Newt+Gingrich

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Newt Gingrich- julie kleberg/bradley luptak -julie kleberg Julie Kleberg
 * **Results** for **U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries** ||
 * || State || Gingrich || Paul || Romney || Santorum ||  ||   || reporting ||
 * 03/13 || [|AL] ||> 29.3% ||> 5.0% ||> 29.0% ||> 34.5% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 03/13 || [|HI] ||> 10.9% ||> 19.3% ||> 44.5% ||> 25.3% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 03/13 || [|MS] ||> 31.2% ||> 4.4% ||> 30.6% ||> 32.8% ||  ||   ||> >99% ||
 * 03/10 || [|KS] ||> 14.4% ||> 12.6% ||> 20.9% ||> 51.2% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 03/10 || [|WY] ||> 0.5% ||> 12.2% ||> 44.0% ||> 27.5% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * Source: AP ||

Newt Gingrich super tuesday Newt wins Georgia primary

-Bradley Luptak WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Atlanta businessman and former presidential candidate Herman Cain endorsed Newt Gingrich Saturday night at a West Palm Beach Country Republican gathering after two months of wavering on whether he would offer his support to a fellow candidate. The endorsement comes just three days before the crucial Florida primary, by far the largest state to vote so far in the GOP sweepstakes, and could help Gingrich energize tea party support. Gingrich campaign has flagged since his upstart, double-digit victory over front-runner Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary a week ago. "I had it in my heart and mind a long time ago" to endorse Gingrich, Cain said in a surprise appearance at the dinner. "Speaker Gingrich is a patriot, Speaker Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas , and I also know that Speaker Gingrich is ... going through this sausage grinder. I know what this sausage grinder is all about. I know that he's going through this sausage grinder because he cares about the future of the United States of America ." Cain's ended his presidential bid in early December amid claims of sexual harrassement by several women who worked for him over the years and amid a charge from an Atlanta woman that the two carried on a longstanding marital affair. Until the allegations surfaced, Cain had been steadily gaining ground as a serious primary contender, attracting hundreds of people to his campaign events and winning over tea party activists with his outsider's message and calls for a "9-9-9" flat tax plan. Cain and Gingrich walked onto stage together to a huge round of applause from the audience, whose excitement continued throughout the former candidate's brief remarks. As Gingrich took the stage after him, he joked that when he accepted the invitation to speak at the West Palm Beach County GOP Lincoln Dinner, he "had no idea it would be this interesting." Gingrich's campaign can only hope that the support of the once-popular candidate will give a shot of life to his campaign, which is beginning to falter in Florida after a series of rough debates and nonstop attacks from Romney and a super PAC supporting Romney. But Cain's support may have lost his luster after nearly two months out off the campaign trail. Always unpredictable, Cain had suggested as recently as last week in South Carolina that he would not endorse one of the remaining Republicans in the field. "Here is my unconventional endorsement. Not a candidate seeking the nomination. Not someone that's not running. My unconventional endorsement is the people! We the people of this nation are still in charge," he said. **-BRADLEY LUPTAK**
 * CAIN ENDORSES GINGRICH***

Newt Gingrich is the architect of the “Contract with America” that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the U.S. House for the first time in forty years. Under Newt’s leadership, Congress passed the first balanced budget in a generation, leading to the repayment of over $400 billion in debt. Congress also cut taxes for the first time in sixteen years and reformed welfare, leading to over sixty percent of welfare recipients either getting a job or going to school. In addition, the Congress restored funding to strengthen our defense and intelligence capabilities, an action later lauded by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. The //Washington Times// has called Newt Gingrich “the indispensable leader” and //Time// magazine, in naming him Man of the Year for 1995, said, “Leaders make things possible. Exceptional leaders make them inevitable. Newt Gingrich belongs in the category of the exceptional.” -Bradley Luptak

Early Life
Newt Gingrich was born on June 17, 1943, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His mother Kathleen Daugherty and father Newton Searles McPherson divorced soon after Newt was born. Kathleen remarried to an Army officer named Robert Gingrich, who adopted the boy. Gingrich has three younger half-sisters, Candace, Susan, and Roberta. Growing up, Gingrich's family moved around frequently, like many military families. He graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia, and received a B.A. from Emory University in 1965.

Elected to Congress
Gingrich pursued higher education, receiving an M.A. in 1968 and a Ph.D. in modern European history from Tulane University in 1971. While in New Orleans, Gingrich developed an interest in religion, and was baptized in a Baptist church. Gingrich worked early on in academia, as an assistant professor of history and geography at West Georgia College. Always interested in history and politics, Gingrich got involved as the Southern regional director for [|Nelson Rockefeller]. Gingrich launched his first campaign for congress in 1974. He lost in 1974, and again in 1976, to the Democratic incumbent. In 1978, Gingrich finally won a seat in the House. He would be re-elected to Congress 10 times. From his first days in Congress, Gingrich was an influential conservative member of the Republican party. He formed the Conservative Opportunity Society in 1983, a group of Republican delegates whose ideas influenced [|Ronald Reagan] 's policies.

Republican Revolution
In 1988, Gingrich led the charge against Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright, who was alleged to have violated campaign finance rules. Wright was forced out, giving Gingrich a boost among his party. Gingrich's star continued to rise, and when House Minority Whip [|Dick Cheney] was appointed Secretary of Defense, Gingrich was elected to take his place. During this period, Gingrich became known for his aggressive, often combative, style. With an emphasis on morality, he was aided by the House Banking Scandal and the Congressional Post Office scandal. Gingrich used his influence over the Republican party to draft the Contract with America, a platform of 10 policies they would push for if the Republicans took the majority in the congressional elections. The contract included welfare reform, tougher crime laws, a balanced budget, and other conservative policies. Sure enough, the 1994 congressional elections brought about what would be called the "Republican Revolution." After four decades of Democratic control, the GOP won the majority in the House, and Gingrich was elected speaker. Fiercely opposed to many policies of President Clinton, Gingrich was instrumental in getting Clinton to reluctantly sign the GOP's welfare reform act after two initial vetoes. It was a major victory for Gingrich. Gingrich also had other major pieces of legislation passed, including a balanced budget and a capital gains tax cut.

Ethics Scandal
Gingrich's accomplishments were not without controversy. His popularity began to decline amidst partial government shutdowns in 1995. Gingrich was widely blamed for the shutdowns, after he had refused to compromise with President Clinton on budget cuts. Ethical considerations were at the heart of much criticism of the speaker. In 1995, he returned a $4.5 million book advance that the House Ethics Committee had questioned. Another ethics investigation arose about whether Gingrich had used tax-exempt donations to fund a college course he had taught while serving in Congress. Gingrich negotiated an agreement with the House Ethics Committee, and he payed $300,000 for the cost of the investigation. The House voted to reprimand him by a vote of 395 to 28. In 1997, Gingrich was narrowly re-elected.

Resignation
In 1998, a scandal broke that would have a big impact on Gingrich's career. Clinton was alleged to have lied before a federal grand jury about his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich pushed for impeachment, and for Clinton's removal from office. Congressional hearings and a media frenzy created a backlash against Republicans, as many voters felt they had gone too far. In the 1998 midterm elections, Republicans lost five seats to Democrats. The tides had turned against Gingrich, and even members of his own party were critical of the speaker's tactics and the image he projected of the Republican party. In November 1998, Gingrich stepped down as speaker of the House. In January 1999, he resigned his seat in Congress.

Post-Speakership
Gingrich remained involved in politics, serving as a consultant and television commentator on the Fox News Channel. In 2007, he founded American Solutions for Winning the Future, a public policy organization. In May 2011, Gingrich announced he would seek the Republican nomination for president. A prolific author, Gingrich has written several books, including//Lessons Learned the Hard Way// (1998), //Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America// (2005), //Rediscovering God in America// (2006), and //To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine// (2010). He also cowrote an alternative history series on the Civil War and World War II.

