Media's Birth Certificate Hypocrisy

Jeffrey Kuhner has a spot on column in the Washington Times discussing the media's hypocrisy on Obama's natural born citizenship status after the media actually took time out to research Mitt Romney's natural born status despite his birth in the state of Michigan to two U.S. citizens because Mitt Romney's father just happened to be born in Mexico to U.S. citizen parents, an issue that drove him out of the 1968 presidential race on grounds that he did not qualify as a natural born citizen eligible to serve as President of the United States. Kuhner talks about the plethora of evidence that the media chooses to ignore that caused even the media to once believe that Obama had been born in Kenya:

Take the birth certificate issue. Conservatives who question the origin of Mr. Obama’s birthplace are derided as “birthers” — extremist kooks, who supposedly wallow in conspiracy theories. Yet, when “mainstream” media outlets, such as Reuters, insist on getting a copy of Mr. Romney’s birth certificate, it is considered objective, hard-hitting reporting. The hypocrisy and double standards are shameful.

Moreover, there is only one person to blame for the prolonged birth certificate issue: Mr. Obama. Like a chameleon, he has repeatedly altered his identity to suit his immediate self-interest. For years, his literary agent claimed — in brochures, press releases and public statements — that Mr. Obama was “born in Kenya.” He never once corrected the record. The reason is obvious: Portraying himself as having exotic Kenyan roots bolstered his literary credentials among trendy multicultural leftists. In 2004, during his campaign for the U.S. Senate, press reports — including from the Associated Press — claimed that Mr. Obama’s birthplace was Kenya.

The issue has plagued him even after winning the White House. In 2009, the government of Kenya announced that it was planning to build a monument to Mr. Obama at the Kenyan site it says is his birthplace. Officials in Kenya’s parliament insist Mr. Obama was born there; so have multiple articles in Kenyan newspapers. Kenyan family members also allege that Mr. Obama was not born on U.S. soil. Instead of addressing the issue immediately and forthrightly, the Obama administration spent millions of dollars in the courts to prevent his birth certificate from being unsealed. Only when real estate mogul Donald Trump cast a spotlight on the issue did Team Obama finally relent. No wonder millions of Americans believe the president is being less than truthful. At the very least, he is a charlatan, who for years helped to perpetrate a massive lie about his background.  

The larger issue, however, is why it took Mr. Trump — and not CNN or the Washington Post or the New York Times — to ask Mr. Obama the obvious question: Where is the original birth certificate? The answer is that the liberal media have become thoroughly corrupt. They no longer care to hold leaders of both parties accountable; rather, they act — and view themselves — as the communications arm of the Democratic Party. In short, their mission is not journalism, but propaganda.

Chicago Tribune Debates Mitt Romney's Natural Born Status; Still Ignores Obama's

The Chicago Tribune has become nothing but an arm of David Axelrod's campaign consulting firm. Col. Robert McCormick would weep if he were alive today to see what a leftist propaganda rag his newspaper has become. The Tribune has covered up all of Barack Obama's political corruption in Chicago, while digging up every piece of dirt it can find on any person who has ever opposed him in a political election no matter how trivial to help pave the way for his election victories.

The Tribune played an early role in dismissing any one who questioned Obama's natural born status as the lunatic fringe. Forget that Obama first told his publicist back in the 1990s that he was born in Kenya, a supposed "factual error" of the publicist that remained on the publicist's website for the following 16 years until Obama announced he was running for President. Those school records in Indonesia which identified him by a completely different name and listed his citizenship as Indonesian are totally irrelevant. And never mind that there is a serious legal argument that even a person born in the U.S. to an alien parent cannot be considered a natural born citizen--according to the only authoritative Supreme Court decision on the subject and the common sense notion that a dual citizen cannot be a natural born citizen. Let's do talk, however, about the fact that Mitt Romney's birth certificate shows that his father was born in Mexico:

Finally, there is definitive proof: The presidential candidate was born in the United States, and his father was not.

Yes, Republican Mitt Romney appears eligible to be president, according to a copy of Romney's birth certificate released to Reuters by his campaign. Willard Mitt Romney, the certificate says, was born in Detroit on March 12, 1947.

His mother, Lenore, was born in Utah and his father, former Michigan governor and one-time Republican presidential candidate George Romney, was born in Mexico.

