Mitt Romney Gets Major Lead In South Carolina

With less than a week away from when the voters go to the ballot in the South Carolina Primary, Mitt Romney has opened up a big lead in the Palmetto state:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has opened a wide lead over his rivals in the South Carolina primary election race, trouncing Newt Gingrich and gaining momentum in his march toward the party's nomination, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, could all but quash his rivals' presidential aspirations with a victory in South Carolina on Jan. 21 after winning the first state-by-state nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.Voters in South Carolina - who have favored Republicans in nine of the last 10 presidential elections - appear to have shrugged off attacks on Romney by rivals who accuse him of killing jobs as a private equity executive for Bain Capital in the 1990s.

The poll showed 37 percent of South Carolina Republican voters back Romney. Congressman Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum tied for second place with 16 percent support.

One reason why Mitt Romney is gaining ground in South Carolina is because Evangelicals want a candidate who can defeat Obama in the general election. As a result, Evangelicals overwhelmingly support Mitt Romney: 

A Pew Research Center survey in November found that in a general election matchup, white evangelical GOP voters favor Romney over the president by a 91 percent to 6 percent margin. White evangelicals actually favored Romney over Mr. Obama by a wider margin that GOP voters overall.

The survey did show concerns among evangelicals about Romney's Mormon faith, but they are unlikely to have a serious impact in the general election. And any negative impact from less enthusiasm among the base will be blunted by the overwhelming urge that Republicans have to unseat Mr. Obama. The latest CBS News poll found that 86 percent of Republicans disapprove of the president's performance; the poll also showed that 41 percent of Republicans say they are more enthusiastic than in past elections, compared to 21 percent of Democrats and independents. There's no question that opposition to the president will be enough to motivate many Republicans no matter who ends up as their candidate. 

People of all political stripes want Obama out of office. That is why Mitt Romney is getting a lot of support from Reagan Democrats, Independents, moderates and conservatives. Its also why he's getting strong support from people of all faiths such as Jews, Evangelicals, and Christians. Its is also not surprising that Romney is getting a lot of support from people of all economic backgrounds ranging from college students to wealthy businessmen. 

In short, Mit Romney is America's candidate who will probably win in South Carolina, go on to secure the Republican nomination and unseat Obama in the general election. This is the man everyone wants to vote for.

Mitt Romney's Victory Makes History In New Hampshire

Although the results from the New Hampshire primary is still rolling in, Mitt Romney has been declared the winner. Mitt Romney has done what no Presidential candidate has ever done and that is to win Iowa and New Hampshire:

Seconds after the polls closed tonight Fox News called the New Hampshire Primary's winner as Mitt Romney. They also said that his victory would be substantial. This makes Romney the first non-incumbent to win both early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. No candidate has ever gotten the Republican nomination without winning one or the other. No other candidate, except a sitting president, has ever won both.

Romney gave a great and inspiring victory speech that I highly recommend everyone to read or watch. I had just come home from a very long day at work and when I sat down to eat dinner in front of the television, I was elated to find out that Mitt had won. I was expecting this to be a long and drawn out process. I was surprised that victory came so quickly. 

Mitt Romney will now be heading down to South Carolina where eleven days from now, we will have our first southern primary. Some people think that Mitt Romney is in for a very long fight to win the Republican nomination. Others think that Romney that he will wrap up the presidential primaries pretty quickly and they make a compelling case for it:

But the Romney camp is making a fairly explicit argument this morning that the race will be over much sooner than that. In a memo this morning, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul writes — complete with the chart below — that since many of Romney's GOP rivals have missed ballot deadlines in one or more states, they'll be unable to amass enough delegates to keep their campaigns going.

Whether or not Mitt Romney can end the nomination battle quickly may depends on how things shake out in South Carolina. For many of the Republican candidates, it will be the state that will determine whether or not they can stop Romney and see if they can find a way remain in the running for the GOP nomination. South Carolina will be where some of them will make their last stand:

South Carolina is the 2012 Republican GOP primary to watch this year because its the last chance for the anti-Romney candidates to take down Mitt Romney.  Most of the 2012 candidates (except Jon Huntsman) knows this and they have been developing their campaign strategy based on this fact.  This can be clearly seen with Rick Perry who flew directly to South Carolina and is skipping the New Hampshire Primary.