Personal Life
Newt Gingrich married Jackie Battley in 1962, when he was 19 years old. The couple had two daughters together, Jackie and Kathy, before their split in 1980. Gingrich remarried in 1981 to Marianne Ginther, whom he met during a political fundraiser in Ohio. Ginther and Gingrich divorced in 1999. Gingrich currently lives in McLean, Virginia, with his third wife, Callista Bisek. The couple married in 2000, and together they create public policy documentaries through their production company, Gingrich Productions. -julie kleberg


 * **Results** for **U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries** ||
 * || State || Gingrich || Paul || Romney || Santorum ||  ||   || reporting ||
 * 01/31 || [|FL] ||> 31.9% ||> 7.0% ||> 46.4% ||> 13.3% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/21 || [|SC] ||> 40.4% ||> 13.0% ||> 27.8% ||> 17.0% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/10 || [|NH] ||> 9.4% ||> 22.9% ||> 39.3% ||> 9.4% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/03 || [|IA] ||> 13.3% ||> 21.4% ||> 24.5% ||> 24.6% ||  ||   ||> >99% ||

-julie kleberg

America only works when Americans are working. Newt has a pro-growth strategy similar to the proven policies used when he was Speaker to balance the budget, pay down the debt, and create jobs.

 * 1. Stop the 2013 tax increases to promote stability in the economy. Job creation improved after Congress extended tax relief for two years in December. We should make the rates permanent.
 * 2. Make the United States the most desirable location for new business investment through a bold series of tax cuts, including: Eliminating the capital gains tax to make American entrepreneurs more competitive against those in other countries; Dramatically reducing the corporate income tax (among highest in the world) to 12.5%; Allowing for 100% expensing of new equipment to spur innovation and American manufacturing; Ending the death tax permanently.
 * 3. Move toward an optional flat tax of 15% that would allow Americans the freedom to choose to file their taxes on a postcard, saving hundreds of billions in unnecessary costs each year. This optional flat tax system will preserve deductions on charitable giving and home ownership, and create a new personal deduction of $12,000 for every American. This deduction is well above the current poverty level, ensuring that this new system does not unfairly target the poor.
 * 4. Strengthen the dollar by returning to the Reagan-era monetary policies that stopped runaway inflation and reforming the Federal Reserve to promote transparency.
 * 5. Remove obstacles to job creation imposed by destructive and ineffective regulations, programs and bureaucracies. Steps include: Repealing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which did nothing to prevent the financial crisis and is holding companies back from making new investments in the U.S; Repealing the Community Reinvestment Act, the abuse of which helped cause the financial crisis; Repealing the Dodd-Frank Law which is killing small independent banks, crippling loans to small businesses and crippling home sales; Breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, moving their smaller successors off government guarantees and into the free market; Replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency that works collaboratively with local government and industry to achieve better results; and Modernizing the Food and Drug Administration to get lifesaving medicines and technologies to patients faster.
 * 6. Implement an American energy policy that removes obstacles to responsible energy development and creates jobs in the United States.
 * 7. Balance the budget by growing the economy, controlling spending, implementing money saving reforms, and replacing destructive policies and regulatory agencies with new approaches.
 * 8. Repeal and replace Obamacare with a pro-jobs, pro-responsibility health plan that puts doctors and patients in charge of health decisions instead of bureaucrats.
 * 9. Fundamental reform of entitlement programs with the advice and help of the American people.

-Bradley Luptak

#6, Newt's American Energy Plan:

 * 1) **Remove bureaucratic and legal obstacles** to responsible oil and natural gas development in the United States, offshore and on land.
 * 2) **End the ban on oil shale development** in the American West, where we have three times the amount of oil as Saudi Arabia.
 * 3) **Give coastal states federal royalty revenue sharing** to give them an incentive to allow offshore development.
 * 4) **Reduce frivolous lawsuits** that hold up energy production by enacting loser pays laws to force the losers in an environmental lawsuit to pay all legal costs for the other side.
 * 5) **Finance cleaner energy research** and projects with new oil and gas royalties.
 * 6) **Replace the Environmental Protection Agency,** which has become a job-killing regulatory engine of higher energy prices, with an Environmental Solutions Agency that would use incentives and work cooperatively with local government and industry to achieve better environmental outcomes while considering the impact of federal environmental policies on job creation and the cost of energy. -Bradley Luptak

Gingrich quote from an interview with him on a Northwestern radio station AM 770 on 2/23/12, the day after the GOP debate between Santorum and Romney.
 * "If we opened up federal land, if we opened up offshore, we would, by the end of this decade, be the largest oil producer in the world. We would be independent," said Gingrich. "The people listening to us today would be paying $2.50 or less for their gasoline."**

-Bradley Luptak

Newt Gingrich Affair and Scandal with Mistress and Wife

 * GOP presidential hopeful NEWT GINGRICH’s secret mistress tells WHY the notorious love rat shouldn’t be President! GINGRICH is a sex addict, experts say, and his obsession with chasing wom­en could torpedo his White House run – that's the incredible claim of a woman who says she was Newt’s mistress.**


 * The Republican politico – who bra­zenly cheated on his first and second wives – is hiding even more extramar­ital affairs, says the former mistress, who added that she thinks the ex- Speaker of the House is the worst possible presidential candidate.**


 * “Newt Gingrich is a hypocrite!” his ex-lover Anne Manning told The ENQUIRER.**


 * “He always talks about being big on family values, but he doesn’t practice what he preaches.**


 * “I wasn’t planning to say a word about him, but voters need to know what sort of man they’re being asked to support.”**


 * Gingrich, 68, was married to his first wife Jackie when he cheated with Anne, the wife of a fellow professor at West Georgia College, in spring 1977.**


 * After flirting with her for months while she worked on his con­gressional campaign, Gingrich invited Anne to dinner at a Vietnamese res­taurant in Washington, D.C., and then took her to her hotel room for sex, she said.**


 * “It was oral sex,” Anne – now a busi­nesswoman in Albuquerque, N.M. – noted in a previous interview. “Be­cause, that way, he could say he had not slept with me.”**

-julie kleberg
 * While they were still in the hotel, she said Gingrich told her: “If you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll say you’re lying.”**



-julie kleberg

=GEORGIA =

Help Newt win in Georgia!
As Newt’s home state, Georgia is a launch pad to victory. As one of the strongest Newt networks, Georgia has the potential to serve as the most important foundation of support for the nationwide campaign. Newt has said “I want to win Georgia by the biggest possible margin.” And you can make it happen! Help Newt deliver in his home state by inviting out all of your friends and family to the movement in Georgia. As Newt travels the state, you can help ensure that we regain control of America’s future: 1) Calling all volunteers. We need eager volunteers to phone bank from the Atlanta Headquarters. Our hours are Monday – Friday from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM and Saturday from 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM. Interested volunteers should contact Patrick Mayer at pmayer@newt.org 2) Georgia is having a grassroots conference call on Tuesday, January 31 st at 6:00 PM. Governor Deal will be our keynote Speaker. **-Bradley Luptak**

=**GINGRICH PROMISES TO RETURN TO THE MOON**= As a former NASA executive, I am saddened by the media response to Newt Gingrich's proposal that we return to the moon. The mockery and ridicule does America a great disservice. Space exploration and development is an important national issue. It's not only possible and necessary to safeguard our future—it can be a lot cheaper than anybody dreams. To recap: During the Jan. 26 Republican primary debate in Florida, Mr. Gingrich proposed that we return to the moon within eight years to establish a lunar colony, asserting that the benefits to America would be tremendous. Mitt Romney retorted that if somebody came to him to ask for "a few hundred billion dollars" to return to the moon, he would say: "You're fired." But what would President Romney say to me if I proposed to return to the moon for $40 billion, not hundreds of billions? And if I explained how that would fundamentally enhance U.S. national security? In 2011, I challenged a team of NASA engineers to answer a simple question: "Can we send humans back to the moon, and to the asteroids, with existing launch vehicles?" The answer was, "Yes, we can." We concluded that it would cost about $40 billion, and that this could be financed out of NASA's existing annual human-spaceflight budget (around $4 billion) over 10 years. **-Bradley Luptak**

=Should Newt Gingrich drop out? = ==The editors of // National Review // think he should, to consolidate the conservative vote behind Rick Santorum and thwart Mitt Romney's bid for the GOP nomination == <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #868686; display: block; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline;">POSTED ON FEBRUARY 14, 2012, AT 12:17 PM <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> With his finances drying up and his poll numbers tumbling, Newt Gingrich is being encouraged to drop out and get behind Rick Santorum. <span class="photoCredit" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline;">Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