So on a day when real estate and media mogul Donald Trump was trying to help Mitt Romney by stirring up a new round of questions about whether Democratic President Barack Obama was born in the United States, Romney's own birth record became a reminder that in the 1968 presidential campaign, his father had faced his own "birther" controversy.

Back then, George Romney - who died in 1995 - was a moderate who was challenging eventual President Richard Nixon in the Republican primaries.

Records in a George Romney archive at the University of Michigan describe how questions about his eligibility to be president surfaced almost as soon as he began his short-lived campaign.

In many ways, they appear to echo today's complaints that Trump and some other conservative "birthers" have made about Obama while questioning whether Obama - whose father was from Kenya and mother was from Kansas - was born in Hawaii.

In George Romney's case, most of the questions were raised initially by  Democrats who cited the Constitution's requirement that only a "natural born citizen" can be president.

As early as February 1967 - a year before the first 1968 presidential primary - some newspapers were raising questions as to whether George Romney's place of birth disqualified him from the presidency.

By May 1967, U.S. congressman Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat who chaired the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, was expressing "serious doubts" about George Romney's eligibility.

The historical revisionism that takes place in this story is perhaps more troubling than the bias exhibited in it. Obviously, the motivation for running the story is to remind people that Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico--to two U.S. citizen parents, but the story leaves the impression that the matter of George Romney's natural born citizenship status in 1968 was resolved in his favor, which couldn't be further from the truth. In actuality, Romney was driven from the Republican presidential race over the issue. He dropped out before the first contest--the New Hampshire primary--after the publisher of the influential Manchester Union-Leader threw down the gauntlet and announced he was filing a lawsuit to block his candidacy. Although George Romney produced legal opinions that favored his status, he wasn't about to let the courts decide the issue when push came to shove. The article even mentions a highly-disputed congressional research memo released late last year that suggests that even children born to just one U.S. citizen parent outside the country would be considered natural born citizens. 

At one point, the Congressional Research Service - an arm of the Library of Congress that is supposed to provide authoritative but impartial research for elected members - advised that its analysts agreed with George Romney, according to a congressional source.

In a paper in November aimed at clarifying presidential eligibility, the Congressional Research Service declared that the practical, legal meaning of "natural born citizen" would "most likely include" not only anyone born on U.S. soil but anyone born overseas of at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen.

Notice how the definition of a natural born citizen has evolved over the last four years. Everyone defending Obama agreed four years ago that it was only necessary for Obama to be born in Hawaii in order to be considered a natural born citizen regardless of the fact that his father was a Kenyan. Now we're being told that even if Obama was born in Kenya it would make no difference because his mother was a U.S. citizen. It looks like the Omedia is preparing us just in case of the possibility that the truth may not be what we've been told for the past four years--even as it continues to deride those who ask the legitimate question as crazy birthers.

When Romney Came To Town

Thirty-two years ago, as a bright-eyed 18-year old, I walked into a farm home in Charleston, Illinois to meet in person the man I most admired. For an admission fee of $25, I got to hear a future president, Ronald Reagan, eloquently speak with that perpetual twinkle in his eyes, clinging to every word he uttered while standing just feet away. When he finished speaking, I slowly worked my way across the living room towards him, nervously introduced myself, shook his hand and offered him a gift as a small token of appreciation for his visit to rural east-central Illinois. He thanked me and posed for a quick picture that I still proudly display on my wall, along with a kind letter of thanks that I received a couple of weeks later. "You may be assured that the enthusiastic participation of your young Republicans helped to make my visit to Illinois a successful one," he wrote. "Such enthusiasm will indeed aid us towards our goal of achieving a great victory in November." An assistant no doubt penned the letter, but it bore his unmistakable signature and that's what mattered. That was and is one of the most memorable moments of my life.

Tonight on the eve of the inconsequential Indiana primary, another guy set to become the next nominee of my party spoke at a fundraiser in downtown Indianapolis at the J.W. Marriott for a starting admission price of $2,500. There was no meeting with the little people or even reporters to answer questions. Mitt Romney shook hands and took pictures with lobbyist/power broker types like Bob Grand and Dan Dumezich, along with a sprinkling of government contractors like Steven Chancellor. I never considered digging into my wallet to meet Romney. It's not about the money. I just have no desire to meet the man or have my picture taken with him, even if I had been offered a free ticket to meet him in person. He doesn't inspire me like Reagan, who I sincerely believed when he said that America's best days were ahead of us. I have no faith that his election will save our nation from the unhappy ending it seems more likely than not to meet. I honestly don't know what the man believes or plans to do if elected since his views on any number of issues change with the frequency of the seasons. It really is sad because our country needs a real leader now more than ever that neither party will offer the voters this year.