However, even if they one of the other Republican candidates win South Carolina, they'll still have to face Mitt in Florida and beyond. in the rest of the primary elections. Moreover, they'll have to overcome the fact that many of them failed or didn't complete the filing requirements for many of the state ballots. Mitt Romney has made sure he will fight for every delegate by making sure he's on the ballot in each and every state. 

I think in the end, no matter what the other GOP candidates will do, Mitt Romney will be the Republican 2012 nominee who will boot Obama from the White House and become the next President of the United States.

Newt Gingrich Flip Flops on Mitt Romney's Job Record

Before Newt Gingrich went nuclear on Mitt Romney time working in the private sector, he praised his impressive record of creating jobs in the private and public sector during the 2010 CPAC Convention:

The Real Reason Why Newt Gingrich Is Throwing A Temper Tantrum

The reason why Newt Gingrich is extremely upset is that Romney ended his dreams of becoming President by beating Newt at his own game. Newt Gingrich, who has been in Washington D.C. as a politician since the 1970s, has been quietly building up his political muscles by setting up different advocacy and for-profit groups that helps advance his political agendas: 

Mr. Gingrich began building his network of advocacy and for-profit groups after he left Congress. He will have to sever his ties to the groups if he jumps into the presidential race, but can still tap into their broad network of active supporters and donors.

A longtime domestic-policy entrepreneur, he founded his Center for Health Transformation in 2003. The group now includes big drug makers such as AstraZeneca PLC and top insurers, such as BlueCross BlueShield Association, who pay as much as $200,000 in membership fees. In return, they get access to Mr. Gingrich, interaction with other group members, and marketing and research support.

In 2006, Mr. Gingrich started the group American Solutions for Winning the Future, with a $1 million donation from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The group allowed Mr. Gingrich to broaden his ambitions. It was billed as a centrist policy shop that would train local candidates and promote an array of pet causes, among them Social Security privatization and what Mr. Gingrich called "patriotic education," including mandatory annual public-school instruction on the Declaration of Independence.

In early 2007, along with his third wife, Callista, he launched Gingrich Productions to publish books and movies. In March 2009, just weeks before converting to Catholicism, he formed Renewing American Leadership, a nonprofit group designed "to bring moral leadership back to our nation." Six months later he created the Americano to target conservative Hispanics.

But it took nearly two years for his flagship group, American Solutions, to find a rallying cry—and hit fund-raising pay dirt. Both happened almost by fluke.

With oil prices soaring in the spring of 2008 and Democrats opposing expanded offshore drilling, Mr. Gingrich tossed off a line in a paid speech that May in Las Vegas. "Someone in this room ought to simply have a bumper sticker that says, 'Drill more, pay less,'" he told the Money Show conference, to a smattering of applause.

Backstage afterward, Mr. Gingrich decided to run with the idea himself, aides say. American Solutions launched an online petition campaign under the title, "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less." It got 100,000 signatures in a week, and more than a million in a month. Sen. John McCain made the slogan a core plank of his presidential campaign, and at the Republican nominating convention that September, it morphed into "Drill, Baby, Drill."

With all these groups, Newt Gingrich was poised to win Iowa. But then, a single organization,  The Restore Our Future super PAC, which is a political organization set up by friends and supporters of Mitt Romney and is unaffiliated with Mitt's campaign, took Newt Gingrich down. The ads put out by this group caught Newt Gingrich off guard and he was never able to recover from it. It also gave him a devastating loss in Iowa.

Hell Hath No Fury Like Newt Scorned

As a result of his loss, Newt Gingrich began to pout and whine about his loss. Then he got angry by throwing a temper tantrum over the way Romney's SuperPac ran powerful ads against him. It doesn't matter that Ron Paul's own campaign ran campaign ads that also significantly damaged Newt's chances of winning Iowa. It doesn't matter that Newt Gingrich has several organizations that are now unaffiliated with his campaign but work to ensure that he secures the GOP nomination. In fact, it is utter hypocrisy for Newt to complain about Romney's super PAC when he's got a few organizations working to help him out. 