<span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Geneva,Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Geneva,Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">Should Newt Gingrich drop out and endorse Rick Santorum?
 * || Yes. At least if he wants a conservative to beat Mitt Romney. ||
 * || If Newt falls short on Super Tuesday, he should quit. ||
 * || No. Santorum is getting the press, but Gingrich has more delegates. ||
 * || No. He should stick around and let voters decide. ||
 * || Gingrich won't quit. His ego is too big, and he loves to fight. ||

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">** Best Opinion: ** American Thinker, Slate, Outside the Beltway

When Newt Gingrich was on a roll last month, // he urged Rick Santorum to drop out of the race // for the Republican presidential nomination, and endorse Newt as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Now it's Gingrich's turn to be nudged aside. The conservative <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|//National Review//has issued a call] for Gingrich to end his now-struggling campaign and get behind Santorum, who has shot to the top of some national polls after trouncing Romney in three nominating contests last week. Gingrich says it's "<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|silly] " to suggest he should quit, and insists that he fully expects to bounce back in the polls. Is Newt right to stay in, or is backing Santorum the best way for him to foil Romney?

** Newt should quit: ** "Fairly soon, Newt won't have a choice,"<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|says Rick Moran at //The American Thinker//]. "His money sources are drying up, and he has little to compete with on Super Tuesday " on March 6. If he stays in, Newt will just continue scoring in the low teens or single digits in the next several contests. So why "shouldn't Newt take his own advice and help Santorum become the nominee by consolidating conservative support behind one candidate?" Clearly, Gingrich's own "quest is at an end." <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|"NRO calls for Newt to drop out and support Santorum"]

** But Gingrich is still stronger than Santorum: ** The // National Review //'s anti-Newt fervor is so strong that it "overpowers mere facts," <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|says David Weigel at //Slate//]. ** Gingrich has 29 delegates to Santorum's three **, and the former House speaker still leads his surging, socially conservative rival by 260,000 popular votes. The "Santorum surge" is based on media coverage of his recent success in non-binding caucuses and the fact that nobody has gone negative on him ... yet.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|"//National Review// to Newt: Drop dead"]

** Love him or hate him, Newt's not going anywhere : ** Gingrich might really "think that once the debates start back up he'll start wowing the crowds again," <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|says Doug Mataconis at //Outside the Beltway//]. Or maybe he's just "doing all of this for sheer ego." But stepping aside and letting "the likes of Rick Santorum" eclipse him would not be "a Gingrich-ian move." He's more likely to stick around "as long as he can, drawing off votes, donations, and supporters, and tossing verbal grenades" at his rivals until the bitter end. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0065d7; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|"National Review to Newt: Drop out and Endorse Santorum"]

(Super Tuesday) ||< Alaska ||<  ||< 27 ||< Caucus ||<  [|Caucus Information] from Alaska GOP ||
 * < **March 6, 2012**
 * ^  ||< Georgia ||<   ||< 76 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Georgia Department of State ||
 * ^  ||< Idaho ||<   ||< 32 ||< Caucus ||<  [|Caucus Information] from Idaho GOP ||
 * ^  ||< Massachusetts ||<   ||< 41 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from MA Sec. of Commonwealth ||
 * ^  ||< North Dakota ||<   ||< 28 ||< Caucus ||<  [|Caucus Information] from North Dakota GOP ||
 * ^  ||< Ohio ||<   ||< 66 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Ohio Department of State ||
 * ^  ||< Oklahoma ||<   ||< 43 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Oklahoma State Election Board ||
 * ^  ||< Tennessee ||<   ||< 58 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Tennessee Department of State ||
 * ^  ||< Vermont ||<   ||< 17 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Vermont Department of State ||
 * ^  ||< Virginia ||<   ||< 49 ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Virginia Board of Elections

-Only [|Mitt Romney] and [|Ron Paul] will appear on the VA ballot, see [|this report] || http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-republican-primary-schedule/ <span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">POPULARITY FOR GINGRICH SEEMS TO BE DECLINING DUE MAINLY TO BAD PUBLICITY. AS EVIDENT IN THE NUMBERS, HE IS STILL AHEAD IN DELEGATES, BUT SANTORUM WAS THE NUMBER 2 CANDIDATE FEATURED IN WEDNESDAY'S DEBATE. AT THIS POINT, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR GINGRICH TO MAKE A COMEBACK (WHAT WITH THE GEORGIA PRIMARY ALSO ON MARCH 6), BUT THE RESULTS OF SUPER TUESDAY HAVE YET TO BE SEEN, AND DEPENDING ON THE RESULTS, GINGRICH'S FATE WILL BE DECIDED WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARS AND ALL THE DELEGATES HAVE BEEN DISTIRBUTED. **-Bradley Luptak**

=<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> **Gingrich's Standings in the Primaries and Caucuses** =


 * **Results** for **U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries** ||
 * || State || Gingrich || Paul || Romney || Santorum ||  ||   || reporting ||
 * 02/11 || [|ME] ||> 6.7% ||> 34.9% ||> 39.0% ||> 18.1% ||  ||   ||> 87% ||
 * 02/07 || [|CO] ||> 12.8% ||> 11.8% ||> 34.9% ||> 40.3% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/07 || [|MN] ||> 10.8% ||> 27.1% ||> 16.9% ||> 44.9% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/07 || [|MO] * ||> - ||> 12.2% ||> 25.3% ||> 55.2% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/04 || [|NV] ||> 21.1% ||> 18.8% ||> 50.1% ||> 10.0% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/31 || [|FL] || 31.9% || 7.0% || 46.4% || 13.3% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/21 || [|SC] || 40.4% || 13.0% || 27.8% || 17.0% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/10 || [|NH] || 9.4% || 22.9% || 39.3% || 9.4% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/03 || [|IA] || 13.3% || 21.4% || 24.5% || 24.6% ||  ||   || >99% ||


 * < **January 3, 2012** ||< Iowa ||< [|Results] ||< 28 ||< Caucus ||<  ||
 * < **January 10, 2012** ||< New Hampshire ||< [|Results] ||< 12 ||< Primary ||<  ||
 * < **January 21, 2012** ||< South Carolina ||< [|Results] ||< 25 ||< Primary ||<  ||
 * < **January 31, 2012** ||< Florida ||< [|Results] ||< 50 ||< Primary ||<  ||
 * < **February 4, 2012** ||< Nevada ||< [|Results] ||< 28 ||< Caucus ||<  ||
 * < **February 7, 2012** ||< Colorado ||< [|Results] ||< 36 ||< Caucus ||< [|Caucus Information] from Colorado GOP ||
 * ^  ||< Minnesota ||< [|Results] ||< 40 ||< Caucus ||<  [|Caucus Information] (PDF) from Minnesota GOP ||
 * ^  ||< Missouri ||< [|Results] ||<   ||< Primary ||<  [|Primary Information] from Missouri Secretary of State