Maine GOP Stole Maine Caucus Vote From Ron Paul

You have to check out this YouTube clip of a local Fox News affiliate report on the disastrous Maine caucus vote last weekened, which the state GOP's chairman declared had been won by Mitt Romney by fewer than 200 votes over Ron Paul. As it turns out, the vote announced by the chairman included only 84% of the votes cast. Votes that were scheduled to be taken in two counties were cancelled by the state party due to bad weather concerns that never materialized. The state's GOP chairman says those votes will not be counted in the statewide total announced last weekend because they missed the deadline. Among the statewide vote reported last Saturday, the votes cast in dozens of towns in Maine were registered as casting zero votes according to this report. The person who chaired the caucus at one of the towns registered as casting no votes told the news reporter that Ron Paul had won the caucus vote, and those votes had been sent to the state GOP to be included in the statewide count. Local caucus chairs were instructed by state party officials to keep the vote results under seal; however, the caucus voted to make their vote public, and the caucus chair did so by posting the final results on Twitter. When the caucus chair contacted the state party about the discrepency, he was told by a woman working for the state party that their votes had been received, but she gave a vote count that showed Romney a big winner, when he had in fact finished a distant third behind Paul and Santorum. The woman became silent when the caucus chair challenged the tally result. Other towns not counted in the statewide vote are also reporting that Paul won the vote in their caucuses. The state party has already revised the statewide vote count in light of complaints by Republicans throughout the state that the vote was rigged, but the party's chairman has said he won't publicly release the revised vote count until the state party meets next month after the Super Tuesday primaries when it won't matter. This is the exact type of shenanigans that went on four years ago in the Democratic nomination race where Obama operatives rigged caucus votes in a number of states. Obama won the 2008 Democratic nomination narrowly on the strength of the caucus votes. Hillary Clinton actually received more votes during the 2008 primaries, but thanks to stolen caucus votes, Obama won more delegates than her.

The Daily Caller has a separate report here on the Maine GOP's refusal to release updated caucus results.

The Maine Republican Party has added additional votes accidentally omitted from Saturday’s caucus results, state party chairman Charlie Webster told The Daily Caller Wednesday. But those votes won’t be publicly released.

“We don’t want any more drama,” Webster told TheDC. “I’ve already got death threats and 1,800 emails.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was declared the victor in Maine over the weekend, claiming a slim 194-vote lead over Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Paul supporters, however, expressed dismay over errors in tabulating vote counts in various localities, including several towns in Waldo County. That county’s Republican committee passed a motion of censure against Webster on Tuesday.

In addition to the missing votes, a caucus scheduled for Washington County on Saturday was postponed due to a forecast of snow. The Paul campaign insisted that it would have won the state had the vote not been pushed back, and the county’s GOP chair is advocating that its results be included in the ultimate tally.

The Paul campaign is expected to make a serious push for turnout in Washington County’s rescheduled caucus this Saturday.

“If Romney lost by 20 votes, would we be having this big discussion?” Webster mused.

New Standard For Judging Marital Infidelity Of GOP Presidential Candidates

Important news flash here. We've all known for some time that when it comes to marital infidelity, Republicans are held to a much higher standard than Democrats but this latest standard raises the bar a big notch. The latest headline in the National Enquirer blares, "Mitt Romney Love Triangle Shocker!". Oh, my. Mitt is cheating on his wife? No. Mitt's wife is cheating on him? No. Then what? It seems Mitt's wife committed the immortal sin of dating another man before the two tied the knot.

Ann’s two-timing puts her “in the middle of a ‘cheating’ scandal,” a top political source told The ENQUIRER. “While this happened long ago, it still be­comes an issue for a candidate running for the White House. Because Mitt has made an issue of the solidness of his marriage, any informa­tion that shows Ann ‘cheated’ could be used by his political enemies.”

