US Presidential Primaries

[h=1]Gingrich and Perry fail to qualify for Virginia primary[/h] Neither submitted enough signatures from registered voters to stand for the state's Republican primary on 6 March




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Texas governor Rick Perry is is reportedly considering an appeal. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

The former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas governor, Rick Perry, have both failed to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, Republican party officials have said.
Neither politician, who were both frontrunners for the US presidential candidacy for the GOP, submitted enough signatures from registered voters to stand for the state's Republican primary on 6 March.
The Republican party of Virginia (RPV) announced the news early on Saturday on its Twitter account.
"After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10K signatures and has not qualified for the Va primary," it said. Perry's rejection was revealed late on Friday.
This comes despite Perry's presidential campaign telling state election officials that it had submitted 11,911 signatures, and Gingrich's campaign saying it submitted 11,050 signatures. Volunteers spent Friday night validating the scores.
The former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas Republican Ron Paul were successful.
But the results are a major setback to Gingrich and Perry – who is reportedly considering an appeal.
Failure to compete in Virginia, which is among the "super Tuesday" primaries, would deal a huge blow to any contender who had not already secured the nomination.
Gingrich had been leading the race in a poll of Virginia Republicans released earlier in the week. He said on Wednesday he had enough ballot signatures, but he wanted to come to Virginia to deliver them personally.
Jerry Kilgore, a former attorney general and chairman of Perry's campaign in Virginia, said he was disappointed.
"Hopefully, he will do better in other states,'' he said. "He can focus on other states."
Meanwhile, Virginia's Democrats said Barack Obama's re-election campaign gathered enough signatures to get him on the state's primary ballot.
 
....Republicans wameanza kuweweseka na huku opinion polls zinaonyesha kwamba 'Bama anaanza kupanda taratibu na kukaribia 50%....siku chache tu zilizopita alikuwa ameshuka hadi kufikia 36% katika baadhi ya opinion polls, lakini bado ana kazi kubwa siku za usoni maana mashambulizi ya Republicans hayatakuwa ya kawaida.
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mpaka mwezi juni mwakani uchumi wa marekani utaimarika na Obama atshinda uraisi kiulaini...........
 
[h=1]Gingrich’s Ballot Miss Could Shake Voters’ Confidence[/h]
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Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times
Newt Gingrich failed to submit enough signatures by the Thursday deadline, raising questions about his prospects in a drawn-out nominating fight.

[h=6]By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE[/h] [h=6]Published: December 24, 2011[/h]



Newt Gingrich declared confidently the other day that he would get his name on the ballot for the Republican presidential primary in Virginia. In fact, he said he already had the requisite 10,000 signatures and an additional 2,000 to 3,000 for safety’s sake and would probably collect even more.

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But that turned out not to be the case. In the wee hours of Saturday, the Virginia Republican Party announced via Twitter that Mr. Gingrich had failed to submit enough signatures by the Thursday deadline, highlighting the organizational challenges to his campaign and raising questions about his prospects in a drawn-out nominating fight.
Many of the Gingrich campaign’s signatures were apparently invalid, which is why most campaigns try to collect almost twice as many as needed. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas also failed to make the grade.
The Gingrich campaign said it would work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue a write-in campaign, but Virginia does not allow write-in names in its primaries.
“Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates,” Michael Krull, Mr. Gingrich’s campaign director, said in a statement.
This misstep is bad news for Mr. Gingrich on several levels. Virginia is his adopted home state. Failing to gather enough signatures in one’s backyard creates an image problem, at the very least.
“It’s a disaster for him,” said Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “This sends yet another signal to Republicans that Gingrich is not able to organize.”
He added that such a lack of organization “suggests you’re not a serious candidate.”
The failure to get on the ballot in Virginia could also shake the confidence of voters in states that go to the polls before Virginia does. Why, his supporters in those states might ask, should I throw my vote away on someone who might not be competing in other critical states?
Also, Virginia is the country’s 12th-largest state in population. It will be offering up a trove of delegates on March 6, and now they are out of reach for Mr. Gingrich. He has been leading in the polls in Virginia, and his brand of conservatism is a natural fit for the state.
This failure to qualify for the ballot comes at a bad time for Mr. Gingrich as he faces headwinds in Iowa, where the caucuses start the nominating contest on Jan. 3, and it comes as he remains behind in the polls in New Hampshire. His strength appears to be in South Carolina, but in Virginia, there will be no Southern candidate on the ballot.
Both Mitt Romney and Representative Ron Paul, whose organizations have been laboring in the signature-gathering vineyards for months, were able to get on the Virginia ballot.
Rival campaigns quickly seized on the setback as a sign of disorganization within the Gingrich campaign. Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, called it “cringe-worthy.”
“It’s a gut-check moment for Republicans,” Mr. Fehrnstrom said. “Winning campaigns have to be able to execute on the fundamentals. This is like watching a hitter in the World Series failing to lay down a bunt.”
Still, it is hard to predict the practical effect of Mr. Gingrich’s absence from the Virginia ballot. The state is one of 10 that vote on March 6, known as Super Tuesday. Eleven states will have voted by then, including big ones like Colorado, Florida and Michigan (and not counting Missouri, where delegates are not at stake).
If those earlier states have not winnowed the field, then Super Tuesday becomes all the more important. Because the Republicans will be picking most of their delegates proportionally this year, instead of winner-take-all, the candidates who are in the top tier now — Mr. Romney, Mr. Paul and Mr. Gingrich — are likely to be competing for each and every delegate in what is expected to be a protracted primary fight.
Mr. Gingrich does have a safety card on Super Tuesday. Georgia, which he represented in Congress, votes that day, and if all goes well for him, he should win most of its delegates. He can only hope that they make up for a shutout in Virginia.
But whether or not there is any practical effect, Mr. Gingrich immediately began suffering a psychological effect as pundits and people posting on Twitter questioned anew his ability to organize and his credibility, in light of his earlier declaration that he would make the ballot.
Michael Barbaro contributed reporting.




[h=6]A version of this article appeared in print on December 25, 2011, on page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: Gingrich Falls Short of Signatures Needed to Get on the Primary Ballot in Virginia.[/h]
 

[h=1]Republicans scramble for finish in Iowa[/h] High turnout predicted as crucial early caucus looks set to go to Mitt Romney, Ron Paul or Rick Santorum




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Republican presidential nominee Rick Santorum has enjoyed a good week in Iowa. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Republicans were predicting a bigger turnout than 2008 in the Iowa caucuses as candidates scrambled across the state on Monday in a final effort to squeeze out those extra, potentially vital votes.
The six candidates battling in Iowa scheduled 19 campaign events on Monday, finishing with what they hoped would be crowded late-night rallies.
But most of the work that matters is now in the hands of volunteers, essential to ensure that supporters turn out for the caucuses, scheduled to begin about 7pm Tuesday.
Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum claim to have strong volunteer networks in place to get the vote out. Other candidates have kept such campaign details secret.
Polls suggest the candidates go into the final phase with the outcome apparently in a dead heat, with the eventual winner one of three: Mitt Romney, Paul or Santorum, who is enjoying a final surge. There are also a sizeable number of voters who say they have yet to make up their minds.
Republicans expect turnout to exceed the 120,000 who came out to vote in 2008. The party prediction is based on an increase in the number of party registrations but also on the fact that the Iowa straw poll in August attracted the second highest turnout since it began in 1979. A reasonable weather forecast for tomorrow night – cold, breezy but dry – may also help, compared with snowy conditions in 2008.
Romney, who has a closing rally in Clive on Monday night, has no events scheduled for Tuesday, but Michele Bachmann, Paul and Newt Gingrich are planning to remain on the campaign trail until early afternoon on Tuesday.
Romney, the favourite to win based on poll results, told CBS he believes he will finish in the top three in the caucuses and that will provide him with a boost for next week's New Hampshire primary and the contests beyond.
"I've seen polls in the past, and I know it's very difficult to predict who will actually caucus in Iowa, but I think I'm getting a real strong sendoff. I'm pretty encouraged," he said.
A second place for Romney would probably have been a good result for him a week ago, given the antipathy towards him expressed by many Iowan Republicans. But his front-runner status in the polls mean that anything other than first place may now be viewed as a setback.
Santorum also predicted a top-three finish on the back of the week-long surge that has propelled him from the back of the crowd. "We've raised more money in the last few days than we have in the last few months," Santorum said.
Paul, quirky as ever, taking a two-day break at home in Texas while others slogged it out on the campaign trail, returned to action on Monday, attracting hundreds to what he described as a whistlestop event in the centre of Des Moines.
He won loud applause when he criticised Barack Obama for signing legislation at the weekend that will allow the military to detain indefinitely American citizens suspected of terrorism. Paul regards this as a major infringement of liberty and the crowd's response demonstrated that they agreed with him.
Gingrich, who only a few weeks ago was front-runner in the polls but is now running behind the pack, mainly as a result of a sustained advertising campaign against him, acknowledged reality when he admitted: "I don't think I am going to win."
About 1,700 precincts hold caucuses, but some smaller precincts combine, making the actual number lower. Some of the candidates have struggled to find enough precinct captains to get their voters out but Paul's campaign has released details of its network, saying it has 1,480 precinct captains. Perry, who has had less time to organise, having come later to the campaign, claims to have 1,500 precinct captains, in addition to 500 out-of-state volunteers, many of them from his home state of Texas. Santorum, who has devoted himself to campaigning in Iowa, claims to have more than 1,000.
Romney's campaign has not released figures but he has a strong, well-financed organisation in place and is almost certain to have ensured that he has precinct captains in place.
 
[h=1]Newt Gingrich hits back at Mitt Romney over negative campaigning[/h] GOP race turns bitter as Gingrich claims his rival is trying to buy his way to the nomination ahead of Iowa caucus





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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich moves through a crowded pub during a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

Republican presidential candidate hopeful Newt Gingrich finally hit back on Sunday over the relentless and costly advertising campaign against him paid for by rival Mitt Romney.
Gingrich, angry over the ad campaign, made a desperate attempt to reverse his poll slump in the Iowa caucuses ahead of Tuesday's vote. Having managed to restrain himself for days, he accused multi-millionaire Romney of trying to buy his way to the nomination.
"Romney would buy the election if he could," Gingrich said.
In his bitterest comments yet, he said: "Frankly if you are willing to be dishonest to get try to be president why would we think you will be honest once you are president."
Romney and his allies, through the super-political action committee Restore Our Future, have spent an estimated $3.5-$4m in a ferocious ad campaign targeting Gingrich, mainly over his alleged role as a lobbyist for the mortgage groups Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Another rival, Ron Paul, has also been running ads aimed at Gingrich.
As a result, Gingrich has dropped from front-runner to fourth place, while Romney has jumped to the top spot.
Although political history shows that negative campaigning is usually effective, a backlash is building against Romney, with some voters expressing dismay over the strategy.
One of Gingrich's supporters, Richard Vandermey, a lawyer in Tama, Iowa, said: "It is disgusting. That is one of the reasons that has tipped me over [to support Gingrich]. I do not like the ads.
"I know others feel the same."
Supporters have urged Gingrich to respond with negative ads of his own but he insistedhe will continue to fight a positive campaign. He promised, though, that he would mount a more aggressive campaign against Romney in the next contest, New Hampshire.
In Marshalltown, Gingrich accused Romney of spending $3.5m to lie about him.
He was loudly applauded when he said: "Iowa has an opportunity to really change American politics by proving that negative ads don't work."
He added: "We can't change the negativity and divisiveness of Washington by voting for people who run the ads. I have done everything I could to run a positive campaign ... but we need help from the American people to say to the folks who are prepared to be negative and dishonest 'It will not work'."
Although the Des Moines Register poll on Saturday placed Gingrich fourth on 12%, he noted that 41% of those polled said they had still to make up their minds.
He insisted that Romney had not destroyed him, only slowed him down.
 

[h=1] [/h]

[h=1]Iowa caucus results: live coverage[/h] Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul battle for top spot in the 2012 GOP Iowa caucus - live coverage and results



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Republican caucus volunteers prepare for the arrival of voters at Southeast Elementary School in Ankney, Iowa. Photograph: Joshua Lott/Reuters

9.21pm: Adam Gabbatt has been filming the vote-counting on stage at precinct 3, at Valley High School in West Des Moines.
Overheard: "Here's a Bachmann."
9.17pm: Well then, with 16% of the caucuses in, precisely 1.2 percentage points are between Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. In other words: ?
9.14pm: With 14% of the precincts in Polk County reporting, Ron Paul has 29% and Romney 25%. Now stroke your goatee and nod sagely.
9.04pm: Buzzfeed has caught the Ron Paul campaign levelling some ungentlemanly criticism at Jon Huntsman, who is ignoring Iowa and campaigning in New Hampshire. The tweet, now deleted, reads: "@jonhuntsman we found your one Vota in Iowa, he's in Linn precinct 5 you might want to call him and say thanks."
Thanks to Twitter's new functionality, if a website embeds a tweet, the content remains on that website even if the original tweet is deleted. Remember folks, tweets never die!
Voters-register-to-cast-t-007.jpg
Voters register to cast their ballots during republican caucues at a school in Des Moines, Iowa. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images 9.01pm: According to the Iowa GOP running tally of precincts reporting, it's Paul on 25%, Romney 23%, Santorum 23%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 9%, Bachmann 6%. Which is all pretty much as the polls suggested.
But beware, that's only about 5% of the votes so far.
8.57pm: In case you ever wanted to know what a British general election was like, it's pretty much like Iowa at this point: television shots of people counting bits of paper.
8.50pm: Reporting from Valley High School in West Des Moines, Adam Gabbat has been talking to more voters.

