaign is taking on more of a marathoner’s pace to accompany its insistence that Gingrich plans to see the Republican nomination contest through to the August convention... Monday...Gingrich convened about 15 top campaign advisers outside Washington, D.C., to examine the months ahead... before flying to Louisiana, where he plans to spend the week campaigning ahead of Saturday’s primary. ...Gingrich [has] endured a fresh round of calls for him to exit the race – Gingrich has said that if he felt Santorum could defeat Romney – and President Barack Obama – one-on-one, he would gladly step aside,...

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community.” Newt Gingrich “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since...

Dear Rooster (that's my cat...he's a big Newt fan and supporter), Newt's senior adviser Randy Evans was on CNN this week explaining the delegate math that he outlined in his recent strategy memo . The bottom line is that halftime of the Republican nomination process is the Louisiana primary on March 24. Despite what the Romney campaign, the Washington Establishment, and the elite media want you to believe, this race is far from over. With no candidate remotely close to 1,144 delegates, the magic number needed to secure the nomination, the nomination will not be decided until the fourth quarter....

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...

Some conservative Republicans have called for Gingrich to drop out of the race on the assumption that conservative primary voters would then unite behind Santorum as the conservative alternative to the more moderate Romney. But Gallup data indicate that Gingrich voters would not be likely to coalesce behind Santorum, suggesting that factors other than candidate ideology may be attracting voters to Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney. Gallup can simulate Republican preferences without Gingrich in the race by removing Gingrich votes and reassigning them to his voters' second-choice candidate. The results of this procedure suggest that national GOP preferences would change little...

Gingrich Forges Ahead As A Spoiler By Daniel Malloy and Katie Leslie The Atlanta Journal-Constitution CHICAGO -- Newt Gingrich has unabashedly taken on the role of spoiler in the Republican presidential nomination contest, as a pair of losses in Tuesday’s Deep South primaries cemented his position on the margins of the race. (snip) Appearing on a radio show Wednesday morning in Chicago, Gingrich talked about the results in Alabama and Mississippi -- where he came in second to former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania -- as if he and Santorum were a kind of conservative tag team. “Between the...

LAKE IN THE HILLS ..Newt Gingrich laid out plans Thursday for how the United States can again see $2.50 a gallon gasoline and create jobs in America. ......“If we become the No. 1 supplier of oil in the world, and we are independent on energy, we can say to the Saudis, ‘Your period of subsidizing terrorism is over,’” Gingrich said. He said drilling for oil in the U.S. could put trillions of dollars into the federal government’s coffers that could help pay down the debt... “When I was speaker, we balanced the budget for four years, and when Santorum was...

AUSTIN — Mitt Romney missed another chance Tuesday to diminish the importance of the May 29 presidential primary in Texas. Romney could have taken a big step toward the GOP nomination with victories in Mississippi and Alabama, but he finished third in each state behind Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Those losses renewed questions about Romney’s support among the Republican base. Set aside for a moment the fact Romney has a solid delegate lead, stands to do better in non-Southern states and, thanks to voters in Hawaii and American Samoa, actually captured the most delegates Tuesday. Santorum’s victories solidified him...

Presidential candidate New Gingrich joins CBS "This Morning" host Charlie Rose to talk about the war in Afghanistan, his path to the presidential race and tangling President Obama with gas prices. (CBS News) (6 minute video at link.)

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...

Newt Gingrich in the wake of two losses in deep South States is seeking a justification for remaining in the race. When challenged by Brett Baier, Gingrich was unable to name a single state that he could win. Indeed, after playing hard as a "Southern Candidate" Gingrich has lost three straight Southern States including two deep South States near his home state of Georgia, so it's hard to imagine Gingrich winning elsewhere. Still Gingrich claimed a role in the race. His argument for continuing is that he and Senator Rick Santorum are playing a "tag team" that is denying Romney...

It was unbelievable: As soon as Newt Gingrich failed to win both Alabama and Mississippi in the GOP race for president, most members of the mainstream media and political strategists with whom I talked readily admitted, off the record, that he was the most qualified among the Republican candidates to serve as president. Now these are objective pros that have been around presidential politics for years. I have no doubt they were telling me the truth because these folks only tell you this stuff when it is relatively clear that the candidate is no longer a viable alternative. The Gingrich...

It’s true that in reality, the “win” didn’t change the delegate count all that much. Give or take, all candidates still split the delegates about 2:1 for Santorum. And it’s true that there are clearly enough “winner take all states” that play to the Gingrich game plan that he could still get to the convention with the most candidates, none having 1,144. But it is also clear to me after analyzing the data, I must intelligently weigh the situation for what is the best prospect to beat Obama and sell conservative policies to the American people to save this Republic....

With his current delegate count less than a third of GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney’s, former House speaker Newt Gingrich is hearing a growing number of conservatives suggest he call it quits. Yet, those calls have been met with nothing but steely resistance by Gingrich, who spoke in Rosemont Wednesday of his campaign as “the kind that can go all the way.” Just hours after being bested in Tuesday’s Alabama and Mississippi primaries, the Georgia Republican was charging hard in the suburbs, kicking off a two-day trip he hopes will motivate voters to choose him over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick...

RUSH: ...Back on January 23rd, there was a lot of panic on the Republican side, 'cause Romney just wasn't wrapping this up. -snip- RUSH ARCHIVE: Why is it that a long primary campaign is going to hurt the Republican nominee? If the result of a long campaign is that this party finally figures out that the only way they got to win this is conservatism, it's a win-win. Let it play out! Don't panic! RUSH: ... Still, the most delegates yesterday were won by Mitt Romney. He added six delegates to his lead. The delegates count today: Romney has 495....