As a result, Newt Gingrich promises to tell the "truth" about Mitt Romney by using his own super Pac Winning The Future to promote an anti-capitalistic film about the former Governor of Massachusetts which will be played South Carolina and Florida thanks to a casino mogul who recently pumped $5 million into Winning The Future. Newt Gingrich has an attorney going after Romney for the Restore Our Future super Pac political advertisements.

Newt is so furious and unhappy with his loss in Iowa that several newspapers are starting to paint him as a crybaby. 

Look at what Mitt Romney's hometown newspaper, the Boston Herald had to say about Gingrich: 

Gingrich, despite sinking in the polls, is going nuclear on the former Massachusetts governor on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, and now it looks personal. Gingrich, dubbed “Crybaby” by the media for his ego-driven antics as House speaker in 1995, is now performing in “Crybaby, the Sequel.”

It’s fitting that Gingrich yesterday continued to attack Romney in a Manchester restaurant next door to the Obama campaign headquarters, because right now he’s the president’s best friend. His strategy of taking down Romney is right out of the Ted Kennedy and DNC playbook — casting Romney as a corporate villain who “looted” companies and laid off workers.

Peggy Noonan has called him an "angry little attack muffin" in an article in the Wall Street Journal. A PR specialist was more blunt in his description of Newt saying that he's pissed at Romney. Journalist Jennifer Reuben has described Newt's election strategy is no longer to win but seek revenge on Mitt Romney. 

Newt's temper tantrum won't help him. The more he pouts about the super PAC that is supporting Mitt Romney and the more he attacks and the other anti-Romney candidates attack Mitt Romney about his time in the private sector working for Bain Capital, the more he drives people to support Mitt Romney rather than rally around him. 

This developing media narrative of Newt Gingrich's campaign won't help him. No body likes a whiner. What's even worse is that throwing a temper tantrum is unprofessional especially when the person is seeking the highest office of President.

Newt Gingrich got beat at his own game. He doesn't like that he was cut at the knees by a single super PAC and that none of his political organizations that he's created could save him. If he can't handle this, he won't be able to handle Obama in the general election because has more political organizations to help him win the election than Newt does. 

My Predictions for the New Hampshire Primary

For New Hampshire, it easy to make a prediction about who will win. Mitt Romney will have done what no candidate has done and that is to win Iowa and New Hampshire. No other presidential candidate has ever done that. The tricky part is whether or not he can win South Carolina. That will be the key hurdle for Romney to overcome. For the other candidates, its a little more difficult to predict but I'm gonna try.

Here are my predictions for Tuesday:

1. Mitt Romney
2. Rick Santorum
3. Jon Huntsman
4. Ron Paul
5. Newt Gingrich
6. Rick Perry

I don't see anybody dropping out. Not until all the candidates see how they perform in South Carolina. Jon Huntsman might drop out if actually comes out in 5th or 6th place. He's adopted the same strategy as Rick Santorum did for Iowa by spending lots of time and energy in New Hampshire. If he doesn't place in the top three, I can see him dropping out. But in all likelyhood, he'll hang by his fingernails until the South Carolina primaries. 

Once we get the South Carolina primaries, expect Perry and Huntsman to drop out. Ron Paul isn't the kind of person to drop out even when all indicators suggest he should. Newt Gingrich will move on to Florida with the hopes of damaging Romney in that state. The problem is that he doesn't have the resources or organizational strength to carry on his war on Romney. At some point, he will tap out of the race. Florida will be the last stand for Newt. Rick Santorum will also stay in the race until Florida and go on to battle Romney in Super Tuesday but will ultimately lose.