Peter Potycki is "still undecided", having narrowed his options to
Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. "Both are good," Potycki said, citing the fact Bachmann has "worked really hard" and Perry's stance on "kicking out all the illegals".
Iowa-caucuses-007.jpg
A voter registers at a caucues at a school in Des Moines, Iowa. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images 8.43pm: The New York Times is running the numbers from the entrance/exit/shake it all about polls:
Another key finding in the entrance polls so far: almost 30 percent of voters identify as either independent or Democratic, much higher than in 2008 and toward the high range of the estimates that pollsters made in their likely voter models. The entrance polls report that about half of those voters are breaking for Ron Paul.
Likewise, the percentage of moderates according to the the exit polls is about 20 percent - twice as high as in 2008 - and those voters so far are breaking for Mr. Paul as well.
​
8.42pm: Actual votes! From Warren County. With 4% of the caucuses counted, Ron Paul has 50% of the vote. That's nine actual votes.
So I'm ready to declare Ron Paul is the … oh no let's wait for a bit.
8.39pm: The Associated Press bothers to watch Jon Huntsman, exiled to New Hampshire:
Even before the results were in, Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman had a message for whoever won the Iowa caucus: "Welcome to New Hampshire. Nobody cares."
​
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Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, accompanied by his wife Mary Kaye, tours the Tidland Corporation in Keene, New Hampshire. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP 8.37pm: I'm hearing rumours that the Gingrich campaign has failed to get speakers or literature to a number of big caucus sites. CNN also says Perry failed to get speakers at a couple of places. Interesting.
8.30pm: For those of you who really want to get down in the weeds for the caucus results that will shortly come gushing forth, then read this piece from the Washington Post, naming the six counties to watch.
After reading this you can stroke your goatee and state gravely: "Of course it all comes down to Polk County, which – if my memory serves me correctly [smile wanly] – accounts for upwards of 20% of the statewide caucus vote. Pass the PBR."
Mitt-Romney-in-Des-Moines-007.jpg
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets supporters at a final rally Monday night before the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Bob Daemmrich Photography, Inc./Corbis 8.29pm: On that note, Professor Larry Sabato points out another Iowa entrance poll "winner" from 2008:
Larry Sabato @LarrySabato
Romney led Iowa entrance polls in '08. Most conservative voters MAY disproportionately refuse to participate in survey.

4 Jan 12

​

Add more salt.
8.25pm: CNN is showing its "early voters" entrance poll, which reveals:
Ron Paul 24%
Mitt Romney 24%
Rick Santorum 18%
Newt Gingrich 13%
Rick Perry 11%
Warning: you know who was leading in the early entrance polls in 2008? Hillary Clinton, that's who. And she finished third in the end. And let's not forget early vote winner John Kerry in 2004 in Ohio.
So if you've got a dose of salt, take it now. And then the tequila.
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A Rick Perry supporter leaves a caucus training session at the Sheraton hotel in west Des Moines. Photograph: Jonathan Gibby/Getty Images 8.19pm: MSNBC has what it is calling an exit poll but must also be an entrance poll, given the timing. And based on this, the Ron Paul supporters showed up early and so make it look like he's done very well. Which he might have.
8.18pm: Adam Gabbatt has taken this paorama picture of the scene at Valley High School in West Des Moines, as caucus-goers get ready for proceedings to get under way.

By Adam Gabbatt

West Des Moines Iowa United States

Show Caption






8.10pm: Steve Grubbs, former chairman of the Iowa Republican party, and unlucky enough to have been chairman of the Herman Cain campaign in Iowa, tweets a picture of his ballot paper.

8.06pm: No exit polls tonight, but CNN has an "entrance poll" – a survey of caucus-goers entering their caucusing sites. And OH MY GOD the top three are Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.
"You can think of this as the most recent poll in Iowa, really," says Wolf Blitzer, but you tell his heart isn't really in it.
8.04pm: Voting is under way! And we have a live-updating results page. Which is much more elegant than Google's.
8.01pm: A CNN reporter is shoving a mic under Newt Gingrich's nose and asking dumb questions like: "Do you think you will win Black Hawk county?" To which Gingrich rightly shrugged and said "Yeah."
8.00pm: I have been e-chatting with Ana Marie Cox:
Me: Can you sum it up in a word?
Ana: The caucuses?
Me: Yes
Ana: I've been using "finicky" a lot. "Petulant"?
So there we have it: the words of tonight are "finicky" and "petulant". Which sums it up nicely.
That's it – Rick Santorum's campaign is obviously in trouble. He's dropped the sweater-vest at the 11th hour, reports Scott Conroy of RealClearPolitics.
Scott Conroy @RealClearScott
Santorum has ditched the sweater-vest for a suit. Risky.

4 Jan 12

​

Fans of Santorum with a schoolboy sense of humour will be delighted to hear that Santorum is in Johnston at the caucus there.
7.52pm: Our reporter Adam Gabbatt is at a caucus location at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa, and has been speaking to early arrivals.
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Amy and Mike Hoffmann were among those arriving early for the Republican caucus at Valley High School, in West Des Moines. Both will be voting for Newt Gingrich tonight, despite the millions his rivals have spent on television adverts targeting the former House speaker.
"It's just his experience," Amy said, adding that she had made her mind up a month ago.
The couple, who are both attorneys for workers' conpensation, were Cain supporters, "but obviously he's not in the race any more".
Amy said the negative advertising had not shaken her faith in Gingrich: "I think he has some good explanations for the ethics violation." Her husband added: "He has more experience in the position of power from being speaker."
​
7.44pm: We just heard Michele Bachmann make her final pitch at an actual caucus site in Iowa, in which she railed against "socialised medicine". And to think she wants to be the Margaret Thatcher of America, given the Iron Lady's record on the National Health Service.
Now up: Newt Gingrich, who sounds like he's furious.
7.10pm: What are the five things to look for in tonights Iowa GOP caucus results?
1. The winners: Obviously, who finishes first is important. For an insurgent challenger such as Rick Santorum it's vital – no one remembers the second place finisher. Who finished second in 2008? Mitt Romney. Now, it's true that winning in 2008 didn't exactly make Mike Huckabee the nominee but without that "winner" title Huckabee would have faded into obscurity.
2. The losers: As they say, it's not the taking part that counts, it's the losing. Sixth place finish is almost certainly a ticket home – and that's most likely to be Michele Bachmann. But what about the fourth and fifth places? There's losing and there's losing: third place by a whisker and third by a mile can make the difference between going to New Hampshire or becoming a Fox News studio guest.
3. Turn-out: How many Iowans made it to the caucuses after all the hoopla? For the Republicans the benchmark is the 118,400 in 2008 – a figure that paled alongside the Democrats total of 227,000. That has implications for the general election.
4. Republican base: The make-up of the Republican voters will tell an interesting story, particularly for the fortunes of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, both of whom need to expand their support outside their natural base of traditional Republicans (for Romney) and social conservatives (for Santorum).
5. Democrats: The Democratic party is also caucusing tonight, although there is no such drama, Barack Obama being unopposed other than by sundry unknowns. But the party is using the night as an exercise in motivating and turning out its base in Iowa.
7.00pm: The 2012 GOP Iowa caucus is about to begin – it's all over bar the caucusing. And then the shouting. We will be bringing live results, analysis and speculation as they occur. How will the top three of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul finish? Does Rick Perry have a Texas Surprise under his big hat? Can Newt Gingrich's share of the vote match his sense of self satisfaction? And how many hours will elapse between the final result and Michele Bachmann's exit speech?
We will know the answers to all these questions and others in the coming hours. The caucuses themselves start at 8pm ET (1am GMT), and based on 2008 we should have the result by 11pm ET, or even earlier.
And don't forget that the Democratic party is also caucusing. It wn't be anything like 2008 of course but it's worth remembering that the Republicans are not the only show in town.
The Guardian has correspondents in Iowa and New Hampshire, watching the results and talking to voters. And we have a raft of comment from the inestimable Ana Marie Cox.
And we want comments from you, the reader, right here. We'll be reading them all and passing the best jokes off as our own.
Read our earlier live coverage from today's campaigning in Iowa.



Posted by Richard Adams
Wednesday 4 January 2012 02.21 GMT guardian.co.uk Article history


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[h=1]Mitt Romney heckled at his final rally before Iowa caucuses[/h] Frontrunner brings Clive speech to abrupt end amid shouts he is too close to Wall Street and indifferent to the poor
Follow our live coverage of the Iowa caucus here




Mitt Romney addresses activists at Des Moines at the last rally of his Iowa campaign Link to this video Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney was heckled repeatedly during his closing rally of the Iowa campaign, with shouts that he is ignoring the poor and is too close to Wall Street.
The protests came as the candidates made their closing arguments before Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, the first of the contests to choose a Republican to take on Barack Obama for the White House.
The protesters were from the Occupy movement, which has engaged in a series of disruptive events round Des Moines over the last week.
Romney refused to be flustered by the protesters, saying they had a right to express their views, but he brought his speech to an abrupt end soon afterwards, possibly to avoid any further disruption. He told the protesters he hoped they would make the same "noise" if Obama visited Iowa.
Before the protests he had focused his speech on criticising Barack Obama and avoided any criticism of the rival Republican candidates, a sign of his increasing confidence of a good outcome in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses.
Romney's rally at a warehouse in Clive, on the outskirts of Des Moines, did not match the crowds Obama attracted four years ago but it was bigger than any of the rallies held by his Republican rivals.
At an earlier event on Monday in Cedar Rapids he risked sounding overly triumphant when he predicted victory. His comment also dangerously raised expectations so that second place would be viewed as a failure. He told a crowd of about 500: "I need a great showing here in Cedar Rapids. We're going to win this thing with all our passion and strength and do everything we can to get this campaign on the right track to go across the nation and to pick up the states and to get the ballots I need and the votes I need to become our nominee."
His campaign team attempted to undo the damage by saying the "thing" he was referring to was the nomination, not the Iowa caucuses.
More than 120,000 voters are expected to turn out to vote in the caucuses.
The candidates basically turn over the campaign on Tuesday to the armies of volunteers recruited to get supporters to the gyms, schools, community centres and other voting locations.
Newt Gingrich, who had been leading Romney in the polls, did not help his chances of revival with another fumble for which he apologised to supporters in Davenport on Monday night. He had suggested earlier in the day that he could not win. Even a hint he does not expect to win makes it harder for his volunteers to get wavering supporters out to vote.
Attempting to explain his fumble, he said:"I made the amateur mistake of having two compound sentences."
Earlier in the day he had said: "I don't think I'm going to win. If you look at the numbers I think that volume of negativity has done enough damage. On the other hand, if the Des Moines Register is right in its 41% potentially undecided, who knows what's going to happen."
If Gingrich continues to fall, Texas governor Rick Perry could be the beneficiary, possibly nicking the fourth place slot. Polls show Romney in the lead, followed by Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.
Perry, the Texas governor, has consistently underperformed since joining the race in August. His closing rally in the town sharing his name – Perry – was slick, opened by a country and western singer, with two popular Republican governors, Bobby Jindal of Lousiana and Sam Brownback of Kansas, to introduce him.
But the Texas governor, in spite of all the money behind him, is not a natural orator. The crowd was small compared with Romney's and, so far, he is not attracting much media interest.
Perry predicted he would win but, like Romney, did not specify whether he was talking about Iowa or the nomination. Polls suggest he is lying in fifth place behind Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Gingrich.
But Robert Haus, Perry's campaign co-director in Iowa, said: "I think he is going to surprise people. Our crowds have been good over the last month. People are still making up their mind.
"I think our organisation is second to none. We may not be flashy but we are getting it done. I know we will finish in the top four."
Perry's organisation, backed by 500 volunteers who have come from 36 other states, is superior to Gingrich's and that might see Perry pip Gingrich to the fourth spot.
If Perry were to secure a fourth spot he might yet revive his campaign, which so far has been a spectacular flop, and be in contention with Romney by the time they reach Florida at the end of the month.
 