-The February 7th "beauty contest" primary will not count for delegates toward the 2012 GOP convention. The Missouri Republican Party will hold a [|caucus] on March 17th which will determine the delegates sent to the 2012 GOP convention – See report from [|CNN] || Iowa 28 total delegates x 0.133 = 3.7 New Hampshire 12 total delegates x 0.094 = 1.1 South Carolina 25 total delegates x 0.404 = 10.1 Florida 50 total delegates x 0.319 = 16.0 Nevada 28 total delegates x 0.211 = 5.9 Missouri* Minnesota 40 total delegates x 0.108 = 4.3 Colorado 36 total delegates x 0.128 = 4.6 Maine 24 total delegates x 0.067 = 1.6
 * < **February 11, 2012** ||< Maine ||< [|Results] ||< 24 ||< Caucus ||< [|Caucus Information] from Maine GOP ||

total delegates (approximately) = 44-48
-Bradley Luptak

** Newt Gingrich By: Andrew Huckabee and Quinton Cox** = = = = = = =

Early life, family, and education
[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Early_life.2C_family.2C_and_education] [] Gingrich was born at the [|Harrisburg Hospital] in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 1943, as Newton Leroy McPherson. His mother, Kathleen "Kit" (née Daugherty; 1925–2003), and father, Newton Searles McPherson (1923–1970),[// [|citation needed] //] married in September 1942, when she was 16 and McPherson was 19. The marriage fell apart within days. [|[5]][|[6]][|[7]] In 1946, his mother married Army officer Robert Gingrich (1925–1996), who [|adopted] Newt. [|[8]] Gingrich has three younger half-sisters, [|Candace Gingrich], Susan Gingrich, and Roberta Brown. [|[8]] Gingrich is of German, English, Scottish, and Irish descent, [|[9]] and was raised a [|Lutheran]. [|[10]] Gingrich was raised in [|Hummelstown], near Harrisburg, and on military bases where Robert Gingrich was stationed. In 1961, Gingrich graduated from [|Baker High School] in [|Columbus, Georgia]. He became interested in politics during his teen years while living in [|Orléans], France, where he visited the site of the [|Battle of Verdun] and learned about the sacrifices made there and the importance of political leadership. [|[11]] Choosing to obtain [|deferments] granted to college students and fathers, Gingrich did not enlist in the military, and was not [|drafted] during the [|Vietnam War]. He expressed some regret about that decision in 1985, saying, "Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over." [|[12]] Gingrich received a [|B.A.] degree in history from [|Emory University] in [|Atlanta] in 1965. He then proceded to earn an [|M.A.] (1968) and [|Ph.D.] (1971) in modern European history, both from [|Tulane University] in [|New Orleans]. [|[13]] He spent six months in [|Brussels] in 1969-70 working on his dissertation entitled "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945–1960". [|[14]] In 1970, Gingrich joined the history department at [|West Georgia College] as an assistant professor. In 1974 he moved to the geography department and was instrumental in establishing an interdisciplinary environmental studies program. Denied [|tenure], he left the college in 1978. [|[15]]

Abortion
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Gingrich is generally regarded as a [|pro-life] candidate. The policy section of Gingrich's 2012 campaign web site states that he would "end taxpayer subsidies for abortion by repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, and reinstating the 'Mexico City Policy' which banned funding to organizations that promote and/or perform abortions overseas". [|[10]] In 1995, when he was Speaker of the House, Gingrich advocated taxpayer funding of abortion services in cases of rape, incest, or protecting the life of the mother. [|[11]] In 1998, influential Christian broadcaster [|James Dobson] criticized Gingrich for not working hard enough to eliminate funding for family-planning programs. [|[12]] Gingrich has since modified his position to oppose federal funding of abortions in all cases. [|[13]] In an interview with [|Jake Tapper] of ABC News in late 2011, Gingrich stated that he believed life began at "implantation". [|[14]] He has been criticized by socially conservative Republican presidential primary opponents [|Rick Santorum] and [|Michele Bachmann] for not consistently supporting the doctrine that life begins at conception. [|[13]][|[15]] On December 12, 2011, he wrote to the board of [|The Family Leader] that he believes "that life begins at conception". He promised on the first day of work as president to "sign an executive order reinstating Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City policy that prevents taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions overseas"; he will "repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood". [|[16]]

Education
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Gingrich favors rigorous mathematics and science instruction in public schools, introducing [|competition between schools] and between teachers, and permitting public [|school prayer]. [|[29]] In 2009 Gingrich teamed with two unlikely allies to promote their shared view of education reform: civil rights activist [|Al Sharpton], and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, [|Arne Duncan]. After the three had visited a number of U.S. schools that were implementing education reforms, on November 15, 2009 they appeared together on NBC's Sunday morning news and interview program [|Meet the Press]. During their interview Gingrich said that "education is the number one factor in our future prosperity, it's the number one factor in national security and it's the number one factor in [our] young people having a decent future. I agree with Al Sharpton, this is the number one civil right of the 21st century." [|[30]] Gingrich's 2010 book //To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine//, the chapter co-authored by [|Lisa Keegan], Nancy Sinnott Dwight, and Fred Asbell, states, "We must be an intellectually hungry, morally strong, and urgently demanding nation with an education system capable of responding to a voracious American desire to learn." [|[31]]

Free speech
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Gingrich opposed a Senate amendment to the [|Communications Decency Act of 1996] that banned "indecent" content from the Internet, saying it "is clearly a violation of free speech and it's a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other". The amendment remained in the enacted legislation, but in // [|Reno v. ACLU] // (1997) the Supreme Court struck it down. [|[59]] Gingrich was one of the 71 co-sponsors of a bill to reinstate the [|Fairness Doctrine] after the [|Federal Communications Commission] stopped enforcing the rule in 1987. [|[60]] In 2006, he indicated that free speech might need to be curtailed to fight terrorism, saying "Either before we lose a city or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people." [|[61]]

Health care
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Gingrich opposes the [|Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] of 2010 (PPACA). Through his organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, Gingrich organized an online petition that secured over 100,000 signatures to support its repeal in the [|United States House of Representatives]. [|[62]] In February 2010, Gingrich and [|John C. Goodman], the founding president of the [|National Center for Policy Analysis] , presented a 10-point consumer driven health care plan. Outlined in the //Wall Street Journal//, the plan proposes reforms to make health insurance more affordable, create alternatives to Medicare cuts, protect early retirees, cover the needs of the chronically ill, and protect doctors against frivolous lawsuits. [|[63]] In the book //To Save America//, also published in 2010, Gingrich described PPACA as "a dead end of higher taxes, bigger government, more bureaucracy and a decaying health system". [|[64]] With co-author Nancy Desmond, Gingrich outlined proposals for improving the American healthcare industry through a variety of means including: an overhaul of the U.S. medical research system that would reduce wastefulness, modernizing the FDA, eliminating Medicare fraud and abuse, and implementing a system of what they describe as "personalized medicine" that would improve care for individuals while reducing the costs associated with treatment. [|[64]] Gingrich has also called for transparency in the prices of medical devices, noting it is one of the few aspects or U.S. health care where consumers and federal health officials are "barred from comparing the quality, medical outcomes or price". [|[65]][|[66]][|[67]] Gingrich supported the [|Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act] of 2003, creating the [|Medicare Part D] federal prescription drugs benefit program. While he has received some criticism from conservatives over the cost of the plan, Gingrich has reiterated his support in years since, saying that it represented necessary modernization of the system, as Medicare was created in the 1960s, before pharmaceutical drugs were in widespread use. He also stated that the costs of providing medication must be balanced against the decreased need for medical procedures. [|[68]] The same year, Gingrich founded the Center for Health Transformation to develop and advocate for "transformational" solutions that improve the quality of care, lower costs and expand coverage to all Americans. [|[69]] The Center has played a role in opposing PPACA, arguing that the plan will increase costs for both taxpayers and consumers and expand insurance coverage by growing government. The Center has released a series of charts highlighting different aspects of the legislation, focusing on the 159 new bureaucratic organizations it would create; [|[70]][|[71]] the ten-year implementation timeline of nearly 500 related deadlines, mandates and taxes; [|[72]] and a claimed 1,968 new and expanded powers granted to the Secretary of [|Health and Human Services]. [|[73]] In an April 2006 newsletter the Center defended the individual mandate in [|Romneycare], describing "[i]ndividuals who can afford to purchase health insurance and simply choose not to" as "free-riders." [|[74]] In a May 15, 2011, interview with [|David Gregory] on// [|Meet the Press] //, Gingrich repeated his long-held belief that "all of us have a responsibility to pay – help pay for health care", and suggested this could be implemented by either a mandate to obtain health insurance or a requirement to post a bond ensuring coverage. [|[46]][|[47]][|[75]] In the same interview he said: "I don't think right wing social engineering is any more desirable than left wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate." This comment caused a great deal of back-lash within the Republican Party and from conservative pundits. Later, on his web site, he expanded on his comments by saying he believes the federal mandate contained in the PPACA is unconstitutional and that he believes individual states should be able to decide the best way to implement healthcare programs for their citizens. [|[76]]