Yeah, she was in college and he was in France doing missionary work. She tells him she has started dating another man after she sort of told him she would marry him one day. He becomes upset and tries to woo her affections back by sending her love letters. He succeeds. The two are married, have five sons together and are still married forty-two years later. Sounds like a big time cheating scandal to me. NOT. And what's Barack Obama's excuse for seeking out gay men for anonymous sex in Chicago's gay bathhouses and the backseat of limos during his marriage to Michelle? Nah, can't report on that. Everyone is suppose to know that Barry and Michelle have the picture perfect marriage. It's a fairy tale just like Bill Clinton said four years ago, but it's the nearest the American people are going to get to the truth when it comes to the mysterious life of Barack Obama/a/ka/Barry Soetoro,/a/k/a Bari Shabazz.

Great, Romney's Indiana Co-Chairman Gets To Decide If Santorum Will Appear On Indiana's Ballot

The presidential campaign of Mitt Romney orchestrated a challenge to the sufficiency of the petitions filed by the campaign of Rick Santorum and now Romney's Indiana co-chairman, big firm lawyer/lobbyist Dan Dumezich, who chairs the Indiana Elections Commission, will get to decide Santorum's fate. Spoken like a typical lobbyist, Dumezich sees no reason for recusing himself from participating in the case. The Star's Mary Beth Schneider has the story:

Four Hoosier voters have filed challenges seeking to have Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum removed from Indiana's May primary election ballot.

Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, filed his candidacy last week even though he fell eight petition signatures short of meeting Indiana's ballot requirement. To be on Indiana's ballot, Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, as well as state candidates running statewide, must collect the signatures of 500 voters in each of the nine congressional districts. While Santorum's campaign said it collected more than the needed number in each district, Marion County voter registration officials say he fell eight short in the 7th District, which is entirely in Marion County.

Today, four voters -- Jerry Bickle of Columbia City, Philip A. Smith of Indianapolis, Reynaldo M. Farias of Noblesville and Christopher C. Watson of West Lafayette -- each filed challenges with the Indiana Election Division saying Santorum did not meet the state's ballot requirements and should not be on the May 8 ballot . . .

Santorum's fate now will be decided by the four-member Indiana Election Commission. Chairman of the commission is Dan Dumezich, a Schererville attorney who is co-chairman of the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney in Indiana. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is Santorum's leading competitor to win the Republican nomination.

Romney is on Indiana's ballot, along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

With the GOP race far from over, Indiana's May primary election -- usually a study in foregone conclusions -- may have significance this year in determining the nomination.

Dumezich said there is no reason for him to recuse himself from the case.

"I can be impartial," Dumezich said. "It doesn't present a problem for me. Of course, if someone wants to argue (that he should step aside) I'd listen to it."

A few weeks back, I pointed out how the presidential campaigns of Romney, Gingrich and Paul all agreed not to challenge the sufficiency of Rick Santorum's petitions to get on the Illinois ballot where his campaign came up way short of the required number of signatures in a number of congressional districts. That was then when Romney's campaign believed it had the Republican nomination sewn up before it had really gotten started. Now that Republican voters have shown a disinclination to coronate the candidate chosen by the New World Order puppeteers who pull the strings every four years to ensure that only the presidential candidates committed to ending American sovereignty and creating a new world government in its place are chosen by the respective major parties.

If you examine where Santorum's problems in Indiana arose it happened right here in Marion County where a Republican election official in the Marion Co. Clerks office, who takes her orders from state party officials, went over the Santorum petitions with a fine tooth comb. Although Santorum submitted more than enough signatures, this election official disqualified the signatures of any Marion County voter on the petitions shown not to reside in the 7th congressional district. A newly-drawn congressional map has reduced the county's representation by four congressional districts to just two. Most of the county lies in the 7th District but a significant area along the northern part of the county lies in the newly-drawn 5th District. Santorum's campaign has been knocked for getting signatures of people within the county who aren't in the new 7th District. The truth is that many of those signatures came from persons who attended the Marion County GOP slating convention, most of whom are precinct committeepersons who should have known whether they lived in the 7th District.

As I've publicly stated before, I'm supporting Ron Paul's campaign. I have no vested interested in seeing Santorum's name appear on the Indiana ballot, but I think it would be a real travesty if Indiana Republican voters were denied a choice of voting for one of the four major candidates still in the race just to make Romney's path to winning the nomination a little more smooth. There are no accusations that Santorum's campaign forged the signatures of voters on their petitions in order to get on the ballot as Barack Obama's campaign did in order to make the ballot in 2008. Four years ago, a political hack for the Democratic Party tried desperately to get John McCain bounced from the Indiana ballot, challenging the sufficiency of the number of signatures his campaign filed.