[h=1]Obama outlines first-term progress in link-up with Iowa Democrats[/h] President to thank supporters for their help and discuss his efforts to keep the promises he made in Iowa four years ago




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Barack Obama and family returning from Hawaii. Photograph: Rex Features

President Barack Obama used the Iowa caucuses to make an appeal to Democrats in the state, as he seeks to counter months of withering criticism in Iowa – the state that launched his presidential ambitions four years ago.
Obama was hosting a live video teleconference for Democrats attending precinct caucuses across Iowa, outlining his progress during his first presidential term and asking for Democrats' help in the upcoming campaign. Iowa is expected to be hotly contested in the November election.
The president's re-election campaign emailed supporters a video of Obama's Iowa victory speech in January 2008, arguing he has kept the promises he made that night: making health care more affordable, cutting taxes for the middle class, ending the war in Iraq and reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
"A new chapter in the story of 2012 starts with what happens in Iowa tonight," Mitch Stewart, a top Obama campaign aide, said in a separate email to supporters. "Most of us will watch what happens on TV - but as you do, remember that the end of this story is up to you and what you decide to do in the days and weeks ahead."
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama would thank supporters for their help and discuss his efforts to keep the promises he made in Iowa four years ago. But Carney said the president "has a lot of work to do before he engages aggressively in the general election. That will come in due time."
Obama was wasting little time getting back in front of voters following a Hawaiian vacation spent largely out of the spotlight. Campaign officials said Obama was expected to take questions from voters during the Iowa session, which was airing only for those who attended the caucus meetings. On Wednesday, Obama will travel to Cleveland for an event focused on the economy.
Obama was seeking to counter months of criticism by Republicans in Iowa, and by the Republican National Committee, which has assailed Obama's economic record and tagged him as a president who has failed to live up to lofty expectations.
"Three years later, the president's promises of hope and change have been replaced with a record of failed leadership and policies that have made the economy worse," RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said.
Iowa looks to be among about a dozen states that could shift either way in the 2012 campaign. Trying to build on his 2008 win there, Obama's campaign has opened eight offices in the state and had held more than 1,200 training sessions, phone banks and other events and made more than 350,000 phone calls to supporters since April.
"When the rest of the Republican field packs up their office and leaves town, we have been here, we will continue to be here and we will continue to take and treat Iowa seriously," said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Wasserman Schultz and congressman Bruce Braley tried to raise expectations in Iowa for Mitt Romney, saying anything but a top finish in the state would bode poorly for his campaign.
Democrats have tried to undermine Romney's business background, accusing him of outsourcing jobs and laying off workers while he led Bain Capital, a private equity firm, while questioning his principles on issues such as health care, abortion and gun control.
"Crawling over the finish line in Iowa after five years of effort is going to come at a price," Wasserman Schultz said.
Obama returned to Washington facing further debate on extending payroll tax cuts, the same issue that consumed Washington during the final days of December.
Congress broke through a stalemate just days before Christmas, agreeing to extend the cuts for two months. Lawmakers will get back to work later this month to negotiate a full-year extension of the cuts, which Obama supports.
White House officials say the tax cut extension is the last "must-do" legislative item on Obama's agenda this year. His strategy for his fourth year in office will focus largely on taking executive actions that do not need approval from lawmakers as he seeks to break away from a deeply unpopular Congress.
 
[h=1]Disunited Republican candidates renew battle in New Hampshire[/h] With a thinner Republican field, candidates touch down in Granite State ahead of next Tuesday's primary




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Mitt Romney and his wife Ann walk away from their plane after arriving in Manchester, New Hampshire on Wednesday. Photograph: Brian Snyder/REUTERS

Badly-divided Republican presidential candidates renewed hostilities in New Hampshire Wednesday as Christian fundamentalist Rick Santorum sought to build on his strong showing in the tightly-contested Iowa caucuses.
Although Romney was declared the winner in the Iowa caucuses in a contest that went down to the last ballot box in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it was a major setback for him, failing to emerge as clear winner.
"I've got a big target on me now," Romney said Wednesday. "I've got broad shoulders. I'm willing to handle it."
The New Hampshire primary, the next contest in the battle to choose a party nominee to take on Barack Obama for the White House in November, is on Tuesday.
The biggest casualty of the night was congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who came in sixth in spite of being front-runner last summer. Bachman bowed to the inevitable, cancelled further campaign stops and held a press conference Wednesday to suspend her campaign.
Bachmann, who late on Tuesday night had pledged to fight on, changed her mind overnight. "The people of Iowa spoke with a clear voice and so I am standing aside," she said.
Santorum, a coal-miner's son from Pennsylvania who fought his campaign on a shoestring, comes out off Iowa with the momentum.
Money is pouring into his campaign, according to his team. John Brabender, Santorum's campaign adviser, said there was so much web traffic that their website crashed. "Our system blew up. Traffic is just through the roof," he told Politico.
Santorum secured second place in what was effectively a tie, finishing only eight votes behind Romney, reflecting widespread disatifaction with the former Massachusetts governor and the state of disarray in the Republican party.
The Republican party chairman Reince Priebus, interviewed on Bloomberg television, denied the Iowa results amounted to muddle, saying such close battles were "not unusual on both sides of the aisle" and "all the excitement is on our side" on the way to the general election.
Obama's re-election team, based in Chicago, watched with glee, hopeful that the disunity on display and a protracted, energy-sapping campaign will work to their advantage. Obama, making an early campaign stop in Ohio, referred in passing to the Republican field, saying "you're hearing a lot of promises from a lot of politicians lately". He had only one to make, to ensure everyone in the US has a chance to get ahead, "not just those at the very top or those who know how to work the system".
Romney, appearing on ABC Wednesday morning, talked up his narrow victory, saying basically that a win is a win, no matter how narrow. He immediately began sniping at Santorum, portraying him as Washington insider, anathema to conservatives.
"We have very different backgrounds. I spent my life, the first 25 years in the private sector. I know a great deal about how jobs are created, how they come and how they go, and I think Rick has spent most of life in the governmental sector," he said.
Romney also noted that he already had a nationwide campaign in place, unlike Santorum.
Santorum can now expect to be battered with millions of dollars in negative adverts by the Romney campaign. Romney, who has vast financial resources, announced an initial spend of $264,000 in television advertising in New Hampshire, and also bought television advertising space in South Carolina, which holds it primary on January 21, and Florida, which votes on January 31.
Romney received a boost Wedneday when his opponent and eventual winner for the Republican nomination in 2008, John McCain, endorsed the former Massachusetts governor. Although relations between McCain and Romney were extremely poor in 2008, McCain's dislike of Santorum is even stronger, feeling betrayed by him during his own campaign.
McCain is a mixed blessing, as many right-wingers dislike him, regarding him as too moderate, a view echoed by Santorum, who said: "John is a more moderate member of the Republican team, and I think he fits in with Mitt's view of the world."
Romney is favourite to win New Hampshire with poll leads of around 20% in a state less socially conservative than Iowa. But Ed Rollins, the Republican strategist who masterminded Mike Huckabee's run in 2008, said while he expected Romney to win, he predicted that lead to be eroded.
The crucible, as usual in Republican races, is shaping up as South Carolina, conservative like Iowa, only nastier, an awkward race for Romney.
In New Hampshire, he faces at least four major candidates: Santorum, Ron Paul, who came a close third in Iowa, and Newt Gingrich, who trailed in fourth place and has an intense dislike of Romney, and Jon Huntsman, who did not compete in Iowa.
All these candidates other than Paul, who returned to his home in Texas, were in action in New Hampshire. They will face off in a televised debate on Saturday before voters go to the polls on Tuesday.
Texas governor Rick Perry, who on Tuesday night said he was going back to Texas to pray and reassess his campaign after coming in a disappointing fifth, tweeted Wednesday to say he was preparing for the next leg of the marathon. "Here we come South Carolina," he said.
He appears to be taking off a few days and largely by-passing New Hampshire to concentrate on South Carolna.
Santorum, Paul, Gingrich, Huntsman and Perry are basically battling to see who can establish himself as the alternative to Romney. Santorum, a social conservative much further to the right than Romney and endorsed by Christian evangelical leaders, hopes to turn himself into a magnet for the substantial number of anti-Romney conservatives.
He holds strongly anti-gay views, and also threatens, that if elected, to bomb Iran's nuclear facilties. In order to win the nomination, he will have to find a way to broaden his appeal beyond his narrow conservative base to the wider electorate.
Gingrich is smarting from being the receiving end of a $4m negative ad campaign by Romney in Iowa and is planning revenge in New Hampshire. He described Romney as liar on television on Tuesday and welcomed him to New Hampshire with a full-page ad in the state's biggest paper describing him as a "Timid Massachusetts Moderate."
More than 122,000 Republicans voted in the Iowa caucus, a record. Hour after hour, as the votes were counted, the lead repeatedly changed back and forward between Romney and Santorum. Romney picked up 30,015 votes and Santorum 30,007, 24.6% to 24.5%.
The Iowa Republican chairman, Matt Strawn, declared Romney the winner.
Paul took 21.4%, Gingrich 13.3%, Perry 10.3%, Bachmann 5% and Huntsman 0.6%.
A poll of voters going into the caucuses showed that the overwhelming issue is the economy rather than social issues, as in the past. Only 13% named abortion, usually a big issue in Iowa, as the key issue.
 
[h=1]Michele Bachmann drops out of race after dismal Iowa showing[/h] The Minnesota congresswoman, once a front-runner in Iowa, finished last in the Iowa caucuses with only 6% of the vote




Michele Bachmann withdraws from the Republican race. Link to this video Michele Bachmann has ended her campaign for president after taking just 5% of the vote in the Iowa caucus.
The congresswoman, who had been vying forthe Republican nomination, finished sixth in the caucus on Tuesday night.
Bachmann, a Tea Party favourite, won the Iowa straw poll in August but thereafter fell steadily in the polls.
"Last night the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice and so I have decided to stand aside," Bachmann said on Wednesday morning.
"I have no regrets, none whatsoever. We never compromised our principles and we can leave this race knowing we ran it with the utmost integrity."
She added that she "looks forward to the next chapter in God's plan."
Bachmann was born in Iowa but just 6,073 people endorsed her on Tuesday night. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, on the other hand, took the state with 30,015 votes.
In the wake of the defeat, Bachmann has initially decided to cancel plans to travel to South Carolina, where recent polls show she does not have significant support.
A last minute television advertising campaign in Iowa, which compared the Minnesota congresswoman to Margaret Thatcher, appears not to have worked.
In her statement on Wednesday morning Bachmann said Republicans had a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to repeal health care legislation introduced under President Barack Obama's watch and the financial regulation law known as Dodd-Frank, and urged voters to rally behind a candidate.
She did not endorse any of her former rivals.
Bachmann enjoyed early popularity in Iowa: she won the Republican party's straw poll in August, the first woman to do so.
Bachmann's campaign was dealt a blow last week when her Iowa campaign chairman resigned and endorsed Ron Paul a mere six days before the caucus.
Kent Sorenson, an Iowa state senator who had served as Bachmann's state campaign chairman for nearly a year, said he had decided to switch his support to Paul because the campaign had reached "a turning point".
Rick Perry has also suspended his campaign and returned to Texas, although his departure may be less permanent.
The Texas governor tweeted this morning: "Here we come South Carolina!!!", suggesting he may yet return to the fray.
 