Activist judges
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">During his campaign Gingrich has identified [|judicial activism] as a problem and has promised to rein in what he perceives to be judicial overreach. During the last campaign debate in 2011, Gingrich responded to a moderator's question about his pledge to abolish the "activist" courts and to subpoena and impeach judges who notably failed to defer to elected lawmakers. He pledged to abolish the [|9th Circuit Court of Appeals], which is often considered to be the most liberal of the federal circuit courts. [|[85]] He told the audience that the founding fathers intended the judicial branch to be the least powerful of the three branches of the government and that today the courts threaten the role of faith in American life and family values. Gingrich has stated that he believes the [|Warren Court] misinterpreted // [|Marbury v. Madison] // in its // [|Cooper v. Aaron] // decision and went too far in asserting that only the [|Supreme Court] has final and binding interpretive authority over the two other branches of the federal government in defining the meaning of the Constitution. [|[86]][|[87]]

Same-sex marriage
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Although his half-sister, [|Candace Gingrich], is a lesbian LGBT rights advocate, [|[108]] Gingrich opposes same-sex marriage. Speaking in Iowa on June 25, 2011, Gingrich said he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman, and told reporters that he "would like to find ways to defend that view as legitimately and effectively as possible". He believes that the U.S. government should be defending the [|Defense of Marriage Act] (DOMA). [|[109]] His 2012 campaign web site says that he would "nominate conservative judges who are committed to upholding Constitutional limited government and understand that the role of the judges is to interpret the law, not legislate from the bench". [|[10]] Gingrich has been criticized for opposing same-sex marriage while having been married three times and divorced twice. Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass) said he looks "forward to debating, to take one important example, the Defense of Marriage Act with Mr. Gingrich. I think he is an ideal opponent for us, when we talk about just who it is, is threatening the sanctity of marriage." [|[110]] =<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 30px; vertical-align: baseline;">Gingrich Attacks Help Romney and Hurt Obama: Jonathan Alter = <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline;">By [|Jonathan Alter] Feb 2, 2012 6:00 PM CT   [|Newt Gingrich] was so bitter after his Florida loss that he neither called Mitt Romney to concede nor congratulated him in his primary-night speech. Now he’s hell- bent on chasing Romney around the U.S. for the next seven months making his life miserable. Who does this help? I say Romney. The competition doesn’t “prepare” Romney for the fall, as he said when declaring victory in Florida. But Gingrich’s presence in the race does have the perverse effect of making Romney seem more rational and centrist, which will help a lot in the general election. Conventional wisdom holds that a long and brutal Republican primary campaign can only benefit [|Barack Obama], if for no other reason than that it gives Romney more chances to make another dumb gaffe, like saying “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Obama backers smile at the pros pect of Gingrich crisscrossing the country exacting revenge for [|Florida]. The cover of the [|New Yorker] this week shows a happy president tuning into football only to find he’s watching Romney and Gingrich grapple on the gridiron. Because Democrats aren’t fortunate enough to have Gingrich as the doomed Republican nominee (“I did not think I had lived a good enough life” for that, Barney Frank joked last fall), they’ll settle for the human time bomb blowing more holes in the listing hull of the USS Romney.

Road Rage
This scenario makes sense on the surface. As the Republican establishment moves toward what Steve Schmidt, who was [|John McCain] ’s chief strategist in 2008, [|calls] “a declaration of war on <span style="border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">Newt Gingrich ,” the damage to the Republican brand sustained in 2011 will worsen. The clown car of [|Donald Trump], [|Michele Bachmann] , [|Herman Cain] and [|Rick Perry] is now a nasty two-car collision with road rage all around. The Florida primary was astoundingly negative. Negative ads made up a mind-blowing 92 percent of campaign commercials in Florida, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. Mostly this was Romney and his posse of plutocrats showing the power of $15 million in ad buys to squash anyone like a bug. Gingrich was outspent in Florida by nearly 5-to-1, but he and his allies still managed to fling $3.7 million in mud pies at Romney. If this were to continue in more than 40 other primary states, it would wreak havoc on the party. But it won’t. That’s because the decision on taking that path belongs not to Gingrich but to [|Sheldon Adelson], the billionaire whose family super-PAC has heavily financed Gingrich’s TV attacks on Romney. As the British might say: No Shelly, no telly. The Romney team needn’t worry. Adelson is one of the richest men in the world, but the chances of his spending $100 million to maim Romney nationwide aren’t good. If he were that strongly committed to Gingrich, he would have ponied up much more in Florida. Instead, Gingrich’s primary trajectory will probably resemble that of [|Jerry Brown], who won a string of late primaries against [|Jimmy Carter] in 1976 and harassed [|Bill Clinton] for months in 1992. (Brown even used a debate to accuse Clinton of funneling money to his wife’s law firm.) In each case, Brown’s challenge from the left made the presumptive Democratic nominee seem more stable and moderate, which helped Carter and later Clinton to victory in November. Gingrich is now poised to do the same to Romney from the right. His message is that he’s the true Tea Party conservative and Romney is a “Massachusetts moderate.”

Look Again
This is untrue on both counts. As [|Rick Santorum] points out, Gingrich joined with Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi on [|climate change], backed an individual mandate for health insurance, and called Representative Paul Ryan’s plan to cut Medicare and education spending “right-wing social engineering.” Some conservative. Romney, for his part, seems to have terminated his moderate twin sometime around 2007. He has embraced the Ryan plan, campaigned with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (who has led the drafting of restrictive laws, including those in Arizona and [|Alabama], against illegal immigration), backed even deeper tax cuts for the rich and left himself no wiggle room on abortion. Some moderate. The minute Romney nails down the nomination, of course, he’ll be scampering for the middle, which is where the votes are. The advantage of the Gingrich challenge, from the Romney perspective, is that it will make that pivot more convincing. Because of Gingrich, the Romney general election message will be imprinted on the mind of the electorate much earlier than it would have been otherwise. “Massachusetts moderate” may be an epithet in Republican primaries, but it’s a compliment in the general election, which will be determined by independents with no sympathy for the [|Tea Party]. Obama won independents in 2008 by eight points, and Democrats lost them in the 2010 midterms by eight points. To get enough of them back to prevail, the president will have to do more than depict Romney as an out-of-touch one-percenter with bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. He’ll need to lash Romney to the conservative policy agenda that created few jobs and helped drive the economy off the cliff. That won’t be easy. Even as Romney is locked into very conservative positions, much of the news media insists on describing him as the moderate in the race. In fact, the center of gravity in the [|Republican Party] has shifted so far to the right that [|Ronald Reagan] ’s policies (including multiple tax increases) would today be considered almost liberal. [|Mitt Romney] is a flawed candidate with no common touch. But the weak economy still gives him a strong chance if he can find the median strip of American politics. <span style="border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">Newt Gingrich wants to push him there, inadvertently helping the man he despises to become president.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 2.5em; text-align: left;">Newt Gingrich to challenge Florida winner-take-all delegate rules [] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;">  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"> [| Former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign is seeking to recover following Mitt Romney’s decisive victory in Florida.] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;">

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;">

By [|Amy Gardner], Thursday, February 2, 1:59 PM
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 1.5em;">LAS VEGAS -- [|Two days after a resounding loss in Florida’s Republican primary], former House <span style="border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">speaker Newt Gingrich has decided to petition the Republican Party of Florida to allocate its national convention delegates proportionally rather than on [|a winner-take-all basis] , spokesman R.C. Hammond said Thursday. “The RNC set out rules last winter that stated any contest held before a certain date must award its delegates proportionally,” Hammond said to a group of reporters after Gingrich participated in a Hispanic roundtable here. “Florida moved its primary inside of this date, so therefore we’re asking the state party of Florida to enforce the existing rules.”