Letter From Massachusetts Citzens Defend Mitt Romney's Record On Traditional Marriage

Mitt Romney's record on defending traditional marriage during his term as Governor of Massachusetts demonstrates that he is a staunch supporter of families and marriage. Last month, Maggie Gallagher, founder of the National Organization for Marriage, has penned an excellent article defending Mitt Romney's record on gay marriage. 

Now a group of citizens of Massachusetts publicly released a letter about a week ago defending Romney's record on traditional marriage. 

Read the whole letter below:

December 30, 2011

Dear conservative friends:

We hail from a broad spectrum of organizations dedicated to fighting for the pro-family agenda in Massachusetts.  As you know, Mitt Romney served as the governor of our state from January 2, 2003 to January 3, 2007. During that time, we worked closely with him and his excellent staff on that agenda.

 Some press accounts and bloggers have described Governor Romney in terms we neither have observed nor can we accept.  To the contrary, we, who have been fighting here for the values you also hold, are indebted to him and his responsive staff in demonstrating solid social conservative credentials by undertaking the following actions here in Massachusetts. The following is not an endorsement of Governor Romney but our account of the facts to set the record straight.

·       Staunchly defended traditional marriage.  Governor Romney immediately and strongly condemned the November 18, 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision that legalized “same-sex marriage” in our state.  More importantly, he followed up on that denunciation with action – action that saved our nation from a constitutional crisis over the definition of marriage.  He and his staff identified and enforced a little-known 1913 law that allowed them to order local clerks not to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state couples.  Absent this action, homosexual couples would surely have flooded into Massachusetts from other states to get “married” and then demanded that their home states recognize the “marriages,” putting the nation only one court decision away from nationalizing “same-sex marriage.”

o   We do not agree with the claims that Gov. Romney had bogus Party A and Party B marriage licenses printed and ordered Justices of the Peace and Town Clerks to perform same-sex “marriages” when asked or be fired. As May 17, 2004 (the SJC’s declaratory judgment date) approached, the Governor’s Office of Legal Counsel issued provisional advisory instructions to the justices of the peace and prepared revised license applications. These executive actions did not result in the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples before May 17. The new policies were carried out only after and as a direct result of the judiciary’s final action in Goodridge on May 17. They did not generate same-sex marriages; that responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

o   We do not agree with the claims that Gov. Romney issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The governor does not issue marriage licenses in Massachusetts. Only the town clerks can do that. But the governor can issue one-day justice of the peace authorizations to an individual who wants to perform a marriage ceremony but is not a licensed minister, town clerk or justice of the peace. The governor’s office issues thousands of those in a four year term with the only criteria being that the individual doing the ceremony is in good standing and the parties getting married have a valid marriage license.

·       Worked hard to overturn “same-sex marriage” in the Commonwealth with substantial results.  In 2004 he lobbied hard, before a very hostile legislature, for a constitutional amendment protecting marriage – an amendment later changed by the legislature to include civil unions, which the Governor and many marriage amendment supporters opposed.  Working with the Governor, we were successful in defeating this amendment.

·       Provided strong, active support for a record-setting citizen petition drive in 2005 to advance a clean constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The petition drive collected the largest number of signatures in Massachusetts history.

·       Rallied thousands of citizens around the state to focus public and media attention on the failure of legislators, through repeated delays, to perform their constitutional obligation and vote on the marriage amendment. In November of 2006, Gov. Romney held the largest State House rally in Massachusetts history with over 7000 supporters of traditional marriage.

·       Filed suit before the Supreme Judicial Court asking the court to clarify the legislators’ duty to vote and failing that, to place the amendment on the 2008 ballot. That lawsuit, perhaps more than any other single action, was by all accounts instrumental in bringing the ultimate pressure on the legislators to vote.  The SJC unanimously ruled that the Legislature must vote and the historic vote was taken on January 2, 2007 winning legislative support. This cleared a major hurdle in the three year effort to restore traditional marriage in the Commonwealth.

·       Fought for abstinence education.  In 2006, under Governor Romney’s leadership, Massachusetts’ public schools began to offer a classroom program on abstinence from the faith-based Boston group Healthy Futures to middle school students.  Promoting the program, Governor Romney stated, “I’ve never had anyone complain to me that their kids are not learning enough about sex in school. However, a number of people have asked me why it is that we do not speak more about abstinence as a safe and preventative health practice.”