[h=1]Iowa caucus results: Rick Santorum presses on to New Hampshire[/h] Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum shift gear from Iowa to New Hampshire as Michele Bachmann exits the GOP race

• Read a summary of the day's action here


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Rick Santorum addresses supporters at the Iowa caucus. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP

The morning after the night before, Rick Santorum enjoys the rosy glow of his last-minute, nail-biting finish in the GOP Iowa cacuses – and when all the results were in and counted, Santorum was just eight votes behind Mitt Romney.
But it's goodbye Iowa and its Pizza Ranch restaurant outlets. Next stop is New Hampshire, and the Republican nomination primary touched down there this morning ahead of the New Hampshire primary in six day's time.
First up, however, is an announcement by Michele Bachmann – still in Iowa – and it's most likely to be that she is dropping out of the GOP race after a dismal sixth-place finish last night.
We'll be following all the reaction and activity in New Hampshire – and calculating the winner of our Forecast the Iowa Caucases competition, which was as uncannily close as the actual caucuses themselves.
For those of you who want to relive (or just live) the drama and tension of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, read our Iowa results live blog here.
10.36am: All the attention right now is on Michele Bachmann, who is widely expected to announce that she is dropping out of the presidential contest.
Bachmann is giving a statement at 11am ET from her hotel in West Des Moines – but having canceled her planned trip to South Carolina today, the chances are that it's time to call a taxi for Mrs Bachmann.
10.49am: So where are the candidates today? They are en route to New Hampshire, if they are not there already.
Mitt Romney
12.45pm: Holds a town hall. Manchester Central High School, Manchester
5.40pm: Holds a town hall. Peterborough Town House, Peterborough
Rick Santorum
7.30pm: Holds a Faith, Family and Freedom town hall. Rockingham County Nursing Home, Hilton Auditorium, Brentwood
Newt Gingrich
10.30am: Holds education town hall. Holiday Inn, Concord
3pm: Holds town hall. Belknap Mills, Laconia
7pm: Participates in Josiah Bartlet Center town hall and interview. St Anselm College, Manchester
Jon Huntsman
10am: Holds employee town hall. Globe Manufacturing, Pittsfield
12.15pm: Tours Turbocam International. Barrington
4pm: Holds employee town hall. Public Service of New Hampshire, Manchester
All the others are licking their wounds elsewhere. And yes, the Josiah Bartlet Center is named after President Bartlet of the West Wing. (Not really.)
11am: No sign of Bachmann yet, although everyone, from Fox News to Reuters to the guy holding the door open, is reporting that she is "suspending" her campaign. Suspending, for financial reasons: it means you can still raise money to pay off debt. If you officially quit, then you can't.
11.20am: Here's Michele Bachmann. "My name is Michele Bachmann," she says, standing in front of a sign that says "Michele Bachmann" and behind another sign reading "Bachmann".
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Michele Bachmann announces her decision to suspend her presidential campaign. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images She starts off on a description of a painting in the US Capitol, which she ties to the passage of Obama's healthcare reform. According to Bachmann, a painting of Ben Franklin told her to run for the presidency.
OK, so another recitation of the evils of "Obamacare" and how awful it is, which according to Bachmann is the greatest threat to America in history. I am not making this up.
Is she also resigning from congress as well? Oh and now it's back to the painting: "I worried what a future painting ... might depict" if Obamacare isn't repealed. Really.
Now she's talking about her campaign for the presidency in the past tense, but there's a lot of stuff about "the president's agenda of socialism," which is hilarious.
Now Bachmann is stumbling over reading her written text. But otherwise, it's all about fighting, how she will fight for everything. Fight, fight, fight ... President Obama socialist policies ... party of Reagan ... America is the greatest force for good ... constitution.
And after all that fighting: "Last night the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, so I have decided to stand aside."
So she's not entirely insane, even if a painting of Ben Franklin speaks to her and watches her.
11.35am: So that's it then, so long Michele Bachmann, you won the Iowa straw poll. But you turned out to be a straw person.
11.40am: And just as Bachmann's "I see dead people" announcement was starting, Rick Perry's Twitter account sent out this tweet:
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Rick Perry
  • ✔
@GovernorPerry
And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State...Here we come South Carolina!!! yfrog.com/odz8ujrj

4 Jan 12

​

So he's still in then? Oh well, that's a shame.
11.44am: Along with that "I'm still running" tweet, Rick Perrty tweeted another one of his "hey I'm out jogging" snapshots.
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Still running: Rick Perry out jogging in Texas, sent via Twitter So yes, marathon metaphor and all that. Thank you governor. Now trash Mitt Romney. Thank you.
12.07pm: Hang on a dogone minute, is Rick Perry in or out? The Texas Tribune isn't sure – and neither, it seems, are Perry aides:
The news sent political pundits, who had all but assumed Perry was dropping out of the race, spinning. It also clearly confused some of Perry's campaign staff, many of whom were en route from Iowa to Austin.
"We are all scrambling," one staffer wrote in a text message.
​
12.12pm: Here's the transcript of Michele Bachmann's exit speech just now, in which she is urged by a painting of Ben Franklin to run for the presidency:
Every day I'm reminded of that conviction that we have to the principles of freedom and justice by a painting. It's a painting that hangs in the United States Capitol. It's Howard Chandler Christy's Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States. It hangs in the East Grand Stairway of the United States Capitol. Every school child is familiar with this painting, but I've been privileged to see it on a regular basis doing my duties in Congress.
But never was the painting's poignant reminder more evident than on the evening of March 21st, 2010. That was the evening that Obamacare was passed. And staring out from the painting are the faces of the founders, and in particular the face of Ben Franklin ... That day served as the inspiration for my run for the presidency of the United States.
​
The painting was actually done in 1940 so it's a fantasy depiction. Just like Bachmann's.
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Newt Gingrich in Concord, New Hampshire, today. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters 12.37pm: The Guardian's Paul Harris is in New Hampshire, where he hears a strangely subdued Newt Gingrich making his first post-Iowa appearance in the Granite State:
If anyone was expecting "Angry Newt" to pitch up in New Hampshire this morning (and most of us were) they were in for a bit of a deep disappointment when he kicked off a Town Hall meeting in a hotel backroom in Concord.
After turning his concession speech, which by convention is meant to be a graceful affair, into an attack on Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, Gingrich could easily have carried on the fight.
Certainly many TV pundits were expecting a feisty Speaker to show up, burning with rage at the admittedly rather large indignities foisted on him in Iowa by Romney's allies who spent millions on negative ads.
It began well enough. In a packed room at the Holiday Inn local lawyer and Ginrgich supporter John Anthony Simmons introduced his hero with dark warnings of "the level of negativity" that had marked Iowa. But, having been tossed the ball, Gingrich failed to swing for the fences.
Instead he launched into one of his famous and circular campaign speeches, talking about constitutional theory, quoting 18th Century legal documents and mentioning the Founding Fathers about every two minutes. It was ethereal stuff that was quickly brought down to earth by questions from the fairly passive audience, whom earlier had been so quiet and sleepy that Simmons asked: "Is anybody up?"
When Gingrich took questions he found the first one concerned a local veterans hospital. Then he was asked about drug policy (twice) and abortion and finally chiropracty. Not exactly heady intellectualism of the kind Newt prefers. At one stage Gingrich tried to combine his fascination with history and the smaller concerns of a marijuana friendly local. "I think Jefferson and George Washington would have strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their methods would have been more violent than the current government," he told the evidently disappointed would-be pot grower.
Gingrich did show a little feistyness but it was reseved for attacks on Obama whom he said "believed in the radicalism of Saul Alinksy". He described Obama's first term in no uncertain terms. "It is a very authoratarian vision in which you and I are the subjects and the government is in charge," he said. But that sort of stuff is to be expected. For everyone hoping for a bit of Republican civil war and a public display of Gingrich's Romney-inflicted bruises, it was a damp squib.
​
12.47pm: Yet another Buzzfeed Politics scoop. The plucky newcomer has unearthed this photograph of placard-waving Mitt Romney at a Vietnam War protest on a California college campus in the 1960s.
But it's OK, he was protesting in favour of the Vietnam War. Lucky Mitt also had a draft deferment. And notice that he's holding a typically Romneyesque message: "Speak out, don't sit in". What does that mean?
Now, just wait until they find the other photo of a kaftan-wearing Romney snogging Jane Fonda at an anti-war love-in.
1.35pm: Here's John McCain, back on the nation's television screens in the middle of a presidential election. Unlike four years ago, when McCain was fighting tooth and nail with Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, this time McCain has come to praise Romney not to bury him.
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Mitt Romney shakes hands with John McCain in Manchester, New Hampshire, today. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters 1.45pm: McCain is telling a few jokes, moving onto an ancient story about boxing and Joe Lewis. This turns, somehow, into an assault on Barack Obama. "Well my friend, he can run but he can't hide," says McCain of Obama.
Otherwise, nothing has changed about John McCain, the same scatter-gun speaking style and the "my friends" schtick. Tune into CNN for a spooky 2008-style flashback.
Oh dear, John McCain just introduced "President Mitt Romney". Getting ahead of himself slightly there.
Shall we look back to 2008 and recall this nasty attack ad besmirching Mitt Romney's record? But what's this at the end? "I'm John McCain and I approve this message."
The reaction from the crowd in New Hampshire suggests this endorsement isn't exactly setting the place on fire.
2pm: At the same time as the McCain-Romney lovefest was taking place in New Hampshire, President Obama was speaking in Ohio, introducing his recess appointment of Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The move has infuriated Republicans, who have been blocking Cordray's appoointment for months because they think the CFPB is too powerful.
2.20pm: Here is some actual news: Washington state's governor Christine Gregoire says she will introduce legislation to legalise gay marriage as early as next week.
If passed, that would make Washington the seventh state – as well as the District of Columbia – to allow marriage for lesbian and gay partners.
"It's time, it's the right thing to do, and I will introduce a bill to do it," Gregoire said, reports the Seattle Times. The Democratic party holds a majority in both houses of the state legislature.
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2.30pm: A summary of the day's political news as the focus switches from Iowa to New Hampshire, which holds its Republican party primary next Tuesday:
• Michele Bachmann officially declared that her attempt to win the Republican nomination was at an end. After a dismal 6th place finish in Iowa on Tuesday, Bachmann said this morning that she was suspending her campaign.
• The 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain has endorsed Mitt Romney at an event in New Hampshire, calling him the best man to take on Barack Obama. In 2008 McCain and Romney were bitter rivals, but McCain has a history of support in New Hampshire, winning there in the 2000 and 2008 primaries.
• After a brief pause, Texas governor Rick Perry quickly decided to continue his presidential run, tweeting after a morning jog that he was ready to go to South Carolina, site of the third Republican contest and the first in the south.
• A new poll of New Hampshire Republicans gives Mitt Romney a commanding lead on 43%, well ahead of Ron Paul with 14%, Jon Huntsman on 9%, Newt Gingrich on 7% and Santorum on 6%
2.43pm: The McCain-Romney kiss-and-make-up was less than dynamic, according to Ron Fournier of the National Journal, who has been to a few of these things, and called this one "uninspired":
The turnout was surprisingly small – about 400 GOP voters squeezed into one end of a high school gym. The crowd was about half the size of what would be typically expected on the heels of an Iowa victory, six days away from the next ballot.
​
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John McCain endorses Mitt Romney in Manchester, New Hampshire. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters And the crowd wasn't impressed either:
One man asked about the growing gap between rich and poor in America. Romney essentially said that it could be worse, and challenged the crowd to name a country where the average income is higher than in the United States. Some members of the crowd shook their head in disagreement. One heckled him.
​
Norway! Socialist-ish, high taxing Norway. And before you say "oil," not so fast: Norway also has higher productivity than the US. That's the real reason.
2.50pm: The Newt Gingrich versus Ron Paul deathmatch continues to be an enlivening sideshow. Last night Gingrich again labelled Paul as "dangerous". On CNN today Paul wasn't having it:
You know, what I laugh about is that nobody disagrees with me that my reputation is: I strictly adhere to the Constitution, I strictly adhere to balanced budgets and never vote for spending that we can't afford and always lower taxes, I don't want to fight a war that's unconstitutional. And I'm the dangerous person?
You know, when Newt Gingrich was called to service in the 1960s, during the Vietnam era, guess what he thought about danger? He chickened out on that and he got deferments and didn't even go.
​
Rather neatly, Paul goes on to say of Gingrich: "Some people call that kind of a person a chicken-hawk and I think he falls into that category."
3.06pm: I was too busy watching Fox News last night to keep an eye on CNN. But it seems those guys were just going nuts as the hours ticked away as we all waited for Whatever County to find its lost precinct.
Anderson Cooper aparently lost the will to live at some point after midnight:
Ali Velshi attempted to move on by continuing with his report from CNN's other gadget, the social media screen, but Cooper cut him off almost immediately. "The social media screen, again with the social media screen. My Lord. This is the third hit, I still don't understand what the hell this thing shows!"
​
Wolf Blitzer looked like he was going to give them all detention.
3.30pm: Fox News easily won the battle of the cable networks last night, perhaps unsuprisingly given that it was a Republican contest.
Via the New York Times's Brian Stelter, Fox News averaged 2.63m viewers in prime time between 8pm and 11pm, while CNN got 1.3m and MSNBC averaged 1.2m.
From 11pm to 3am, Fox News averaged 1.82m, CNN averaged 839,000 and MSNBC 693,000.
4pm: How did conservative Republican pundits react to the Romney, Santorum, Paul photo-finish in Iowa last night? "Grumpy," according to Dan Kennedy, who rounds them all up in one convenient and entertaining post.
4.11pm: By the way, if you think the winning margin in Iowa last night was tight, it was a landslide compared with the 1974 New Hampshire US Senate election. After many recounts, Republican Louis Wyman won by two votes out of 223,363 cast.
4.34pm: Rick Santorum: against birth control. Now there's a vote winning position with ... let's see, approximately nobody.
5pm: After the excitement of the last minute campaigning in Iowa and then the drama of the caucus result, today was always going to be something of a hangover.
But with the New Hampshire primary just six days away, the temperature will soon start rising again.
In the meantime, here's the famous Dan Savage writing on Rick Santorum's homophobic frothing.
 