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 1.5em;">Hammond said the campaign would not have asked for proportional allocation if Gingrich had won the Florida primary. Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, won the primary resoundingly with 46 percent of the vote; Gingrich came in a distant second with 32 percent. At stake are 50 convention delegates that all go to Romney under the state party’s rules. If Gingrich were to prevail, Romney’s lead in the delegate count race would be significantly narrower and would open a wider path for Gingrich to stay in the race until the GOP’s national convention in August. The candidates are battling to amass 1,144 out of a total of 2,286 convention delegates to secure the party’s nomination. Hammond’s announcement followed news reports that Bill McCollum, the former Florida attorney general and Gingrich’s Florida campaign chairman, had begun lobbying party officials to revert to proportional allocation. In addition, the campaign circulated a memo laying out why Florida’s rules should be changed. However, the state party chairman, Lenny Curry, gave no indication that a change of plans was likely. Curry said in a statement that the Florida GOP executive committee’s decision to award delegates on a winner-take-all basis was made unanimously in September, and that the time to protest that decision has past. “All campaigns and the RNC have known since then that Florida was winner-take-all,” Curry said. “RNC’s legal counsel has, on numerous occasions, noted their understanding and acceptance of Florida’s rule.” “Florida was winner take all before Election Day, we were winner take all on Election Day, we will remain winner take all,” Curry continued. “As Bill McCollum confirmed to Fox News today, had the outcome been different on Tuesday he would not be seeking publicity for a challenge to the rules adopted by Florida’s Republicans. It is a shame when the loser of a contest agrees to the rules before, then cries foul after losing.” Some Republicans said the door remains open to require Florida to award its delegates proportionally. John Ryder, a Republican National Committeeman from Tennessee who served on the committee that helped draft the rules governing this year’s process, said the rules allow any eligible Florida primary voter to challenge the delegate award. The challenge will be considered by the RNC’s Committee on Contests, which will meet right before the summer convention. “This will be relevant--or it won’t be,” Ryder said. “If one candidate has amassed a clear majority of the delegates, none of this will matter. If it’s a close contest, the committee of contests will be the focus of a great deal of attention, I’d expect.”

<span style="background-color: #ebebeb; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 1.8333em; text-align: left;"> Newt Gingrich's Speech After Second-Place Florida Primary <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 1.5em;">media type="youtube" key="Ha86ieP21dQ" height="315" width="560"  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;">
 * **Results** for **U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries** ||


 * || State || Gingrich || Paul || Romney || Santorum ||  ||   || reporting ||
 * 01/31 || [|FL] ||> 31.9% ||> 7.0% ||> 46.4% ||> 13.3% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/21 || [|SC] ||> 40.4% ||> 13.0% ||> 27.8% ||> 17.0% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/10 || [|NH] ||> 9.4% ||> 22.9% ||> 39.3% ||> 9.4% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/03 || [|IA] ||> 13.3% ||> 21.4% ||> 24.5% ||> 24.6% ||  ||   ||> >99% ||

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"> Controversy between Romney and Gingrich <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;">
 * Source: AP ||
 * **Newt threatens TV stations over ad**

<span class="author" style="color: #808080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">By: <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Kenneth P. Vogel

<span class="author" style="color: #808080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">February 17, 2012 12:41 PM EST || The ad in question, which is the work of the Restore Our Future super PAC and is already airing in the former House Speaker’s home state of Georgia, asserts Gingrich “co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.” A letter from a Gingrich campaign lawyer sent to every TV station in the states with upcoming contests in the GOP presidential primary calls the ad “fundamentally NOT TRUE, or as PolitiFACT.org put it – a “Pants on Fire” lie. If the stations air the ad “it will be a knowing publication of a false statement. As such, it represents a defamatory communication, which exposes this station to potential civil liability,” the letter asserts, demanding stations “immediately REFUSE, ad if started, CEASE airing any such advertisements and refrain from broadcasting their content until such time as the libelous statements have been removed.” The ad refers to a 1989 bill for which Gingrich was among the co-sponsors (in all, 144 members attached their name to the bill). While the bill, House Resolution 1078, directed money to the U.N. Population Fund, which President Ronald Reagan opposed because it supported Chinese family planning efforts deemed inhumane, a provision in the measure explicitly prohibited funding for “the performance of involuntary sterilization or abortion or to coerce any person to accept family planning.” The ad is a slight variation of one that Restore Our Future has been running heavily in multiple states since December, and the Gingrich campaign did not respond when asked why they were launching the official challenge now. A well-connected Washington, D.C., campaign finance lawyer suggested the timing may be related to the fact that McKenna Long & Aldridge, the law firm of Gingrich’s top outside campaign counsel Stefan Passantino, represents TV stations in Georgia. In fact, the Gingrich campaign paid another law firm, the Atlanta-based Hall Booth Smith & Slover, to send the letter to TV stations “to ensure there are no conflicts,” said Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond. The Gingrich campaign said some of the stations that received the letter intended to report on it, but did not answer when asked if any planned to remove the ad. This is not the first time that the Gingrich’s campaign has written TV stations to complain about a Restore Our Future ad. Last month, the campaign demanded more than 50 TV stations remove an ad from the super PAC that asserted Gingrich had been “fined” $300,000 by the House Ethics Committee in the 1990s for violations. Restore Our Future pushed back in its own letter to the stations and none appear to have removed the ad. The super PAC did not respond to a request for comment on Gingrich’s latest demand. || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;">
 * Newt Gingrich’s campaign is threatening to sue TV stations in upcoming primary states that are airing or plan to broadcast an ad from a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC accusing the former House Speaker of supporting the “one-child” Chinese policy that has been criticized as inhumane.
 * **Results** for **U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries** ||

= = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 30px; vertical-align: baseline;">Should Newt Gingrich drop out? <span style="color: #555555; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 18px; vertical-align: baseline;">The editors of // National Review // think he should, to consolidate the conservative vote behind Rick Santorum and thwart Mitt Romney's bid for the GOP nomination POSTED ON FEBRUARY 14, 2012, AT 12:17 PM
 * || State || Gingrich || Paul || Romney || Santorum ||  ||   || reporting ||
 * 02/11 || [|ME] ||> 6.2% ||> 35.7% ||> 39.2% ||> 17.7% ||  ||   ||> 84% ||
 * 02/07 || [|CO] ||> 12.8% ||> 11.8% ||> 34.9% ||> 40.3% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/07 || [|MN] ||> 10.8% ||> 27.1% ||> 16.9% ||> 44.9% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/07 || [|MO] ||> - ||> 12.2% ||> 25.3% ||> 55.2% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/04 || [|NV] ||> 21.1% ||> 18.8% ||> 50.1% ||> 10.0% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 01/31 || [|FL] || 31.9% || 7.0% || 46.4% || 13.3% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/21 || [|SC] || 40.4% || 13.0% || 27.8% || 17.0% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/10 || [|NH] || 9.4% || 22.9% || 39.3% || 9.4% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/03 || [|IA] || 13.3% || 21.4% || 24.5% || 24.6% ||  ||   || >99% ||

<span style="color: #666666; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">With his finances drying up and his poll numbers tumbling, Newt Gingrich is being encouraged to drop out and get behind Rick Santorum. <span style="color: #666666; display: block; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Geneva,Verdana; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Geneva,Verdana; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Geneva,Verdana; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Should Newt Gingrich drop out and endorse Rick Santorum?
 * || Yes. At least if he wants a conservative to beat Mitt Romney. ||
 * || If Newt falls short on Super Tuesday, he should quit. ||
 * || No. Santorum is getting the press, but Gingrich has more delegates. ||
 * || No. He should stick around and let voters decide. ||
 * || Gingrich won't quit. His ego is too big, and he loves to fight. ||

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">** Best Opinion: ** American Thinker, Slate, Outside the Beltway

When Newt Gingrich was on a roll last month, // he urged Rick Santorum to drop out of the race // for the Republican presidential nomination, and endorse Newt as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Now it's Gingrich's turn to be nudged aside. The conservative [|//National Review//has issued a call] for Gingrich to end his now-struggling campaign and get behind Santorum, who has shot to the top of some national polls after trouncing Romney in three nominating contests last week. Gingrich says it's " [|silly] " to suggest he should quit, and insists that he fully expects to bounce back in the polls. Is Newt right to stay in, or is backing Santorum the best way for him to foil Romney?

