Arizona debate preview: The stakes for the four candidates
When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer parlayed the leverage that she had by threatening to move Arizona’s primary up and cause chaos in the primary calendar to get Arizona a nationally televised GOP debate, she ensured that all eyes would be on her state.
With Mitt Romney struggling in Michigan, Santorum challenging Romney’s front-runner status, Gingrich needing to climb back into the race and Paul being Paul, tonight’s debate will be critical in influencing not only the next three weeks in the GOP primary but perhaps being a determinative debate.
Here are the stakes for the four candidates going into the debate:
Santorum steps up to the plate
[HumanEvents.com]
A big day dawns for the dark-horse conservative candidate.
by John Hayward
February 07, 2012
Tuesday could be Rick Santorum’s big day – his chance to break back into the news cycle with some strong primary performances, and make the case that he’s a better choice than Newt Gingrich for those seeking an alternative to Mitt Romney.
On the national level, it’s really still a fairly close race. An ABC News / Washington Post poll concluded on the eve of this weekend’s Nevada caucuses had Romney in the lead with 38 percent support, but Gingrich, Santorum, and Ron Paul were fairly close together with 24, 18, and 14 percent, respectively. Very few delegates have been assigned by the primaries and caucuses held thus far. There is still plenty of time for the race to change.
It’s the local polling that makes Tuesday exciting for the Santorum campaign. Missouri is holding a “just for show” meaningless primary ahead of its March caucuses, but Santorum is looking very good there. He’s just a hair behind Gingrich, and a bit ahead of Romney, but Gingrich didn’t qualify for the primary, so Santorum has a great opening to win over those march Missouri caucus-goers.
EXCLUSIVE–Iranian Freedom Fighter: ‘Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy Toward the Islamic Republic is Wrong
[BigGovernment.com]
Posted Jan 24th 2012 at 4:24 pm
Americans aren’t the only ones shocked by U.S. Congressman Ron Paul’s assertion that international sanctions against Iran qualify as an “act of war.”
The Texas Congressman has made the assertion several times during the past few years, and reiterated it last night during the Republican debates in Florida when he argued that the U.S. had committed an act of war by “blockading” Iran (which the U.S. is not doing).
“We’re blockading them,” Paul said to a Tampa audience. “Can you imagine what we would do if someone blockaded the Gulf of Mexico? That would be an act of war–so the act of war has already been committed and this is retaliation.”
But Amir Fakhravar, a pro-democracy freedom fighter who was imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic Republic, disagrees.
Newt Kicks Some CNN Butt! [Video and Updates]
[FloppingAces.net]
We all knew this was coming but I have to agree with his indignation….the very first question?
He also released his tax returns in a not too subtle dig at Mitt.
We all knew Newt was going down without a fight.
UPDATE
Great post on Newt:
…CNN’s John King opened the Charleston debate with a direct question to Gingrich about his past. “Do you want to take a moment to address that?” King asked.
“No, but I will,” Gingrich replied. And he wound up his ire and spent the next few minutes pulverizing the media for digging into his past on the eve of the South Carolina primary. When King tried to deflect Gingrich’s wrath back off onto ABC, Gingrich would have none of it: King has brought up the issue in the debate, after all. King looked visibly cowed.
Rasmussen Nat’l Poll Showing Second Gingrich Boomlet?
[HotAir.com]
posted at 11:10 am on January 18, 2012 by Ed Morrissey 
After a brilliant debate performance by Newt Gingrich on Monday, some wondered whether it was too late in the cycle for a second bounce. According to a Rasmussen poll taken yesterday of 1,000 likely GOP primary voters, Mitt Romney’s team may want to keep the party favors in the box for a little while longer:
The race for the Republican presidential nomination is now nearly even with Mitt Romney still on top but Newt Gingrich just three points apart.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters nationwide shows Romney with 30% support and Gingrich with 27% of the vote. Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, who was running second two weeks ago, has now dropped to 15%.
Questions Arise About Soldier who Promoted Ron Paul in Uniform; Has Arrest Record from Florida
[BigGovernment.com]
Posted Jan 9th 2012 at 1:27 pm
Earlier this week, Big Government broke an exclusive that Corporal Jesse Thorsen, 28–the soldier who supported presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) while in uniform during the Iowa caucuses–was being probed by his Army Reserve unit for violation of Department of Defense Regulations.
Late last week, the Associated Press reported that Thorsen may also have an arrest record from Florida, and that his service record may not be as he originally portrayed it when he was originally interviewed by CNN at the caucus:
According to the military, Thorsen had deployed once to Afghanistan in 2009 after first joining the Florida National Guard in July 2001 and the Army Reserve in 2009. The military said he is with an engineer company out of Des Moines, and his unit falls under the 416th Theater Engineer Command out of Darien, Ill.