[h=1]Boost for Obama as US unemployment falls again and job growth quickens[/h] President's re-election prospects get a lift as unemployment rate drops to 8.5% – the lowest level since February 2009




December was the sixth consecutive month that the US economy had added more than 100,000 jobs Link to this video Barack Obama received a major electoral boost after a new set of jobless figures showed unemployment in the US fell to a three-year low in December. The economy is expected to be the key issue of the presidential election later this year.
According to the US Labour Department's monthly survey of employers, private companies added 212,000 jobs in December, while the public sector – federal, state and local governments – shrank by 12,000.
This was the sixth consecutive month that the US economy has added more than 100,000 jobs. The unemployment numbers have now fallen for four straight months, and suggest that the economy could be gaining momentum just as the president's re-election effort gets into gear.
"Today's employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," said Alan Krueger, chairman of the council of economic advisers at the White House. "It is critical that we continue the economic policies that are helping us to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the recession that began at the end of 2007."
Polls show that jobs and the economy are the number one election issue with voters, with foreign policy and health care reform well down the list.
Campaigning in South Carolina on Friday, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney did not specifically refer to the drop, but claimed Obama had not delivered on his promise to turn the economy around.
"He has failed to put American back to work," Romney said.
In his stump speech, a rehearsal for the general election, Romney emphasised that unemployment is higher than when Obama took over from George Bush in 2009. He contrasted this with Obama's promises on the campaign trail in 2008 to turn the economy around.
No US president since Franklin Roosevelt has won an election with unemployment as high as it currently is.
Romney, along with the other Republican candidates, sees the way out of America's recession as huge cuts in the federal budget, accompanied by cuts in corporation tax to help business.
"Remember, it was early in his administration that [Obama] said: 'Look, if you let me borrow $787bn, I will be able to keep unemployment from going above 8%'," Romney said. "Well, it went passed 8%, and it hasn't been back since, three years later."
While true that job growth has yet to make up for the ground lost during the recession – 13.1 million Americans remain unemployed – December marks the 15th consecutive month that the economy has added jobs.
Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital, said: "That's one hell of a number. Such an impressive fall in both the number of jobless Americans and the unemployment rate will cheer everyone bar Republican spin doctors."
Bullus added that the strong US numbers would add to a sense of optimism, but cautioned that problems in the Eurozone would continue to dampen the global economy during 2012.
The rosier outlook for US jobs beat analysts' expectations, and is echoed by other, non-governmental estimates. According to the latest monthly poll by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing and consultancy firm Macroeconomic Advisers the US added 325,000 private-sector jobs in December.
The four-week average of new jobless claims has also fallen to its lowest level since before the financial crisis hit in late 2008. The number of layoff announcements in December fell to to 41,785, the lowest monthly total since June, according to the latest report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
However, Challenger's tally of job cuts for the whole of 2011 was 606,082, 14% higher than the 529,973 job cuts announced in 2010.
 
[h=2]US elections 2012[/h] [h=1]Santorum's hopes of winning may be squashed in the middle[/h] Momentum from Iowa aside, Rick Santorum's narrow social agenda is being met by harsh scrutiny on the east coast




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Rick Santorum campaigns at the Keene Public Library on Friday. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP

It is easy to be a gay-bashing, Christian fundamentalist in Iowa. It is not so easy in New Hampshire, as Rick Santorum, latest hope of the Republican right, is quickly learning.
Only a few days after his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night, Santorum, who proudly describes himself as "a Jesus candidate", is coming up against the hard reality that the narrow social agenda that helped him in Iowa will not necessarily work elsewhere in America. At a raucous meeting with 600 students on Thursday, he was booed by college students in Concord, New Hampshire, over his unremitting opposition to same-sex marriages.
A few hours later, he headed for the relative safety of a townhall meeting in Windham, New Hampshire, organised by the 9/12 Project, an organisation set up by right-wing media commentator Glenn Beck. The safety proved illusory.
A 17-year-old high school student, Rebecca Connolly, asked him sweetly whether it was right to seek to impose Judeo-Christian values on a country as diverse as the US. Like the students in Concord, Connolly favours same-sex marriages. "Everyone should have the right to marry based on love," she said.
This is a clash of two Americas, the social conservativism of the mid-west colliding with east coast moderates. Santorum's hopes of winning the party presidential nomination, never mind the White House, are in danger of being squashed in the middle.
Santorum, grandson of a Welsh coal-miner and son of an Italian immigrant who fled to the US to escape Mussolini, is one of six candidates battling for the nomination to take on Barack Obama in the general election in November.
Front-runner Mitt Romney won the first of the contests, Iowa, on Tuesday but Santorum, coming from near the back of the pack, was only eight votes behind, a stunning result for a candidate fighting on a shoestring budget. Next up is the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, followed by South Carolina on January 21 and Florida on January 31, with other states stretching beyond.
Santorum is the candidate of the moment. He is the one attracting the big crowds in New Hampshire, curious to see the man who pushed Romney to a near dead-heat in Iowa. He is the one the media is following from campaign stop to campaign stop.
To his credit, he has not trimmed his campaign message to suit New Hampshire, sticking so far to the same stump speech he delivered in Iowa on traditional family values, warning that poverty lies ahead for those who have children outside of marriage. His campaign banners remain unchanged: 'Faith, Family and Freedom.' He is aware of the risk. "People say to me 'don't talk about this in New Hampshire'," he said, adding that you either believed in something or you did not and if you believed in it, you should speak out."
And he does speak out. He is the most belligerent of all the candidates on foreign policy, advocating bombing Iran. "Awesome," said one of the crowd listening to him at the townhall meeting in Windham. But elsewhere in America, there is a strong anti-war mood, one that his rival Ron Paul – his banners reading 'Ron Paul Peace' – is capitalising on.
The Republican right, at least the part that detests Romney for being too moderate, has invested its hopes in Santorum building on his momentum with a second place finish behind Romney in New Hampshire and going on to win South Carolina, establishing himself as the Anti-Romney Candidate.
But the problems facing Santorum are immense, beginning with New Hampshire. "I think, overall, he is in for a difficult time," said Andy Smith, New Hampshire's top pollster. That Santorum almost won Iowa is down to the support of born-again Christians and evangelicals, who made up 60% of the voters. In the 2008 primary, only 23% of those voting in New Hampshire described themselves as born-again Christians or evangelical.
"It is one of the least religious states in the country," Smith said, adding that 43% of Republicans likely to vote on the primary favour gay marriage and the percentage who are pro-choice on abortion is higher than the country as a whole.
Romney has a poll lead of about 20% in New Hampshire and the battle among the other candidates is to emerge in second place heading into South Carolina. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Centre, which does polling for CNN, the Boston Globe and other media organisations, said he had found little traction so far for Santorum in New Hampshire.
"There is a path for Santorum to the party nomination but Romney has a stronger path. He has won Iowa. He will win handily here by 20%. If he does that, he will likely win South Carolina. If Romney wins South Carolina, he is the nominee."
The latest tracking poll in the state by Suffolk University found another slight bump for Santorum, who moved from 8% to 11% but that still leaves him a distant third behind Ron Paul in second.
If it were still inconclusive at the end of January, Romney is still best-placed to win, favourite in the states up in February and with the money and organisation to fight all ten states up in contention on Super Tuesday, March 6. Santorum, with more limited resources, would have to pick and choose. He is not even on the ballot for one of the biggest, Virginia, evidence of his campaign's lack of planning.
While he was at the back of the pack, neither the media nor his Republican rivals paid much attention to him. But after Iowa he faces intense scrutiny. In a preview of what is to come, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, endorsing Romney, described Santorum, who advocates cutting the federal budget, as a staunch defender while in the US Senate of pork barrel spending. McCain, who sees this as a form of corruption, added: "I just don't think he can portray himself as a fiscal conservative."
The New York Times, like the rest of the US media, is also taking a closer look, detailing how, as senator for Pennsylvania, he worked hard to win millions of dollars in extra federal spending for hospitals in Puerto Rico.
After leaving the Senate after defeat at the hands of the Democrats in 2006, he joined the board of Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services, the direct beneficiary of the extra cash to Pennyslvania. Santorum collected $395,000 in director's fees and stock options up until last year. His campaign team said it would be wrong to link his work in the Senate with his subsequent employment with Universal Health Services.
The Centre for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organisation that tracks spending in politics, listed Santorum as the biggest recipient, among all the candidates standing in 2006, of contributions from lobbyists.
It is not just the money. Santorum faces questions too over electability and how he managed to lose that seat by a stunning 18%. His Republican rivals are already asking how, if he can lose so badly in Pennsylvania, what chance does he stand of beating Obama for the White House.
The fractured nature of the right might allow Romney to squeeze through in South Carolina, where he finished fourth in 2008 with only 15%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas governor Rick Perry and Texas Congressman Ron Paul are not going to stand back to allow Santorum to take the anti-Romney mantle.
A Rasmussen poll Friday on South Carolina had Romney on 27%, with Santorum a close second on 24%, Gingrich on 18%, Paul on 11%, Rick Perry 5% and Jon Huntsman on 2%. But Public Policy Polling which will release the results of its South Carolina poll this weekend, says its responses so far have Gingrich pulling away from Santorum for second place.
South Carolina is socially conservative but in a different way from Iowa. Santorum is a Catholic and while that did not matter to Christian evangelicals in the mid-west, it might matter, even five decades after Kennedy, to the Baptists of South Carolina.
But first there is New Hampshire. Frederick Ford, 71, a retired small businessman and military veteran, the kind of Republican Santorum needs to win over, went to see him in Windham. He regularly applauded points Santorum made throughout his 90 minutes. But, as he picked up his coat at the end, he remained unpersuaded.
"The priority is to get Obama out. I wanted to know if he could beat Obama. I don't think he can," Ford said, adding he will probably vote for Romney.
 
[h=2]US elections 2012[/h] [h=1]New Hampshire primary: Santorum under fire and Romney snubbed[/h] • New polls show big leads for Romney in New Hampshire
• Romney at the top in latest South Carolina polling
• Controversy over final vote tally in Iowa caucuses
• Ron Paul rips Rick Santorum in new television ad

• Read our latest news coverage from the campaign


Rick-Santorum-is-driven-a-007.jpg
Rick Santorum is driven away from a campaign stop in Tilton, New Hampshire Photograph: Elise Amendola/AP

The contest for the New Hampshire primary is going at full speed, with the glare of the media spotlight shining on Rick Santorum's record both in and outside of Congress and Mitt Romney confident enough to slip in a flying visit to South Carolina.
Santorum's success in Iowa has, as widely predicted, brought with it a microscopic examination of his career as a politician and on his career outside Washington following his crushing defeat in the 2006 elections.
For Iowa winner Mitt Romney, the latest polls show little dent in his commanding New Hampshire lead – although disturbing news from Iowa suggests that his narrow victory there on Tuesday night may have actually been a narrow defeat thanks to overcounting of his votes. A new poll in South Carolina is more good news for the former Massachusetts governor.
Meanwhile, the candidates are gearing themselves up for a critical debate on Saturday night, hosted by WMUR-TV and ABC News, at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, the first to take place in the new post-Iowa field.
We'll be following all the activity in New Hampshire live throughout the day.
9.45am: So where are the candidates today? Ron Paul and Rick Perry are both in Texas lying low and getting ready for Saturday night's debate. Otherwise, Rick Santorum is the hardest working politician in New Hampshire today.
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GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney embraces John McCain with totally genuine enthusiasm in South Carolina this morning. Photograph: David Goldman/AP Mitt Romney
• Started the day in South Carolina with John McCain at the Peanut Warehouse – shades of Jimmy Carter – in Conway
• 6pm: Hosts a spaghetti dinner. Tilton School, Tilton, New Hampshire
Rick Santorum
• 9.30am: Hosting a at the Basement Auditorium, Keene
• 11am: Visits Pelletier's Sports Shop, Jaffrey
• 1pm: Hosts a town hall, Dublin School, Dublin
• 4pm: Hosts a town hall, Manchester
• 6pm: Attends the Hillsborough County Republican gala, Nashua
• 9pm: Appears as guest on Hannity, Fox News
Newt Gingrich
• 9am: Holding a Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical town hall meeting, Lebanon (that's Lebanon, New Hampshire, not Lebanon, Lebanon)
• 11.15am: Takes tour of Sturm, Ruger & Company factory tour and holds a town hall, Newport
• 7pm: Holds a "Don't Mass Up'' New Hampshire town hall meeting, Salem
Jon Huntsman
• 9am: Speaks at New England College Convention, Concord
• 5pm: Speaks at a house part, Randolph
• 6.45pm: Speaks at Littleton Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, Bretton Woods
Now, what's that "Don't Mass Up" town hall thing all about, Newt?
10.10am: What the paper's say, New Hampshire (and Boston) edition
• For vision and national unity, Huntsman for GOP nominee – Boston Globe
Boston – Mitt Romney's home town and site of his presidential campaign headquarters – repaid his loyalty by endorsing Jon Huntsman in the New Hampshire primary today, via the Boston Globe. Because New Hampshire is so closely attached to Massachusetts and Boston in particular, this actually has an impact.
The Globe is no friend of Romney's, and pulls no punches here:
Without personal experience to guide him, Romney is catering to the most vocal constituencies in the national-security wing of the GOP. As in other areas, such as his Robert Bork-led advisory panel on judicial policies, Romney's ultimate intentions aren't clear. Is this for real?
​
• Rick Santorum's Anti-Abortion Politics Would Have Killed His Own Wife – Jezebel
Let's get down to brass tacks: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Personhood Pledge-signing, Griswold vs Connecticut-opposing, Mr Ban Abortion in All Circumstances With No Exception for the Life of the Mother, believes that the actions of his own wife should be treated as criminal.
​
• New Hampshire's Main Event: The Fight for 2nd Place – RealClearPolitics
The thesis here is that the runner-up in New Hampshire will be annointed as the Mitt Romney alternative. Possibly. Or possibly everyone will just discount New Hampshire because it's in the bag for Romney and move on.
• Under Media Glare, Santorum's Record Draws Closer Look – NPR