Frankly, this entire GOP nominating process this year has been one major disappointment starting with the poorly-run Iowa caucus that mispronounced Romney the winner only to later discovery Santorum had actually won it. The party elites have become apoplectic since Gingrich stomped Romney in South Carolina and Santorum scored three wins in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri this past week. Party leaders in Maine likely rigged the vote there this weekend to deny Paul a victory there. Romney's campaign has run a scorched earth campaign against his opponents since the Iowa Caucus, particularly against Paul and Gingrich, probably because the facts prove that he isn't a genuine Republican or conservative and most Republicans can't stand the man. I'm not sure what GOP leaders are trying to accomplish with this election. Defeating Barack Obama certainly doesn't seem to be the end game.

Ron Paul Raises More Money From Hoosiers Than Other GOP Candidates In The Fourth Quarter

This might come as a surprise to the elite insiders of the Indiana GOP who are all backing faux Republican Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, but Ron Paul actually raised more money from Hoosiers in the fourth quarter of 2011 than any of the Republican presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney. Paul's support comes from grassroots supporters and not big money bundlers who raised all of Romney's funds. The Star's Maureen Groppe picks up on this in her story in today's Star and mentions that your's truly is among the Hoosiers supporting Paul:

Filings by the candidates show that Texas Rep. Ron Paul raised the most Hoosier dollars in the last quarter of 2011 among the GOP presidential candidates.

Paul raised $93,757 from Hoosiers who gave more than $200, the amount that requires disclosure of a contributor.

Indianapolis attorney Gary Welsh called Paul "the only truly traditional conservative in the Republican presidential race."

"People have forgotten what it means to be a conservative in the Goldwater tradition of keeping the government off our backs and out of our bedrooms," said Welsh, who gave Paul $250 in December.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney raised $84,251 in large-dollar contributions from Hoosiers in the fourth quarter. Romney, however, raised the most from Hoosiers to date: $273,549, compared with Paul's $180,107.

It should come as no surprise that the Darth Vader of the Indiana Republican Party, Barnes & Thornburg's Bob Grand, is Mitt's money man in Indiana:

Romney's campaign also disclosed that Bob Grand, a partner in the Indianapolis-based law and lobbying firm Barnes & Thornburg, raised $110,150 for Romney from others. (Candidates have to disclose "bundled" contributions from lobbyists.)

Did anyone catch the little-noticed story over the weekend about how Romney, whose campaign has questioned the Republican bona fides of Gingrich and Paul, was actually a registered Democrat in his home state of Massachusetts as recently as the 1990s when he backed Paul Tsongas for president. It turns out that Romney had originally planned to challenge Ted Kennedy in 1994 not as a Republican but as a Democrat in the Democratic primary. Yep, no surprise here. Romney became a Republican out of political convenience, not out of political conviction. The guy actually sent out his attack dogs to falsely accuse Gingrich of being no friend of Ronald Reagan when Romney didn't even support Reagan's election as president.

Gingrich Upsets Romney In South Carolina

No sooner had the polls closed in South Carolina than the major news networks called Newt Gingrich the big winner in tonight's critical primary election where 25 delegates are at stake over Mitt Romney, who had led in polls by a wide margin only a week ago. The Palmetto State has a perfect record to date in picking the eventual winner of the Republican nomination. Gingrich captured 40% of the vote to Romney's 28%. Rick Santorum trailed with 17% and Ron Paul finished in fourth place with 13% of the vote. Interestingly, exit polling data showed Gingrich winning big among voters who described themselves as tea party members or evangelical Christians.

Take a deep breath. I don't for one minute think Gingrich will wind up the winner of the Republican nomination. After three tests, Romney, Santorum and Gingrich each have a victory, although Gingrich's win tonight was the largest to date for any of the candidates. In the all important delegate count, Romney is leading narrowly with 31 delegates, followed by Gingrich's 26 delegates, Paul's 10 delegates and Santorum's 8 delegates. The fact remains that, unlike the campaigns of Romney and Paul, Gingrich does not have a campaign organization or money to handle the heavy schedule of upcoming primaries and caucuses. The next primary is in Florida where Romney currently has a big lead, but as we've seen tonight, Romney's support is very soft and can be challenged. Paul and Santorum aren't competitive in Florida, and Paul's campaign says he may skip the state altogether and focus on upcoming caucus votes in Nevada and Minnesota where he believes his chances are better.