·       Affirmed the culture of life.  Governor Romney vetoed bills to provide access to the so-called “morning-after pill,” which is an abortifacient, as well as a bill providing for expansive, embryo-destroying stem cell research.  He vetoed the latter bill in 2005 because he could not “in good conscience allow this bill to become law.”

o   We do not agree with the claims that Gov. Romney is responsible for tax payer funded abortion under the Massachusetts health care system. That blame lies solely on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court who ruled in 1981 that the Massachusetts Constitution required payment for abortions for Medicaid-eligible women. In 1997, the Court reaffirmed its position that a state-subsidized plan must offer “medically necessary abortions.”

·       Stood for religious freedom.  Governor Romney was stalwart in defense of the right of Catholic Charities of Boston to refuse to allow homosexual couples to adopt children in its care.  Catholic Charities was loudly accused of “discrimination,” but Governor Romney correctly pointed out that it is unjust to force a religious agency to violate the tenets of its faith in order to placate a special-interest group.

·       Filed “An Act Protecting Religious Freedom” in the Massachusetts legislature to save Catholic Charities of Boston and other religious groups from being forced to violate their moral principles or stop doing important charitable work.

All of this may explain why John J. Miller, the national political reporter of National Review, wrote that “a good case can be made that Romney has fought harder for social conservatives than any other governor in America, and it is difficult to imagine his doing so in a more daunting political environment.”

We are aware of the 1994 comments of Senate candidate Romney, which have been the subject of much recent discussion.  While they are, taken by themselves, obviously worrisome to social conservatives including ourselves, they do not dovetail with the actions of Governor Romney from 2003 until now – and those actions have positively and demonstrably impacted the social climate of Massachusetts.

Since well before 2003, we have been laboring in the trenches of Massachusetts, fighting for the family values you and we share.  It is difficult work indeed – not for the faint of heart.  In this challenging environment, Governor Romney has proven that he shares our values, as well as our determination to protect them.

For four years, Governor Romney was right there beside us, providing leadership on key issues – whether it was politically expedient to do so or not.  He has stood on principle, and we have benefited greatly from having him with us.

It is clear that Governor Romney has learned much since 1994 – to the benefit of our movement and our Commonwealth.  In fact, the entire nation has benefited from his socially conservative, pro-family actions in office.  As we explained earlier, his leadership on the marriage issue helped prevent our nation from being plunged into even worse legal turmoil following the court decision that forced “gay marriage” upon our Commonwealth.

For that our country ought to be thankful.  We certainly are.

Sincerely,

Rita Covelle

President, Morality in Media Massachusetts

Gerald D. D’Avolio

Former Executive Director, Massachusetts Catholic Conference

Raymond L. Flynn

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See

Professor Mary Ann Glendon

Harvard Law School

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See

Kristian Mineau

President, Massachusetts Family Institute

Dr. Roberto Miranda

COPAHNI Fellowship of Hispanic Pastors of New England

James F. Morgan

Chairman, Institute for Family Development

Joseph Reilly

Former Chairman of the Board, Massachusetts Citizens for Life

Thomas A. Shields

Chairman, Coalition for Marriage and Family

__________________________

Note:  The signatories are all acting as individual citizens, and not as representatives of their respective organizations.  Organizational affiliations appear for identification purposes only.

Mitt Romney Won The 2012 GOP New Hampshire Debate

For those of you who missed tonight's debate, you didn't miss much. In fact, it was a good thing you didn't watch the debates tonight since Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos, the moderators for the debate, were horrible. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney both went after the moderators on two separate occasions. 