A round-up of the various attempts to put Santorum under the microscope.
10.30am: Nevermind who will win in New Hampshire, we still don't know who the hell won in Iowa yet.
The Daily Iowan reports, under the headline "Appanoose County man claims Romney vote total is wrong," in case you thought that Onion "Area Man" gag was out of date, that a GOP caucus-goer reckons the numbers do lie:
Edward L True, of Moulton, claims in an affidavit Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's caucus vote total is wrong.
True writes Mitt Romney in his precinct of Washington and Wells township was given credit for 22 ballots when he actually only received two.
According to the Iowa GOP web site, Mitt Romney received 22 ballots for the precinct in question. Romney is credited with beating Rick Santorum by eight votes in the Iowa caucus.
​
So the whole thing is like that Spike Milligan headline parody competition winner: "Archduke Franz Ferdinand found alive, World War One a mistake"?
The Santorum campaign – or at least Rick Santorum – doesn't care because he was told there was another over-count in his favour somewhere else, telling Fox New last night:
Here's what I know. Having talked to Matt Strawn, who's the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa ... there was one county where there was a 20-vote mistake in my favour, but there was a 21-vote mistake vote in Romney's favour. So it actually netted out to what I understand is a one-vote difference.
​
10.46am: The biggest political news event today took place not in New Hampshire but on the labour market – and some remarkably good news for the Obama administration.
As my colleague Dominic Rushe reports, December saw a welcome dose of job growth:
Employers added 200,000 jobs to the US economy in December as unemployment fell to 8.5%, the government announced on Friday.
According to the US Labour Department's monthly survey of employers private companies added 212,000 jobs in December, while the public sector – federal, state and local governments – shrank by 12,000.
A separate survey of US households said the unemployment rate sank to 8.5% in December, its lowest level since February 2009.
​
A few more months like that and Obama's re-election prospects will improve markedly. The White House was quick to highlight the best bits:
Despite adverse shocks that have created headwinds for economic growth, the economy has added private sector jobs for 22 straight months, for a total of 3.2 million payroll jobs over that period. In the last 12 months, 1.9 million private sector jobs were added on net, more than in any year since 2005. Nonetheless, we need faster growth to put even more Americans back to work.
​
11.05am: Did Mitt Romney win the Iowa caucuses thanks to a case of "fat finger"?
The suggestion by Edward True, mentioned earlier, is that instead of Romney winning two votes from his precinct in Moulton, Appanoose County, a "22" was typed instead of a 2. And thus history was made.
Des Moines's television station KCCI reports:
A spokeswoman with the Iowa Republican Party said True is not a precinct captain and he's not a county chairperson so he has no business talking about election results. She also said the party would not be giving interviews about possible discrepancies until the caucus vote is certified.
​
11.29am: The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt is in New Hampshire, where he finds the Occupy movement is setting up camp in preparation to another bout of protests.
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Occupy New Hampshire protester John Carney shows off his tent pitched in Veterans Park, Manchester. Photograph: Adam Gabatt/Guardian Just as in Iowa, the politicians in New Hampshire will be subject to actions from Occupy protesters as they campaign ahead of the primary vote on Tuesday.
Demonstrators are setting up their tents at Veterans Park on Elm Street in the city this morning – although they have actually been beaten to it by CBS and ABC, both of which have their own studios set up in gazebos in the park, some 20 metres from Occupy the NH primary's base.
At 10am this morning all was quiet at the park, until a young man in red baseball cap sprinted along Elm Street and attempted to pull down several candidates' roadside signs, an unfortunate security official puffing in his wake. The perpetrator managed to knock over
two Rick Santorum signs before sprinting away down a side street, hoisting up his tracksuit bottoms as he went. He is not believed to be linked to Occupy New Hampshire, nor to CBS or ABC.
Protesters at Veterans Park have negotiated a permit with police, and have the use of the area from 9am-9pm until Tuesday. John Paul Canney, who lives in Manchester but grew up in Glasgow – the original one in Scotland – said 700 people had signed up on the group's Facebook page to attend events, the first of which is 5pm tonight.
Canney, 34, was coy on how protesters might specifically impact the presidential hopefuls' campaigns, but events on the group's website designated "direct action" give a clue that Romney, Santorum and others can expect to see Occupy action at some point over the next few days. In Iowa, Occupy protesters were arrested after infiltrating candidates' events.
"We're not trying to irritate, we're trying to get a message out," Canney said. "I would like more people to find out about Occupy and the gripes we've been having about government. People can find a voice."
As for the Republican presidential contenders: "They're all fake. It's a joke."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Canney said he would not vote for any of the candidates. He said he supports Obama: "And I think he's trying to do his best, but really, he lost his balls."
Canney added: "Really, it doesn't matter who gets in office, they're going to do the same thing anyway."
​
11.55am: CNN reports that the Rick Santorum campaign has raised $2m in the two days since he "won" the Iowa caucuses.
So that's $2m more than he had the day before the Iowa caucuses.
12.08pm: There's a brand new poll from the crucible state of South Carolina, and here's the thing: it shows Mitt Romney with a big lead.
The CNN/Time/ORC poll out just now has Romney on 37%, Santorum second with 19%, followed by Gingrich on 18%, Paul on 12% and Perry with just 5%.
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Mitt Romney spontaneously interracts with carbon-based voting unit in the South Carolina political quadrant. Photograph: David Goldman/AP Here's the after-effects of the Rick Santorum surge: splitting the anti-Romney vote between himself and Newt Gingrich. That would be a repeat of the 2008 result that gave John McCain the Republican nomination, after the anti-McCain conservative vote in South Carolina spilt between Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson.
The last time this pollster canvassed South Carolina, Newt Gingrich had a huge lead. But that was back in the ancient past of about three weeks ago.
This latest poll is similar in shape to the Rasmussen poll out early this morning, with Romney in the lead with 27%, followed by Santorum on 24%, Gingrich third with 18% and Ron Paul at 11%.
Conclusion: Mitt Romney is a lucky man.
12.23pm: Bill Burton of the Obama campaign today previews the line of attack that Mitt Romney would face if he became the GOP nominee.
Butron's statement comes on the back of Romney's message on job growth getting a little tarnished by the latest positive job numbers:
During his time as a Wall Street executive, Mitt Romney made millions by laying off American workers and bankrupting companies. It's no surprise that he lacks enthusiasm for positive employment reports that show job growth. By rooting for the American economy to fail, Mitt Romney is standing with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party and against the American people.
​
12.43pm: The New York Times can uncover all sorts of dirt about Rick Santorum's career and it won't make a dent. In fact it probably helps with GOP voters. But when a rock-ribbed conservative website like RedState weighs in, that's another matter.
Erick Erickson minces no words here:
Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it. He is a big government conservative. Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state. In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state.
​
Alas, another anti-Romney proves to have feet of clay. But among the political sins that Santorum has committed are these, according to Erickson:
Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.
Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device
Voted for a Federal ban on possession of "assault weapons" by those under 18.
​
as well as: "Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF." Actually that was a loan. And it was 1998. Asian financial crisis, anyone? Whatev.
1.06pm: Newt Gingrich – who is supposed to be the intellectual of this group of candidates – puts his finger on the US's problem with the United Nations.
"We currently have the United States outvoted by Fiji," Newt Gingrich told his audience in Meredith, New Hampshire. Brilliant, but not actually true, and so Newt corrects himself: "I mean, they're outvoted, er, matched by Fiji."
Gingrich then used the power of metaphor to make an obscure political point, according to the transcript:
Now I'm a historian. And I'm a historian in large part because imitation is cheaper than invention. [What?] And this, this is sort of like how, how people develop cookbooks, you know.
On the left you have this model you get a hard egg by putting it in a freezer. It is technically true. You leave it in – I don't know if any of you have ever tried this, but if you leave an egg in the freezer long enough it will become hard. It's just not edible.
On the right you have this theory. You want a hard egg, you put it in boiling water and you boil it for a while.
Now, both of them produce hard eggs. It's almost impossible to get a left wing academic to understand, this one's dumb.
​
What does this illustrate? You can't teach Newt Gingrich how to suck eggs. Fact: you can actually freeze eggs.
1.31pm: Here's big news that no-one wanted to know:
Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree
Herman Cain says he will endorse a GOP candidate on January 19, two days before the South Carolina Primary

6 Jan 12

​

We'll just have to struggle on in the meantime – until 19 January when Herman Cain will nominate Newt Gingrich.
1.40pm: There's nasty piece of YouTube posted by someone named by NHLiberty4Paul, ostensibly a pro-Ron Paul ad that mocks Jon Huntsman for his links with China, calling him a "Manchurian candidate" and specifically mentioning Huntsman's adopted daughters.
Speaking in New Hampshire just now, Huntsman said:
If someone wants to poke fun at me for speaking Chinese, that's okay. What I object to is bringing forward pictures and videos of my adopted daughters, suggesting that there is some sinister motive there.
​
Here's the ad in question. Presumably it's the work of an over-zealous Ron Paul supporter. Ron Paul's New Hampshire campaign immediately disowned the ad:
The video was utterly distasteful and no one who actually supports Dr Paul's principles would have made it.
​
2.22pm: Now here's a surprise: Rick Santorum is not convinvced by all this climate change business, telling voters in New Hampshire this week:
I don't think any scientist in the world would suggest there isn't a variety of factors, and I think the vast majority of scientists would say there's probably a hundred factors that cause the climate to change.
And so why have we decided that this one particular factor, carbon dioxide, is in fact that tip of the tail that wags the entire dog.
​
What is it with Rick Santorum and dogs? Homosexuality, climate change – if he doesn't like it, Rick compares it to a dog. Dog-based psychological trauma? Only Rick Santorum and his analyst know that for sure.
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I'm a little teapot: Rick Santorum in Keene, New Hampshire. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images But what of "the proposed solutions put forward by Al Gore and his friends," according to Rick? It's a plot:
They don't trust you to allocate resources in a way that they believe is best, and so they want to have a system that forces you to do what they think you should do in running your business and your lives.
​
Not trusting people to do what they believe is best and have a system that forces itself into people's lives? Now where would Rick Santorum get an idea like that from?
In unrelated news, did you know that Rick Santorum was the number one US senator in use of the word "abortion" during his years in the Senate? Also: "fetus," "womb" and "life of the mother". Yes, that's according to this research by the Sunlight Foundation:
Though he was just one of 100 senators, Santorum was responsible for approximately one of eight utterances of "abortion" during the ten years covered by our analysis, and approximately one in five utterances of "fetus" and "partial-birth."
​
So someone just needs to convince Rick Santorum that climate change causes abortions, and he's on board.
2.42pm: So Ron Paul did make it to New Hampshire today.
The Texas firebrand flew into New Hampshire to hold an event in a Nashua plane hanger where – coincidentially – Hillary Clinton held a similar event in 2008. And she won. So that's a good omen.
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GOP candidate Ron Paul campaigning in New Hampshire. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Senator Rand Paul was there and, according to the AP, took pot shots at Rick Santorum:
The Kentucky senator complained about excess spending by both parties in Washington and noted that "a guy who did pretty well in Iowa" with the initials "RS" had voted to support the Department of Education and foreign aid while in the Senate.
​
Foreign aid? Education? Extraordinary. The R in Rand Paul's coy formulation "RS" obviously stands for RINO.
3.15pm: The Santorum surge is running into the ditch of campaign realities. RedState's Erick Erickson tweets:
Erick Erickson @EWErickson
Only need 3,000 sigs to get on the GOP primary ballot in IL. I'm being told Santorum won't make it. 69 delegates. Only a few more hrs.