Romney still has to be considered the odds on favorite. He has the money and the organization the other campaigns, except Paul, are lacking, which is critical for any candidate to win a drawn out fight for the nomination. Having said that, Paul's campaign has to be very disappointed with his poor fourth place showing tonight. A Republican presidential candidate has to have appeal among southern voters in order to win a general election. His 13% share of the vote in South Carolina suggests he will have a tough road ahead of him in the remaining primaries in the South. What tonight's upset win for Gingrich does is give pause to many prominent Republican leaders about Romney's status as the presumptive nominee. If Gingrich is able to reverse Romney's lead in Florida as he did successfully in South Carolina, then you can expect Republican leaders across the country to view Romney as the nominee with trepidation.

Pundits are already talking about the possibility of a late entrant into the presidential race, but the reality is that it is too late because any candidate entering at this late date has already missed the filing deadline to get on the ballot in many of the upcoming primary elections. What party leaders may hope, instead, is that a drawn out nomination battle may result in no candidate having a majority of the delegates by the time the convention rolls around next summer. Because delegates are being awarded proportionally instead of the winner-take-all rules of past elections, losing candidates can still win delegates as long as they are earning a significant share of the vote in the states in which they are competing. The best hope a late entrant candidate could have is a convention where no candidate has enough delegates to win on the first ballot, in which case the nomination could be opened up to other candidates. It's been a long time since either party produced a nominee through a brokered convention. The Republican Party hasn't had a brokered convention since Thomas Dewey won the nomination in 1948.

Rove-Like Dirty Tricks Appear In South Carolina

In New Hampshire, it was the campaign of Ron Paul who was the victim of a dirty tricks operation to make it appear his campaign was behind a controversial video portraying Jon Huntsman as a "Manchurian candidate." In South Carolina, it is New Gingrich who is the victim of a dirty tricks operation sending fake e-mail messages to the state's Republican voters. One of the spoofed e-mails appeared to be a CNN Breaking News alert claiming that Gingrich's ex-wife had accused him of forcing her to get an abortion before the two were married. A second spoofed e-mail claimed to be from Gingrich himself confessing to supporters that he had once asked his ex-wife to get an abortion. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details:

South Carolina's reputation as a haven for political dirty tricks reared its ugly head as a pair of e-mails were sent to Republican voters here claiming Newt Gingrich forced his ex-wife to have an abortion.

Gingrich told reporters that whomever sent the emails should be prosecuted and the state's House majority leader, Republican Kenny Bingham of Lexington, called on the state's attorney general to investigate.

The first e-mail, made to look like an official CNN breaking news alert, claimed Marianne Gingrich, the candidate's second ex-wife, alleged he "forced her to abort a pregnancy conceived during the affair that preceeded her marriage to Gingrich," according to a copy of the message obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

CNN acknowledged the email on air Friday, but said the network did not send it out.

The AJC also obtained a copy of a second fake e-mail sent to Gingrich supporters that appears to be a message from Gingrich confessing to the charge. It features Gingrich's graphics and even has an "unsubscribe" option that makes it appear real.

A Gingrich spokesman confirmed that the e-mails are fake . . .

The state has a history of these types of shenanigans. In the 2000 GOP primary, U.S. Sen. John McCain was hit by last-minute anonymous smears that helped deliver the state, and the nomination, to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

These last minute smear campaigns are straight out of the Karl Rove play book. The Jon Huntsman video helped stall Paul's surge in the New Hampshire primary where he finished a distant second behind Romney after getting within striking distance of Romney in the Granite State according to some polls taken shortly after the Iowa caucus. Polls taken in the Palmetto State in recent days have shown a surge in support for Gingrich, who is now leading Romney according to polls released the last couple of days after trailing him by double-digits as recently as a week ago. You have to look at the Romney campaign as being behind these smear efforts in both cases. Karl Rove is backing Romney, although he claims he is not working directly for his campaign so he can pretend to be an objective paid political consultant for Fox News, which has operated as an extension of the Romney campaign the past couple of months.

UPDATE: The Daily Caller has more details on the origins of the e-mails:

The email’s graphics included a message claiming that it was “paid for by Newt 2012.” The sender substituted the number “1” in “2012” with a lowercase letter L.