George Stephanopoulos got ripped by Romney when he asked about whether or not he supports states banning contraception.Watch the clip below: 

George's question is ridiculous for so many reasons. As Mitt Romney pointed out, no state is currently proposing to ban contraception and its not even an issue in this election. It may have been an issue in the 1960s when the United States Supreme Court made its landmark decision upholding individuals having a right to contraceptives in Griswold v. Connecticut but its not an issue in this election. Liberals like George Stephanopoulos thinks its an issue since a few states wanted to pass laws stating that life begins at conception but these laws were aimed at abortion not contraceptives. The audience rightly applauded Mitt Romney for stating how ridiculous the question was and booing George Stephanopoulos for asking the question. 

Newt Gingrich also went after the moderators on the issue of gay marriage explaining that the media ignores the bigotry towards religion when it comes to issues of marriage, adoption and abortion: 

I just want to raise -- since we’ve spent this much time on these issues -- I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?

The bigotry question goes both ways. And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.

The audience loved it. I loved it. He really stood up for all religions who are coerced by our government to provide services it opposes because it contradicts their deeply held religious views. 

You're all probably wondering who I think won tonight's debate. I'll give you the break down:

1. Mitt Romney won the debate hands down. Every news outlet including the post-debate analysis on ABC stated that he won. The reason why he won tonights debate was that most of the candidates didn't attack Romney and when they did, Mitt Romney swatted the attacks away. Mitt Romney began the debates by going after Obama on his failure to create jobs in America. Mitt Romney also gave an exceptional speech about American exceptionalism that sounded very much like the kind of debate speech Ronald Reagan would have given. He also did well in attacking Jon Huntsman over China with regard to trade imbalances, currency manipulation and corporate espionage. 

2. Rick Santorum did a good job tonight but he's in very distant second place. At one point, he tried to attack Romney for using the term "middle class" and called it class warfare rhetoric only to immediately attack wall street after making that comment. Moreover, that attack just came off as desperate and odd to many conservatives in the audience and at home. There were some moments when Rick Santorum did well tonight especially when he talked about how poorly Roe v. Wade was decided and his position on Iran and Afghanistan.  

3. I think tonight was Newt Gingrich's best debate performance. However, it wasn't enough to help him regain old position as a frontrunner in the campaign. The only highlight for me was his defense of traditional marriage and his response about whether or not we should stay in Afghanistan. The worst part for him is when he cited the New York times in his attack on Mitt Romney which is not the newspaper to cite if you're trying to impress a conservative audience. He was also clearly upset with Ron Paul for attacking him on Newt's deferments from the military during the Vietnam war. 

4. This debate was probably Rick Perry's best debate. The best moment for him was when he boldly stated that we should send our troops back into Iraq. I agree with that statement 100%. Rick Perry did a decent job in debating other issues. However, the biggest problem for Rick Perry a lot of people forgot that he was even at the debates until he spoke. That's bad news since Michelle Bachmann had the same problem and eventually dropped out of the race.  

5. Ron Paul was himself as usual. He got asked about his racist newsletters and he dodged the question by saying that Martin Luther King was his hero. However, its worth pointing out that in his own newsletter, they called MLK a philanderer who beat up his paramours and accuses him of seducing underage girls and boys. I also wish to remind people Ron Paul never issued a retraction for any of the racist articles that were published in his names. Yet a few weeks ago, he admitted that he did write in his newsletter but claims that he only wrote about economic issues in his newsletter. Another bad moment for Ron Paul is when he refused to state whether or not he would run a third party candidate in this election. As usual, Ron Paul thinks Iran is not a threat to the security of America or the world community. Ron Paul's only good moment is when he chastised Rick Santorum for interrupting him and going after Newt Gingrich on the issue of his deferments since he ruffled Gingrich's feathers pretty good.  

6. Jon Huntsman has never done well in any debates and I think tonight was his worst performance if you can believe that. Ever position he took was a liberal one whether it was same sex marriage, war or China which won't help him get any votes for Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary election.

Mitt Romney clearly won tonight's debate. Even though Mitt Romney is ahead in New Hampshire by a huge lead, tonight's debate will help him maintain his lead in that state. It will also help him maintain his huge lead in South Carolina. If Mitt Romney keeps up this momentum and wins New Hampshire and South Carolina, he'll wrap up the 2012 nomination early.