Columnist Debra Saunders: “(I)n a signature speech on energy, President Obama…scoffed at Republicans' ‘three-point plan for $2 gas’: ‘Step one is to drill, step two is to drill, and then step three is to keep drilling.’ That's how savvy this president is: Californians have paid more than $4 per gallon for gasoline this month, yet the president mocked the commonsense notion that more product will lower prices. To Obama, more domestic oil production is a ‘gimmicky’ fix.”
CONVENTION-AL WISDOM
"My basic hope is to pick up some delegates virtually everywhere; pick up a lot of delegates in the South and Southwest and then with Texas and California, be totally in the race." – Newt Gingrich articulating his delegate strategy for the remainder of the GOP nominating contest
"The GOP's delegate-selection rules are exceptionally complicated and ambiguous. Many delegates could go to the convention in Tampa either loosely pledged or entirely unbound to any of the candidates. That means there will be some wiggle room in the math...Republican delegates exist along something of a spectrum between bound and unbound, pledged and unpledged, hard and soft." – Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog
“I wrote on the Huffington Post this week that I thought it was very possible, not likely, but very possible to have either a brokered convention – meaning a convention in which no one has enough votes on the first ballot and, therefore, some combination of these candidates form a ticket to produce a nominee – or an open convention…” – Former GOP strategist Roger Stone on Fox News
PALE PASTEL REPORT
Washington Post: “An independent group supporting Newt Gingrich…known as Winning Our Future, will launch TV ads Tuesday in Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio and Tennessee, with more to come Wednesday in Mississippi, Alabama and Kansas. . . . The ads (portray Mitt Romney) as an establishment candidate and someone whom voters don’t trust or like. The ads also portray Gingrich as a true conservative and the best alternative to Romney.”
Columnist Kimberley Strassel: “The Michigan primary, and possibly the Republican presidential nomination, may come down to this one question: Who is Rick Santorum? . . . (I)s he, as his opponent Mitt Romney argues, little more than a Bush-era big-spender, a political insider?”
Rick Santorum: “The audacity of Gov. Romney, one of the most liberal guys to run for the Republican nomination, the most liberal guy to run for the Republican nomination in this race … that’s why he’s not doing well here in Michigan. There’s no credibility; there’s no authenticity. He is whatever he needs to be to win.”
Associated Press: “Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday slammed rival Rick Santorum as a ‘big labor Republican,’ accusing him of siding with unions over Memphis-based FedEx when the Senate grappled with a labor dispute in the 1990s.”
Tea Party activist Jason Corey: "[Rick Santorum] is a go-along-to-get-along guy, and we can't afford that luxury anymore.”
Washington Post: “Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are swapping insults as they prepare for Tuesday’s primaries in Michigan and Arizona. Romney calls Santorum a nice guy who has never had a job in the private sector. Santorum says Romney’s tax plans include ‘just more Obama-style class warfare’ and echo the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street.”
NEWT NEWS
Los Angeles Times: “Don't count me out. So said Newt Gingrich this morning… His hopes are riding, most of all, on Georgia, the state that Gingrich represented in Congress for 20 years. . . . Gingrich also hopes to carry Oklahoma and Tennessee…(and) expressed hope of picking up delegates in Idaho and Ohio, too, on Super Tuesday, followed by what he said were certain victories in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on March 13, as well as Texas later on.”
Associated Press: “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich…said he would repeal Obama's health care law if Republicans win congressional majorities. He said at a health care forum Monday that Republicans should think of this time as ‘the beginning of the replacement debate rather than just the anti-Obamacare debate.’”
Washington Times: “In an effort to help former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appeal more favorable to female voters, the Newt Gingrich campaign created a new coalition known as 'Women with Newt.' . . . (Calista) Gingrich will lead a team of 6 national co-chairs. These women include: Sue Lynch, President Emeritus of the National Federation of Republican Women, Jeri Thompson, a renowned political commentator and wife of Senator Fred Thompson, Gay Hart Gaines, a long-time Republican activist and former chairman of GOPAC, Linda Upmeyer, Iowa House of Representatives Majority Leader, and Mr. Gingrich's daughters, Kathy Gingrich Lubbers, an entrepreneur, and Jackie Gingrich Cushman, a nationally syndicated columnist and author.”
SANTORUM NEWS
Aaron Blake/The Fix: “If Rick Santorum can pull out a narrow victory in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, he might have Democrats to thank. . . . For weeks now, political observers and politicians have been whispering about the impact Democrats could have on the state’s GOP primary, with the idea being that they would vote for Santorum in a concerted and deliberate effort to prevent Mitt Romney from winning…”
Aaron Blake/The Fix: “Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign is actively seeking the support of Democrats in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, running a robocall that sounds oddly like one that would be run by an organized labor group. ‘Michigan Democrats can vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday,’ the narrator says… Then the ad closes with: ‘This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for President.’”
Detroit Free Press: "In what the Mitt Romney campaign called a desperate move, Rick Santorum's campaign asked Michigan Democrats today to cross party lines and vote for him in Tuesday's Republican presidential primary. Santorum's campaign confirmed to several media outlets that it is behind robocalls in Michigan reminding Democrats they can vote in the Republican primary.”
Public Policy Polling: "Much has been made of Democratic efforts to turn out the vote for Santorum and we see evidence that's actually happening. Romney leads with actual Republican voters, 43-38. But Santorum's up 47-10 with Democratic voters, and even though they're only 8% of the likely electorate that's enough to put him over the top.”
ROMNEY NEWS
Morning Score: “Is Romney going to take questions from the traveling press corps this week?”
QUOTES TO NOTE
“The Super Tuesday contests promise to be even more interesting with news Monday that an independent group (Winning Our Future) supporting Newt Gingrich has received another substantial contribution…and will launch TV ads in seven of those states this week. . . . The infusion could make Gingrich a factor again.” – Washington Post
"Sen. Santorum has shown himself to be an economic lightweight. And I don't think people want to nominate an economic lightweight to go up against the president, who also is an economic lightweight and has it made it hard for America to get working again." – Mitt Romney
"I think there are profound reasons that Rick (Santorum) lost the Senate race by the largest margin in Pennsylvania history in 2006… (I)n fact he was a big labor Republican in Pennsylvania and I suspect when you get to Memphis and you say to people, 'Gee, this is a guy who wanted to guarantee that FedEx give into the unions.' Santorum won't be as popular the following morning." – Newt Gingrich
“(President Andrew) Jackson understood that you want your opponents to respect you. They don't have to like you but they have to understand that you're formidable and you're dangerous." – Newt Gingrich on President Obama’s apology for the Koran burning in Afghanistan
“We’re not going to fix Afghanistan. It’s not possible. What you have to do is say, ‘You know, you’re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life… Because you clearly don’t want to learn from me how to be unmiserable.’” – Newt Gingrich
“One of the things I would want to do shortly after the election is schedule every single Democrat in the House and Senate for one-on-one meetings, to find out whether or not there’s a coalition to be built, which you know you can’t build through the leaders. The leaders are the most partisan part about the system.” – Newt Gingrich
FIGHT BACK, TAKE ACTION
In 1976, they gave us Gerald Ford. We got Jimmy Carter. In 1996, they gave us Bob Dole. We got Bill Clinton. In 2008, they gave us John McCain. We got Barak Obama. Now they're trying sell us Mitt Romney. Don't let them. Not this time. Click here
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