The email originated from the phony Internet domain “newt20l2.org,” which uses the same letter-for-number substitution. The domain was registered shortly after 11 a.m. eastern time on Friday morning, according to records available online. The owner used Domains By Proxy, a division of the Internet registrar GoDaddy that allows anonymous registration and guarantees its customers’ privacy.

The fake email was sent roughly four hours later.

Todd Kincannon, a South Carolina lawyer and former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, received the email at 3:11 p.m. Kincannon told The Daily Caller that he firmly believes the email is a concentrated effort from the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to squelch Gingrich’s surge.

“If I were on a jury, there would be no doubt in my mind that Romney did it,” he said. “I mean, the circumstantial evidence is there. Romney’s the person who’s trying to stop Newt.”

“Ron Paul wouldn’t do it,” Kincannon told TheDC. “Paul wants Newt to win. Paul thinks he’s got a shot at a brokered convention. I don’t think the Santorum people would do it. It’s just not their style. But it is definitely the Romney people’s style.”

Santorum Probably Won Iowa Caucus

This will become one of those footnotes in history, but it's very bothersome considering that it involves the election of a president. It now looks like Rick Santorum and not Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucus. After all the votes were tabulated on election night earlier this month, we were told Romney had pulled off a win over Santorum by about 9 votes. If you were paying close attention at the time, there were indications that tabulating errors were made and that Santorum was the true winner. Nonetheless, Romney has been going about his campaign as the declared winner. New results actually show Santorum the winner by 34 votes. Yet election officials say it can't be certainly declared that he actually won because the vote results from  four eight precincts have turned up missing. It only goes to show that the reliability of elections in this country has improved little, if any, since the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush that was decided by only a few hundred votes in the state of Florida after the Supreme Court essentially declared the system state officials were using to recount the votes cast on election day so badly flawed that the certified result showing Bush the winner should stand.

Santorum's apparent win in Iowa is an inconvenient fact for the state-run media to absorb. The corporate media giants have already anointed Romney as the GOP candidate to be the fall guy and deliberately throw the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama, who was never constitutionally eligible to hold the office since he is not a natural born citizen, a convenient fact overlooked by the media and made possible by the abdication by members of the Supreme Court and Congress of their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. By the time this election is over, The One should have solidified his control to the point of declaring the constitution null and void and permanently replaced with his new monarchy and sending members of Congress and the Supreme Court away on a permanent vacation compliments of the citizens subjects of King Barack.

In case you missed it, a foreign company will now control the tabulation of votes cast in U.S. elections.

In a major step towards global centralization of election processes, the world's dominant Internet voting company has purchased the USA's dominant election results reporting company.

When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, on portals which often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com.

The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format. As reported by BlackBoxVoting.org in 2008, the bad news is that this centralizes one middleman access point for over 525 jurisdictions in AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA. And growing.

As local election results funnel through SOE's servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get "first look" at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.

In 2004, many Americans were justifiably concerned when, days before the presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell redirected Ohio election night results through the Tennessee-based server for several national Republican Party operations.

This is worse: This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global. A mitigation against fraud by SOE insiders has been the separation of voting machine systems from the SOE results reports. Because most US jurisdictions require posting evidence of results from each voting machine at the precinct, public citizens can organize to examine these results to compare with SOE results. Black Box Voting spearheaded a national citizen action to videotape / photograph these poll tapes in 2008.

With the merger of SOE and SCYTL, that won't work (if SCYTL's voting system is used). When there are two truly independent sources of information, the public can perform its own "audit" by matching one number against the other.

These two independent sources, however, will now be merged into one single source: an Internet voting system controlled by SCYTL, with a results reporting system also controlled by SCYTL.

With SCYTL internet voting, there will be no ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes, chain of custody, or the count.

SCYTL is moving into or already running elections in: the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia.

SCYTL is based in Barcelona; its funding comes from international venture capital funds including Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.

Yep, the Republic is dead. Learn to accept the New World Order.

GOP Presidential Candidates Prove They Aren't Cut Throat Like Obama

Barack Obama once told his supporters that if your opponent brings a knife to a fight, you bring a gun. He meant it. Obama won his two elective offices in Illinois prior to running for president by default. When he ran for the state sentate, he hired a team of lawyers to challenge the petitions filed by the long-time respected incumbent, Alice Palmer, and got her, along with every other primary opponent he faced, tossed from the primary election ballot for deficiencies in their petitions. As we now know, Obama's campaign forged its way onto the Indiana ballot. But for hundreds of forged signatures, he would have never made the Indiana ballot in 2008 and could well have lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton as a consequence of that misstep.