Face in the news: Newt Gingrich media type="custom" key="12859312"

<span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has appeared on //Face the Nation// with Bob Schieffer numerous times during this campaign season. Topics of conversation have ranged from the U.S. judicial system to foreign policy - but this Sunday's interview was all about Super Tuesday and Mitt Romney, the current Republican frontrunner. (watch the interview above)

<span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">During the broadcast, Schieffer aired a 2002 video clip of Mitt Romney, obtained by //CBS News//, in which Romney boasts about his success acquiring federal funds as head of the Salt Lake City Olympics. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"I'm a believer in getting money where the money is," Romney said in the video. "And the money is Washington." <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Romney went on to tell his audience that the best way to build "economic development opportunities" is to "go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington" - comments that appear at stark odds with his current position on earmarking. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Gingrich's response to the video made its way into Monday's papers. "There's a breathtaking scale of dishonesty underlying the Romney Campaign," Gingrich told Schieffer during Sunday's interview. "Eventually all these falsehoods catch up with you. That video is a perfect example, it's really sad." (Read more from The // [|Boston Globe] // and [| //National Journal//] ) <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Also in the headlines: looking ahead to the Super Tuesday contests, Gingrich acknowledged that a win in Georgia, his home state, was absolutely crucial for his campaign. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"I think you lose all credibility when the people who know you best repudiate you," Gingrich told Schieffer, noting that all of the candidates "have to focus in on carrying our home states." (Read more from // [|The Washington Post] //, // [|The New York Times] // and // [|The Washington Times] //) <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) also appeared on Sunday's broadcast, and made news when he suggested Rush Limbaugh only apologized to Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke because it was "in his best interests." Limbaugh has come under fire for calling Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" after she testified at congressional hearing on contraceptives. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"I don't think he's very apologetic," Paul said Sunday on Face the Nation. "He's doing it because some people were taking their advertisements off the program." (Read more from // [|The Wall Street Journal] //, // [|Reuters] //, [| //The Washington Post//] and // [|The State Column] //).

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> [|Mitt] [|Romney] || [|Former Governor] || [|Massachusetts] || **136** || **178** || **1,831,529** (40.16%) || **8** [|New Hampshire], [|Florida] , [|Nevada] , [|Maine] , [|Arizona] , [|Michigan] , [|Wyoming] , [|Washington]  || **4** South Carolina, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri(p) || **1** Minnesota || [|Newt] [|Gingrich] || [|Former U.S. House Speaker] || [|Georgia] || **32** || **49** || **983,337** (21.56%) || **1** [|South Carolina] || **2** Florida, Nevada || **2** Colorado, Arizona || [|Rick] [|Santorum] || [|Former U.S. Senator] || [|Pennsylvania] || **19** || **75** || **1,083,276** (23.76%) || **4** [|Iowa], [|Colorado] , [|Minnesota] , [|Missouri(p)]  || **3** Arizona, Michigan, Wyoming || **4** South Carolina, Florida, Maine, Washington || [|Ron] [|Paul] || [|U.S. Representative] || [|Texas] || **9** || **51** || **506,414** (11.11%) || 0 || **4** New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine, Washington || **5** Iowa, Nevada, Missouri(p), Michigan, Wyoming || <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"> =media type="youtube" key="8wk133nLwXc" height="315" width="560"=
 * **Candidate** || **Current Office** || **Home state** || **Secured delegates** [|[27]] || **Projected delegates** [|[28]] || **Popular vote** || **States - first place** || **States - second place** || **States - third place** ||
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Mitt_Romney.jpg/79px-Mitt_Romney.jpg width="79" height="100" caption="Mitt Romney.jpg" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mitt_Romney.jpg"]]
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Newt_Gingrich_by_Gage_Skidmore_6.jpg/75px-Newt_Gingrich_by_Gage_Skidmore_6.jpg width="75" height="100" caption="Newt Gingrich by Gage Skidmore 6.jpg" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newt_Gingrich_by_Gage_Skidmore_6.jpg"]]
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Rick_Santorum_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg/68px-Rick_Santorum_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg width="68" height="100" caption="Rick Santorum by Gage Skidmore 2.jpg" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rick_Santorum_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg"]]
 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Ron_Paul_by_Gage_Skidmore_3_crop.jpg/76px-Ron_Paul_by_Gage_Skidmore_3_crop.jpg width="76" height="100" caption="Ron Paul by Gage Skidmore 3 crop.jpg" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ron_Paul_by_Gage_Skidmore_3_crop.jpg"]]

=<span style="font-family: cambria,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 30px;">Newt Gingrich uses Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke to attack President Obama = <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: left;"> Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich used conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh’s apology to Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke as an opportunity to attack President Obama Sunday.

The former House speaker, who has failed to win a primary victory since winning South Carolina in January, on Sunday appeared on ABC News to talk about the latest occurrences along the campaign trail.

Last week, following her receiving heightened media attention for being barred from a congressional hearing regarding the federal contraception mandate, Mr. Limbaugh called Ms. Fluke a “slut” for being supportive of the president’s contraception provision. The conservative radio show host was essentially suggesting that because she wanted her health insurance company to cover her birth control costs that she was extremely sexually promiscuous.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Mr. Limbaugh has since apologized, but the comment sparked an uproar of criticism from Democrats, many of whom have argued that the comment is representative of the Republican party’s attack on women’s rights. Mr. Limbaugh is well known for making extreme remarks about various political issues, but even he realized that he went too far by calling Ms. Fluke a “slut."

“I think he was right to apologize. But let’s talk about apologies for a second. I think the president was totally wrong as commander in chief to apologize to religious fanatics while our young men are being killed in Afghanistan, and I think it was a disaster of an apology,” said Mr. Gingrich.Mr. Gingrich was quick to point out that Mr. Limbaugh does not speak for the entire party, and also used the situation as an opportunity to attack President Obama. The former House speaker was referring to the president’s recent apology to the president of Afghanistan for the inadvertent burning of the Koran at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

Mr. Gingrich believes that the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke controversy is simply a result of the president’s healthcare plan, which he and many other Republicans feel is an attack on religious freedom in the U.S.

“Now, I’m kind of amazed that there aren’t more voices in the elite media in favor of religious liberty in America and suggesting that, first of all, this young lady can buy contraception all she wants to. There is no place in America that’s difficult for her to get contraception,” said Mr. Gingrich. The former speaker has made several comments about the “elite media” throughout the Republican primary race.

He feels that mainstream media is biased in their coverage of politics, as Republican views on social issues are always portrayed as extreme. After Ms. Fluke was not allowed to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee two weeks ago, several prominent female Democratic members of Congress expressed their concern with House Republicans decision to have an all male panel discussing birth control.

She was then allowed to testify at a hearing organized by several congressional Democrats about her support for the Obama administration contraception requirement. Mr. Limbaugh’s “slut” comment about Ms. Fluke further enraged them, but Mr. Gingrich said that the outrage should be aimed at the Obama administration.

“The question is, should a religiously-affiliated institution — not just Catholic, but for example the Christian University of — the Ohio Christian University, which is Protestant, but is right-to-life– finds that sterilization and abortion provisions of Obamacare totally unacceptable,” said Mr. Gingrich. The Sandra Fluke “slut” comment by Mr. Limbaugh has cost his radio show to lose several prominent advertisers. America Online (AOL) became the eighth advertiser to pull their ads from his show Monday.

On Monday, Mr. Limbaugh discussed the apology that he made to Ms. Fluke, and posted the transcript on his website under a blog post entitled “Why I apologized to Sandra Fluke.”

“I want to explain why I apologized to Sandra Fluke in the statement that was released on Saturday. I’ve read all the theories from all sides, and, frankly, they are all wrong. I don’t expect — and I know you don’t, either — morality or intellectual honesty from the left,” said Mr. Limbaugh on Monday.

“Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong I descended to their level when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke. That was my error,” added the conservative commentator.