Court records show that Thorsen was arrested in Lee County, Fla., in December 2004 for three felonies: burglary, theft of a firearm and possession of burglary tools. Details were not available late Thursday.
He pleaded guilty to all three charges the following July but adjudication was withheld, meaning he would have no record. He was sentenced to probation and ordered to pay $660.50 He made regular payments through April 2006 totaling $630.50 but then stopped, the records show. In May 2006, he was ruled in violation of his probation and was arrested three weeks later in Tampa, spending three days in jail. In August 2006, he appeared before a judge in Lee County, who reinstated his probation. His probation ended in March 2007.
The Republican 2012 Field, In Order
FoxNews.com
Published September 05, 2011
The Republican 2012 Field, In OrderIt is 22 weeks until the Iowa caucuses – maybe as little as 17 weeks if claim jumpers in Florida and Arizona move up their primaries.
That’s a relative eternity in political time. Remember, at this point in the 2008 cycle, all of the smart money was on Hillary Clinton being the next president. One-term Senator Barack Obama was running what was mostly dismissed as a vanity campaign aimed at increasing his national name identification.
But, four or five months is how long it takes to set up a national campaign for president. The fear about John McCain’s August 2007 campaign collapse wasn’t that the voters had already made up their minds, but that he wouldn’t have enough time to build a campaign that could endure through a months-long nomination fight. He nearly didn’t.
Bachmann begins GOP run with vow to Iowa
From: The Australian
June 29, 2011 12:00 AM
Michele Bachmann officially announced her candidacy for the presidency in Iowa with a homespun, Iowa-centric speech. Picture: AP Source: AP
A HORDE of presidential candidates descends on Iowa this week to secure support in the nation’s first caucus state, but Michele Bachmann has gone one better: she launched her campaign with a resounding reminder that she was here first.
The Minnesota congresswoman, who was raised in the state, officially announced her candidacy for the presidency yesterday in a homespun speech in which she promised to transplant the God-fearing, conservative values of rural Iowa directly to the Oval Office.
President Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Thaddeus McCotter and Rick Santorum were due to meet the idiosyncratic Iowan caucus-goers today but none of them will be able to match Ms Bachmann’s pledge.
Why Ron Paul Matters
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Michael Gerson opines that Ron Paul’s statements in the South Carolina GOP debate amounts to a philosophy that …
…is Social Darwinism. It is the arrogance of the strong. It is contempt for the vulnerable and suffering.
Gerson’s take here is framed from Paul’s statements supporting the decriminalization of vice, notably prostitution and drugs like heroin and cocaine. In a broader swipe at libertarianism in general, Gerson offers this:
But it is an authentic application of libertarianism, which reduces the whole of political philosophy to a single slogan: Do what you will — pray or inject or turn a trick — as long as no one else gets hurt.
Never have I seen a more shallow description of libertarianism, which is a rich matrix of personal responsibility and limited government. These faulty definitions gloss over the fact that libertarians offer solutions to society’s problem, different solutions. I don’t agree with every single one of them as doable options, but I agree with almost all of them in principle. I’d guess many Americans do too, they just don’t know it. It’s difficult for most of us to look outside the parameters of the two party system. Plus, we’re so far away from the founding principles of this nation, any political philosophy adhering to them quickly is bound to be considered radical, as Gerson offers here. It’s a shame, really.
The Press Slept As Fed Spent
BigJournalism.com
Texas Representative Ron Paul is routinely painted as fringe, or a lunatic, at least in part for his long-standing call to audit the Federal Reserve. As the financial crisis of 2008 – 2009 played out, a compliant liberal mainstream media was all too happy to carry the Democrat’s water, making the seemingly Bush-aligned Goldman Sachs a major villain as the crisis unfolded, putting their name, as well as others, in the headlines everyday. It’s only now, due to new legislation, that Americans are just beginning to get a glimpse inside the high-stakes poker game in which America’s fortune and future was and is routinely being gambled, or spent. It turns out that far more of it than ever thought was being sent abroad.
Yet, even now, one has to turn to the Financial Times for one of the more candid assessments of what really went on and how much remains unknown.
Sunlight shows cracks in crisis rescue story
It took two years, a hard-fought lawsuit, and an act of Congress, but finally on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve disclosed the details of its financial crisis lending programmes. The initial reactions were shock at the breadth of lending, particularly to foreign firms. But the details paint a bleaker, earlier, and even more disturbing picture. They also highlight new tensions over high-tech transparency, echoing the controversy of the WikiLeaks cables, unveiled just days earlier.
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