6 Jan 12

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Illinois's a big state, a lot of delegates there. More importantly, if it is the case then it's another sign of structural weakness for the sparse Santorum campaign.
3.46pm: Ron Paul's event in an aircraft hangar drew a lot of spectators and the huge press corps that seems to accompany him these days. The LA Times was there:
Speaking with reporters after the event, Paul said he planned to be very active in the state for the final five days.
"This is not a state that likes big government. My job in the next five days is to explain what they have supported in the past," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, all my opponents support way too much government."
Paul also disavowed what he said was an "ugly" web video from supporters of his that calls Jon Huntsman a "Manchurian candidate" and uses pictures of his adopted children.
"All campaigns have to suffer these consequences when somebody puts something up with the candidate's name on it," he said. "Obviously it was way out of order."
​
4.16pm: So that's Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign over. Thanks for coming, Newt.
His campaign effectively ended around 1pm eastern time, while touring the Sturm, Ruger & Company firearms factory in New Hampshire and answering questions from a reporter, according to Mother Jones:
Reporter: Have you ever owned a gun?
Gingrich: No, I actually personally have never owned a gun.
​
newt_gingrich_gun.jpg
'And this thing does what exactly?' Newt Gingrich at a firearms factory in New Hampshire today. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters Only a GOP candidate with a political deathwish would say that.
4.46pm: Elderly gentleman man forgets name of candidate he's supposed to be supporting.
Via Talking Points Memo.
5.03pm: National primary polls are pretty worthless at this point but even so, Gallup finds Rick Santorum getting a very big boost from his Iowa near-win:
Gallup interviewing Wednesday and Thursday night – after Santorum's strong showing in Iowa – shows his support at 21%, up significantly from where he was last month. This places him second behind Romney's average of 29% support in those same two post-Iowa nights of interviewing.
​
5.18pm: It's been, what, a couple of hours since the last poll of New Hampshire voters, so hats off to the University of New Hampshire [pdf] for filling this gaping void on the political landscape.
Except: for some reason the poll was done from 2 January to 5 January, in other words, before and after the Iowa result. So that's an exercise in pointlessness. They may as well have done the first half in 2009 for all the relevence it has.
Luckily they've split the poll into before-Iowa and after-Iowa. The post-Iowa poll has Romney on 43%, Ron Paul on 18%, Santorum on 11%, Gingrich on 9% and Huntsman 8%.
5.30pm: Rather than go after Mitt Romney, the Ron Paul campaign is again aiming its firepower at the also-rans. Fresh from battering Newt Gingrich, the latest Ron Paul television ad for South Carolina has a go at Rick Santorum.
Stirring stuff: "Don't be fooled. Rick Santorum, a record of betrayal, another serial hypocrite who can't be trusted." But who's the guy with the big opinion poll leads in New Hampshire and South Carolina?
5.47pm: Hey, why not? Another opinion poll out of New Hampshire. I've lost count, is that four or five today?
The latest one, from Pulse Opinion Research – a robopoll off-shoot from Rasmussen – sponsored by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, again finds a big lead for Mitt Romney, but gives more support for Jon Huntsman, in third place behind Ron Paul.
37% Mitt Romney
19% Ron Paul
16% Jon Huntsman
14% Rick Santorum
9% Newt Gingrich
1% Rick Perry
​
5.55pm: Cindy McCain isn't happy with the nutty Ron Paul "supporter" video mentioned earlier that smears Jon Huntsman:
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Cindy McCain
  • ✔
@CindyhM1
I deeply resent the video made using the adopted daughters of@johnhuntsman. @RonPaul shame on you. This has shades of 2000 all over it.

7 Jan 12

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"Shades of 2000" refers to the vicious underground campaign waged against John McCain during the 2000 presidential primary in South Carolina:
People in some areas of South Carolina began to receive phone calls in which self-described pollsters would ask, "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"
It was a reference to Bridget, who was adopted as a baby from an orphanage in Bangladesh and is darker skinned than the rest of the McCain family. Richard Hand, a professor at Bob Jones University, sent an e-mail message to "fellow South Carolinians" telling recipients that Mr. McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage."
Literature began to pepper the windshields of cars at political events suggesting that Mr. McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, that he was mentally unstable after years in a POW camp, that he was the homosexual candidate and that Mrs McCain, who had admitted to abusing prescription drugs years earlier, was an addict.
​
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Smiley Rick Santorum in Manchester, New Hampshire. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters 6.35pm: And there's just time for one last poll from New Hampshire – seriously – from NBC News-Marist, and surprise, surprise, another big lead for Mitt Romney in the Granite State.
42% Mitt Romney
22% Ron Paul
13% Rick Santorum
9% Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich
1% Rick Perry
​
That's a big bounce for Rick Santorum, who got just 2% the last time this poll was done a month ago. The big loser is Gingrich, down from 24% in that poll.
This one was carried out on 4-5 January. Full details here [pdf].
6.45pm: Time to wrap things up for the evening, in case any more new polls are published.
Tomorrow night is Debate Night: and for the first time Rick Santorum will be centre-stage from 9pm ET, when the debate at St Anselm's College kicks off, hosted by ABC and Yahoo.
We will of course be live-blogging it right here from 8pm ET. And given it is the first high profile event since the dust settled in Iowa, it should be a cracker. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry in particular have nothing to lose – Perry went shooting to warm up – so let's get ready to rumble.
And one piece of good news for Rick Santorum: his campaign did file a petition to get on the ballot in Illinois, with about 30 minutes to spare. Phew.
 
[h=1]Ron Paul faces off with Santorum in renewed battle for second place[/h] After a strong finish in Iowa, Paul returns to New Hampshire to campaign against new party favourite Rick Santourum




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Ron Paul during a campaign rally at an airplane hangar in Nashua, NH. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul opened the battle for second place in the New Hampshire primary with an attack on his main rival, the rising star of the party right, Rick Santorum.
Paul, after a couple of days of holiday back in Texas after the Iowa caucuses, returned to the fray Friday, making Nashua his first campaign stop.
Demonstrating his drawing power, hundreds of supporters turned out in the unlikely and awkward setting of an aircraft hanger.
Such was demand to see him that cars quickly filled the parking spaces, and vehicles were left by the side of the highway, with lines running back at least a mile.
Paul, a maverick candidate on the libertarian wing of the Republican party, has a passionate, devoted, and largely young following. His arrival was greeted with chants of 'President Paul'.
Long on the fringes of American politics, he is enjoying a rare burst of popularity, a career high for the 76-year-old. His espousal of foreign non-intervention is in chime with the anti-war mood of many young people. It resonates especially in New Hampshire, with its long tradition of independent thinking.
Paul, who came a close third in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, is running in second place in New Hampshire, well behind Mitt Romney. His main mission is to retain that second place finish by holding off Santorum, one of the surprises of Iowa, fighting Romney to a near dead-heat.
With Santorum rising in the polls in New Hampshire, Paul delegated his son Rand, the junior senator from Kentucky, a Republican and Tea Party favourite, to criticise Santorum.
Paul junior told the crowd that unlike his father, who voted against excessive spending by the federal government, another candidate with the initials 'RS' and who did well in Iowa, had repeatedly voted in support of foreign aid, the department of education and other spending programmes.
Paul senior stuck mainly to his stump speech, expressing opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and any conflict with Iran. "Getting along with people is a lot better than dropping bombs on them," he said.
Polls indicate he has little chance of winning the Republican nomination but he has the money and organisation that will enable him to stay in the race, accumulating delegates to the party's convention in August. As delegates are distributed on a proportional basis, Paul is well-placed to gain a share of New Hampshire's 12.
 
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[h=1]GOP candidates prepare for back-to-back New Hampshire debates[/h] Candidates juggle campaign stops with debate preparations, as polls show a commanding lead for Mitt Romney

Live New Hampshire GOP debate coverage here




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GOP candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a rally at the Pinkerton Academy field house in Derry, New Hampshire. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidates have been juggling campaign stops and intensive preparations for back-to-back televised debates held so close to New Hampshire's Tuesday primary that a good performance or a major gaffe could prove decisive.
Almost all of the six candidates had campaign stops throughout Saturday, but most left free time in their schedules to rehearse for the debate in Manchester, which begins at 9pm (ET). They will then get up first thing in the morning for another debate in Concord, beginning at 9am.
It is an unusual piece of debate scheduling, with little time for the candidates, their campaign teams and the media pundits to review the Manchester debate before they head into the next one.
Polls show Mitt Romney with a commanding lead in New Hampshire of more than 20% and no signs of a late surge by any of his rivals. Former senator Rick Santorum, who ran him a desperately close second in Iowa last Tuesday, enjoyed an initial bump in support in New Hampshire in the days afterwards but now, according to a poll published on Saturday, appears to have plateaued – a possible backlash against his deeply conservative social views, in particular acrimonious exchanges with students in Concord over his hostility towards same-sex marriages.
On the campaign trail on Saturday, Santorum tried to avoid talking about social issues in favour of a more economic message. But in Hollis, after being asked about same-sex marriages, he said: "I believe marriage is a privilege, not a right. Not anybody nor anything can get married."
Santorum publicly conceded on Friday he is unlikely to win New Hampshire but predicted on Saturday a win in South Carolina, whose primary is on 21 January.
He will receive a major boost on Sunday when he is expected to be endorsed in South Carolina by Gary Bauer, one of the leading campaigners in the US on pro-life and pro-traditional family issues. Bauer, who served in the Reagan administration, founded the Campaign for Working Families, a powerful and well-funded conservative political action committee.
Santorum's sudden surge in Iowa came after he won the endorsement of Christian evangelical leaders in the state.
A Suffolk University poll of likely primary voters in New Hampshire published on Saturday showed Romney with 39%, congressman Ron Paul on 17%, former house speaker Gingrich 10%, Santorum 9%, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman 9% and Texas governor Rick Perry 1%.
The poll findings for Romney are supported by the number of placards, posters and yard signs blanketing New Hampshire, with those for Romney easily outweighing the rest combined.
With Romney expected to win New Hampshire, the others are vying for second place to provide them with momentum going into the next race – the South Carolina primary – which may prove to be the decider. Perry flew to New Hampshire for the debates but is not campaigning in the state, concentrating instead on South Carolina.
While Paul appears to be heading for second place, one of the others in the pack could still gain on him. That is one of the reasons why the debates take on such importance. With Gringrich, Huntsman and Santorum in a deadheat, each will be seeking to find a message that will resonate and help them break out off the bunch.
The eventual winner will be the Republican nominee to take on Barack Obama in November.
Romney, who broke off from campaigning in New Hampshire to visit South Carolina on Friday, was back on the road in New Hampshire on Saturday.
Paul, a libertarian, is already looking towards South Carolina. A Ron Paul super-political action committee (PAC) bought up $300,000 in television advertising, all of it aimed at Romney, accusing him of supporting government bailouts and excessive federal spending.
Santorum was one of the most active on the campaign trail Saturday, barnstorming through the southern part of New Hampshire, where he drew large crowds.
In Amherst, he was able to stick to the economic message.
"Think Reagan, vote Santorum," he told a crowd outside a grocery store in the town of Amherst. The meeting was moved outside to accommodate the large number of people who turned up.
Santorum attacked Barack Obama, saying he was changing America. "If Barack Obama is re-elected we will be the generation that lost faith in the principles of America," he said. He also took swipes at Romney, hitting him for his healthcare reforms when he was governor of Massachusetts. When a low flying plane briefly disturbed him, Santorum quipped: "It is probably Romney flying in here. A private plane, I suspect."
At a later stop in a barn in the town of Hollis, the crowd was so big that Santorum gave two speeches: one for those inside the barn and one for those stuck outside. "I a little stunned at the turnout," he says before urging his audience to back him. "This is the most important election of your lifetime. I don't care how old you are. This is a turning point election," he said.
Many in the crowd, however, were from outside the state. As the hottest thing in the race Santorum attracts the curious as much as the converted. However, Ed Rowane, a local graphic designer, was a true believer. "I am voting for him for economic issues but the social issues align with mine too," he said. Rowane was not concerned that Santorum was unlikely to beat Romney in the state. "I think Romney has it sewn up. But Santorum will come in a strong second or third and that will be enough to get him to South Carolina," he said.
 