Ms. Fluke has since reacted to his apology, stating that she does not accept it. Mr. Gingrich will now turn his attention to Super Tuesday, where he is hoping to win the Georgia Republican primary election. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: left;"> = Newt Gingrich's Sunday pitch: Don't count me out =

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;"><span style="background-color: #dddddd; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom;">Newt Gingrich appears on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. (Mary F. Calvert / CBS )   [|March 04, 2012]  | By Mark Z. Barabak Reporting from Cincinnati — Fresh off a distant fourth-place finish [|in the Washington caucuses] and more than a month since his one and only primary victory, Newt Gingrich had a defiant message Sunday: Don't count me out. "This is going to go on for a good while," the former House speaker said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," one of several Washington talk shows Gingrich visited in the run-up to Super Tuesday. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may outspend the rest of the GOP field "by multiples," Gingrich said, but "he's not a very convincing front-runner and he's a long way from having closed out this race." Gingrich said he expects to win Georgia, the largest of the states voting in Tuesday's nationwide sweepstakes, and to do so by more than Romney's narrow victory Tuesday in his native Michigan. From there, Gingrich said, he expects to win Alabama and Mississippi a week later and bulk up his delegate count in Texas and California at the end of the calendar. Gingrich has not prevailed in a contest since his Jan. 20 victory in the South Carolina primary and mathematically it seems unlikely -- if not impossible -- for him to accrue the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. His best hope is apparently for a contested convention in which no candidate has the needed delegates, allowing Gingrich to emerge as a consensus choice of the party faithful who will gather in Tampa, Fla., in August to pick the GOP nominee. Gingrich fell back on an argument that buoyed him earlier in the campaign, when he surged and enjoyed his own time as the front-runner: his dynamic performance on the debate stage. "The thing people have to ask themselves is: Who do you think could stand up to Barack Obama in October and win the debates?" Gingrich asked. "If we don't have somebody who can win the debates in October, we're going to have a very hard time winning the election." Gingrich repeatedly refused to be drawn into the controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh. The talk radio host [|apologized Saturday night] for the slurs he used to refer to a Georgetown University law school student after she testified before congressional [|Democrats] in favor of a rule requiring employers to offer health insurance covering birth control. While Gingrich said the apology was appropriate, he accused the "elite media" of avoiding more pressing issues, such as rising gas prices, the death of Americans in Afghanistan and, not least, the Obama administration's alleged hostility to religious institutions. "Nobody's blocking anyone from having access to contraception. No one," Gingrich said on NBC's "Meet The Press." The question, as he framed it, is whether Obama, through government fiat, can impose his views on religious institutions. "Have we become a country where it's OK to go to church on Sunday morning for one hour, but let's not actually express those beliefs the rest of the week?" Gingrich demanded.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">[[image:http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-03/192806400-04084329.jpg caption="Newt Gingrich appears on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday." link="@http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-03/192806400-04084329.jpg"]]

=<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Newt Gingrich: Rush Limbaugh was right to apologize to Sandra Fluke = By __ [|Felicia Sonmez] __ Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Sunday said conservative commentator __ Rush Limbaugh was right to apologize to Sandra Fluke __, the Georgetown University law student who he called a “prostitute” and a “slut” for her defense of the Obama administration’s new rules regarding religious-affiliated institutions and contraception coverage.

<span class="blog_caption" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. (Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images) “I think he was right to apologize,” Gingrich __ told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos __ in an interview on “This Week.” But the Republican presidential candidate dwelled little on the subject, instead taking aim at Obama for __ apologizing over the burning of a pile of Korans at Bagram air base in Afghanistan __. “But let’s talk about apologies for a second,” Gingrich said. “I think the president was totally wrong as commander-in-chief to apologize to religious fanatics while our young men are being killed in Afghanistan, and I think it was a disaster of an apology. . . .You have the U.N. commissioner to Afghanistan in essence saying, since the president has admitted the United States is guilty, these people should be tried.” “Now, I think that is a disastrous position for us,” he added. With the 10 Super Tuesday states up two days away, Gingrich reiterated that he believes he’s headed toward victory in his home state of Georgia, telling Stephanopoulos that he expects to win the state “by a much, much bigger margin than Romney won Michigan.” “We’re going to go on,” he said. “We’re competing in Tennessee, in Ohio, in Oklahoma, in a number of other states. We’ll pick up delegates in a number of places. Then I think the following week, we’re going to win Alabama and Mississippi, and we’re going to be very competitive in Kansas.” The nominating contest as a whole “is going to go on for a good while,” he said. “Gov. Romney, who’s outspent all the rest of us by multiples, is a front-runner without any question, but I think he’s not a very convincing front-runner, and he’s a long way from having closed out this race,” Gingrich said. He also criticized former senator Rick Santorum’s (R-Pa.) positions on labor issues and said that “when you get out of the industrial states, I think it gets harder for Rick to put together a majority, so we’ll see how it goes next Tuesday.”

= Super Tuesday: Newt Gingrich will get the economy moving =

By [|Faith Smith], Published: March 5
I am a woman entrepreneur who knows what it is like to build a business here in America, the “land of opportunity” — or should I say what used to be the land of opportunity? Being an entrepreneur and passionate about all issues related to start-ups and small business, I believe that small business is the lifeline to restoring the economy, as well as helping the American people become happier and more fulfilled. I find that most of the things written and said in the media about the former speaker of the House to be quite negative, mainly tabloid fodder. Do we really need to discuss his personal transgressions or can we focus on what he can potentially do to get this country back on its feet? Gingrich is a man with great ideas. He understands free enterprise, as well as small business. Even former president Bill Clinton, who worked with Newt for many years, said that Gingrich is “always thinking, always has a bunch of new ideas, and some of them are pretty good.”

He has experience getting the economy moving, and most likely can do it again. Gingrich was instrumental in the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years, as well as the first balanced budget in 40 years. As conservative economist Thomas Sowell notes on the takeover, “The media called it ‘the Clinton surplus,’ but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives and Gingrich was the speaker of the House.”

The number of people on foods stamps has grown dramatically since President Obama has taken office. With record numbers of people out of work, Gingrich wants to help restore the work ethic. Gingrich believes that “every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness,” and that “if that makes liberals unhappy I’m going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn some day to own the job.”

Here is where it is imperative to bring up the issues of small business, free enterprise and entrepreneurship. Most entrepreneurs possess an unbelievable drive and work ethic. What most entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses lack, however, is proper funding. The government does not support small business, banks are still not lending to hard-working men and women who have viable businesses and the Small Business Administration is still floundering with its definition of small business. The signing of Obama's Dodd-Frank bill (which Gingrich opposes) has also made it even harder to secure bank loans. In my opinion, a total restructuring of how government regards and supports small business and free enterprise is necessary at this stage in our history. Even with this year’s recently changed definition of a small business by the SBA, many doubt that the government’s policies are beneficial to small business. In my opinion, the definition of small business, particularly in its size standards, needs to be further addressed as entrepreneurs who are interested in creating jobs on a local level should never have to compete with large/multi-national corporations.

Is Gingrich the man to do this? We certainly do need to give him a chance — at this point he seems the candidate most suited for the presidency. Americans need to start focusing on the issues and the facts, and not on broad generalizations and media spin. As Thomas Sowell so eloquently states, and I wholeheartedly agree, “We should not sell the public short by saying they are going to vote on the basis of tabloid stuff or media talking points when the fate of our nation hangs in the balance.”

Faith Smith is founder of [|Eyes Cream Shades], a supplier of kids’ sunglasses, and boutique consulting firm [|Vision Passion Faith], both in Irvine, Calif.

|| **Results** for **U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries**
 * ||  || State || Gingrich || Paul || Romney || Santorum ||   ||   || reporting ||
 * 03/03 || [|WA] ||> 10.3% ||> 24.8% ||> 37.6% ||> 23.8% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/28 || [|AZ] ||> 16.2% ||> 8.4% ||> 47.3% ||> 26.6% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/28 || [|MI] ||> 6.5% ||> 11.6% ||> 41.1% ||> 37.9% ||  ||   ||> >99% ||
 * 02/11 || [|ME] ||> 6.7% ||> 34.9% ||> 39.0% ||> 18.1% ||  ||   ||> 87% ||
 * 02/07 || [|CO] ||> 12.8% ||> 11.8% ||> 34.9% ||> 40.3% ||  ||   ||> 100% ||
 * 02/07 || [|MN] || 10.8% || 27.1% || 16.9% || 44.9% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 02/07 || [|MO] || - || 12.2% || 25.3% || 55.2% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 02/04 || [|NV] || 21.1% || 18.8% || 50.1% || 10.0% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/31 || [|FL] || 31.9% || 7.0% || 46.4% || 13.3% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/21 || [|SC] || 40.4% || 13.0% || 27.8% || 17.0% ||  ||   || 100% ||
 * 01/10 || [|NH] || 9.4% || 22.9% || 39.3% || 9.4% ||  ||   || 100% ||