[h=1]Republican candidates seek strength in numbers to show off family values[/h] A large, photogenic brood of children seems to be vital to the battle to fight Barack Obama for the presidency




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Republican candidate Jon Huntsman's daughters, Mary Anne, Abby and Liddy, at a campaign stop in Derry, New Hampshire. Photograph: Rick Friedman/Corbis

When Rick Santorum stood at the front of a packed hall in the small New Hampshire town of Northfield last week, the crowd gave a rousing welcome to the social conservative who was now the hot new thing in the Republican nomination race.
Santorum spoke mainly about the economic issues facing America. But the attention of some in the audience may have drifted to a huge poster that showed the beaming candidate posing with his wife and their brood of seven children. So crowded with offspring was the family portrait that the former Pennsylvania senator even carried one infant on his shoulders. "Faith, family and freedom tour" read the poster's slogan.
In the Republican battle for the right to fight President Barack Obama for the White House, it seems that the role of the candidates' families has never been bigger or more prominent.
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman also has seven children, while frontrunner Mitt Romney and his wife have five sons. Texan libertarian Ron Paul has five children too, and so does Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who often upped the stakes by mentioning her 23 foster children.
Though she has now suspended her campaign, Bachmann's influence might still linger when it comes to family tactics. "She would repeatedly talk about fostering that many children as a way to talk about social concerns. It was unusual," said Professor Bruce Gronbeck, a political scientist at the University of Iowa, and an expert on the use of character issues in politics. By comparison with the rest of the Republican lineup, Texas governor Rick Perry and former House speaker Newt Gingrich – who have sired a mere two children each – have tiny families.
The respective offspring have been given a noticeably high profile by the competing campaigns. At a rally in Peterborough, New Hampshire, Huntsman was careful to point out to the crowd in the local town hall that three of his daughters were watching from the balcony. As the entire crowd looked up to them, they dutifully giggled and waved back.
Collectively known as "the Huntsman girls" the three young women – piano teacher Mary Anne, public relations expert Abby and fashion industry hopeful Liddy – have campaigned actively for their father, especially using social media. All of them are attractive and they have shot spoof videos lampooning rival campaigns. These have included mocking a Herman Cain ad, where they drew moustaches on themselves to mimic Cain's campaign chief of staff, and sang a parody of Justin Timberlake's SexyBack that hit at Cain's economic plans. On Twitter the Huntsman girls have amassed a following of more than 20,000, giving a rare prominence to a campaign that has otherwise struggled to attract media attention. They have even been profiled in the highbrow New Yorker magazine and hosted a live web chat with readers of the Boston Herald.
But it is the Romney clan that has really hit the headlines and used its children to maximum effect. As their father has campaigned in Iowa and New Hampshire, four of the Romney boys – Josh, Tagg, Matt and Craig – have made regular appearances at events and in front of the TV cameras, helped by the chiselled good looks that they share with their parents.
Of course, like the Huntsman girls, it is their collective movie-star looks that get noticed, especially by apparently fascinated journalists. "Romney's sons are quite handsome. Just saying," tweeted CNN producer Danielle Dellorto recently. Scott Stossel, deputy editor of the Atlantic magazine, went a step further and joked on his Twitter feed: "Huntsman daughters and Romney sons should get together and breed, creating a super-race of astonishingly beautiful Mormons."
Elsewhere in the race, Santorum's daughter, Elizabeth, works on her father's campaign team as a part-time staffer. Several of Ron Paul's children act as campaign "surrogates" doing media interviews on behalf of their father. The most prominent is Senator Rand Paul, who is a major figure in the powerful Tea Party movement.
Experts say that putting family members into the public eye – especially large numbers of good-looking children – sends a clear political message, especially to Republicans. It is making an unsaid promise that the happy and fertile private life on display will translate into a virtuous period in office.
"It is a theme of private virtues becoming public virtues. They are sending the message that the basis of the political system and the basis of society is the happy household," said Gronbeck. With Romney, Huntsman and Santorum it is also a firm expression of their religious convictions, as all are devout Mormons or Roman Catholics whose faiths put an emphasis on having large families.
Stressing the existence of a happy family also strikes a chord with a core element of the Republican base – social conservatives – that have often been left out of the American political conversation in the wake of the Great Recession which began in 2007. While economic issues have dominated debate since then, the so-called "values voters" have sometimes felt sidelined. But each campaign knows a public display of family by a candidate might go some way to winning over a group that still remains a vital part of the Republican party's activist base.
"You have to be seen engaging in family-related things. It is the kissing babies side of campaigning," Gronbeck said.
Of course, putting children on the campaign trail can also cause problems, especially when using social media, which can often be unregulated by overworked campaign aides. The Huntsman girls clearly have an issue with moustaches. They reportedly irked their father's staffers with some of their Twitter messages, including one that mocked Obama aide David Axelrod for having a bushy upper lip. Another lampooned Romney's lack of foreign policy experience, saying eating at Panda Express, an American Chinese fast-food chain, "doesn't count".
The Romney sons have also strayed off-message, notably when making a dubious joke about the reality of Obama's birth certificate. There was a swift apology. In this race, the sons and daughters need to be politically savvy too.

[h=2]RELATIVE DIFFICULTIES[/h] While the current Republicans have been busy displaying their large numbers of children on the campaign trail, other politicians have found that family can have its drawbacks.
Roger Clinton
President Bill Clinton had enough troubles in his time in office from his own personal moral failings. But his half-brother, Roger Clinton, added to the mix as a hard-living musician. He served a year's jail time for cocaine possession, was arrested for drink-driving and also challenging a nightclub doorman to a fight.
Neil Bush
The Bush clan was always acutely conscious of its image, producing two presidents called George and a governor of Florida in the shape of Jeb. But Neil, a sibling of George W and Jeb, hit the headlines for his divorce. In a bitter legal spat details emerged of Neil's use of high-class escorts in Thailand and Hong Kong. As Rick Perry might say: "Oops."
Billy Carter
President Jimmy Carter's younger brother, Billy, was a bit different from his humble, devout sibling. He revelled in the image of a hard-drinking Southern redneck, even promoting a brand of beer. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1987 and died a year later.
 

[h=1]Newt Gingrich takes revenge on Mitt Romney in bitter Republican debate[/h] Frontrunner in GOP race to take on Barack Obama comes under attack in New Hampshire




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The Republican presidential candidates debate in Manchester, New Hampshire. From left: Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Photograph: Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidates turned on Mitt Romney in a nationally televised debate on Sunday in a desperate attempt to cut into his huge poll ahead of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.
The GOP debate in Concord, New Hampshire, and another held just 10 hours earlier in Manchester, was marked by personal, abusive and frequently petty exchanges that highlighted the fractured nature of the modern Republican party, and raised President Barack Obama's hopes for re-election in November.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, out for revenge after being on the receiving end of a $4m (£2.6m) advertising battering from Romney in Iowa, did not hold back, accusing him of lying, being unelectable and, in a phrase likely to be remembered long after the campaign is over, of talking "pious baloney".
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and failed Republican candidate in 2008, has slipped 8% over the past week in New Hampshire, although that still leaves him on a healthy 35%, according to a poll by Boston-based Suffolk University published on Sunday.
Romney would normally be regarded as a rightwinger but he has managed to emerge as a relative moderate given the makeup of the field – a mixture of the deeply conservative and the downright zany.
His nearest challenger is Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 20%. Paul is running on a libertarian platform, opposed to foreign intervention abroad and in favour of minimal government at home.
Rick Santorum, who came a close second in Iowa but whose anti-gay views are turning off voters in liberal New Hampshire, needs a second-place finish to maintain the momentum necessary to establish himself as the Anybody But Romney candidate as the contenders head to South Carolina, whose primary is on 21 January.
But the poll showed him stuck at 8%, with Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, on 11%, Gingrich on 9%, and Texas governor Rick Perry, who is not competing in New Hampshire, with a humiliating 1%.
Six candidates go into the primary, the second contest of a series to choose a Republican nominee to take on Obama for the White House. Romney looks set to add New Hampshire to his narrow win in Iowa but faces a tougher test in South Carolina, a deeply conservative southern state with a reputation for brutal contests where Romney managed only fourth place in 2008.
After the debate, Romney, in an attempt to consolidate his establishment credentials, headed out on the campaign trail in New Hampshire accompanied by the former governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, and New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, both of whom had been potential presidential candidates. Gingrich and Huntsman also campaigned in New Hampshire.
Santorum and Perry headed for South Carolina, hoping to stop Romney. Santorum's team denied he was treating New Hampshire as a lost cause.
Romney sailed through the Saturday debate, leaving his rivals squabbling with one another as they scrambled for second place. But, after withering media criticism for failing to attack Romney, the candidates came after him in Concord, producing a much rawer debate.
Gingrich, in one notable testy exchange, turned on Romney for saying he was not a career politician. "Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?" Gingrich said, listing contests Romney had fought and lost since 1994. "You've been running consistently for years and years and years."
He criticised Romney's "millionaire friends" for paying for "untrue" ads in Iowa about Gingrich's record on abortion and other issues. Romney claimed he had no control of the political action committees responsible, even though they are packed with former campaign staff and business partners, and said he hoped any untruths would be corrected.
In the spin-room after the debate, Romney's spokesman Eric Ferhnstrom responded to the "pious baloney" line with a sly reference to the embarrassing disclosure last year that Gingrich has a $500,000 account with Tiffany's, presumably having lavished jewellery on his wife Callista. "Obama would have Newt for breakfast … at Tiffany's," Ferhnstrom said.
The sensitive issue of gay rights came up, too, in the debate. Romney, adopting a line similar to Obama, said he opposed discrimination but also opposed same-sex marriages.
Santorum, who has delivered some of the most hostile rhetoric against gay people of any mainstream politician, was asked what he would say to his son if he told him he was homosexual.
The former Pennsylvania senator responded with a softer tone than he has on the campaign trail so far. "I would tell him I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it," Santorum said. In a magazine interview in 2003, he said much the same thing, although he added that he would urge him to be celibate.
The Manchester debate's most explosive exchanges were between Paul and Gingrich over allegations that Gingrich had dodged the draft. Paul stood by his claim that Gingrich was a "chicken hawk" for avoiding service in Vietnam. "Dr Paul has a long history of saying things that are inaccurate and false," Gingrich replied.
It was a poor night for Gingrich, after recent good debate showings. He made one small gaffe likely to be remembered. In response to a question about what he would be doing if he was not at the debate, he tried to play the populist card. Gingrich, who normally parades himself as a book-loving intellectual and classical music fan, said he would be watching the big basketball game: in fact, the big game on television that night was football.
 
[h=1]New Hampshire primary: predictions and scenarios[/h] Ewen MacAskill looks at how the US Republican candidates might fare on Tuesday and what the implications are




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GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul (left) makes a point to Mitt Romney (centre) and Rick Santorum at the New Hampshire Republican debate. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Mitt Romney: wins He is so far ahead in the polls it would be one of the biggest upsets in US political history if he were to lose. That means he would have won the first two Republican contests. But South Carolina rather than Iowa and New Hampshire has usually been the testing ground for the Republicans, and, as a deeply conservative southern state, it could be awkward for him. He only took 15% of the vote in 2008, leaving him in fourth place. If he wins South Carolina this time, the race is effectively over. He would then be well placed to take Florida at the end of the month. The primaries and caucuses after that and the 10 states up on Super Tuesday in March largely favour him, especially as he has the money and organisation to fight in all of them, while his cash-short rivals would have to pick and choose.
Ron Paul: possibly second Paul is looking for a strong second place finish but it does not really matter that much to him. He has no chance of winning the Republican nomination, being too far on the party fringes. His strategy is a long-term one, taking advantage of the Republican switch to proportional representation by picking up a share of delegates in each state. He has the money, the organisation and a fervent band of supporters in each state to fight a protracted campaign. He can take his army of delegates to the party convention in Tampa, Florida, in August and demand a prime-time platform to air his non-interventionist foreign policy and advocacy of minimalist government and hope to wring some concessions from the nominee, probably Romney.
Rick Santorum: possibly second He needs that second-place slot to build on the momentum he gained with the near dead-heat in Iowa. A second place finish would help establish him going into South Carolina as the Anybody But Romney candidate. He picked up an important endorsement on Sunday from social conservative Gary Bauer, which will help him in South Carolina with Christian evangelicals, the force that propelled him forward in Iowa. If he can win South Carolina, Florida becomes a toss-up state.
Newt Gingrich: possibly second He too desperately needs that second place. Having been in the lead in the polls in December, he has since faded. As a southerner from Georgia, he could be well placed to give Romney a fright in South Carolina and he still enjoys a 7% poll lead in Florida. His lack of cash and organisation would be a huge handicap in both states, but especially Florida, given its size, which means vast spending on ads.
Rick Perry: last Looks headed for last place in New Hampshire. His campaign has been a shambles, made worse on Tuesday after a poor showing in Iowa when he hinted he was going to quit, only by Wednesday to announce he was staying in. He has staked a lot on South Carolina, launching his campaign in Charleston in August. Expect him to drop out after the South Carolina results come in.
Jon Huntsman: campaign all but over Anything other than second place is a failure. Could drop out after New Hampshire, but may soldier on to Florida. He put everything into New Hampshire, opting against competing in Iowa. Probably a mistake. He may be back, not in 2012 but 2016. He seems to be treating this as a test-run for next time, hoping, as he puts it, that the Republican party will have returned to sanity by then.
 
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