When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, his political guru David Axelrod, former political editor for the Chicago Tribune, convinced his former employer to go to court to get the divorce records of a self-financed candidate polls showed winning the primary race. Damning, but unproven allegations by his ex-wife, contained in the documents sunk his campaign. Facing another self-financed attractive candidate in the general election, Axelrod got his newspaper buddies to unseal that opponent's divorce records containing unproven allegations made by his ex-wife, forcing him to leave the race when party leaders decided they didn't want to even make an attempt to defend the first-time candidate. Obama wound up facing a carpetbagger, loser candidate, Alan Keyes, who even the state GOP chairman refused to support.

It's quite a different story in Illinois today where the Republican presidential candidates faced tough filing requirements in order to make the ballot. Gathering enough signatures to get the candidate's name on the ballot is only half the battle. Each candidate must also field a slate of delegate candidates that run separately in each of the state's 18 congressional districts. The delegate slates in each district  must have a minimum of 600 signatures on their petitions to secure a spot on the ballot in every district statewide. Without the delegate candidates, it makes no difference how many votes a candidate receives in the popular vote. Only the winning delegates pledged to support a chosen candidate get to cast the votes that matter at the national nominating convention. Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich each filed petitions to field a full slate of delegate candidates in the 18 congressional districts. Rick Santorum only managed to file petitions for delegate slates in 14 of the districts, and of the 14, only 4 contained the minimum 600 petition signatures.

So the Republican sharks managing the opposing campaigns could smell the blood in the water. Would they go in for the kill? No. Each of the campaigns reached a pact not to challenge each other's candidate petitions. Santorum's campaign released the following statement:

Leadership from the Romney campaign (Dan Rutherford), Gingrich campaign (Bruce Hansen and Nick Provenzano), Paul campaign (Chris Younce) and Santorum campaign (Al Salvi and Jon Zahm) have agreed today to withdraw all petition challenges in Illinois against one another’s statewide and delegate petitions.

What is it they say? Nice guys finish last. Obama believes it and lives it.

Oh My, Romney Donates Millions To His Church

ABC News' story about the millions of dollars Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has donated to his church is simply an effort to report how generous the multi-millionaire is with his money. Or is it? Reading between the lines, it doesn't take much to surmise that this story is a less than thinly-veiled effort to stoke anti-Mormon fears and prejudices and remind voters that Romney is a member of that church that is different than other churches.

Underscoring the prominent, if little discussed role that Mitt Romney played as a Mormon leader, the private equity giant once run by the GOP presidential frontrunner carved his church a slice of several of its most lucrative business deals, securities records show, providing it with millions of dollars worth of stock in some of Bain Capital's most well-known holdings.

Romney has always been a major donor to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which requires that members "tithe," or give 10 percent of their income to the church. His family charity, called the Tyler Foundation, has given more than $4 million to the church in the past five years, including $1.8 million in 2008 and $600,000 in 2009. But because Romney, whose fortune has been estimated at $250 million, has never released his personal tax returns, the full extent of his giving has never been public.

Note how the news story wants to not only convey to you that he's a Mormon but also a leader in the church, "a little discussed role" ABC News explains. The set up implies something more sinister going on with "millions more [in contributions] than has previously been disclosed," suggesting hidden donations lurking in all of those large business transactions conducted while Romney ran Bain Capital.

As part of just one Bain transaction in 2008, involving its investment in Burger King Holdings, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that an unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holdings then worth nearly $1.9 million. And there were numerous others, giving the church a stake in other Bain properties, such as Domino's Pizza, the electronics manufacturer DDi, the phosphates company Innophos Holdings, and Marquee Holdings, the parent to AMC Theaters.

The Republican presidential candidate's campaign staff confirmed that some of the stock transactions were at Romney's direction, but they would not say which ones.

"Mitt Romney has publicly stated that he regularly tithes to his church," said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, when asked about the Bain contributions. "Some of those church contributions have come through the Tyler Foundation. Others have been donations of stock through Bain. Any shares donated by Mitt Romney are personal shares owned by him."

The ABC News story practically laments the fact that "[q]uestions about Romney's faith have remained largely subdued during the 2012 campaign," quite the opposite protectionist role the media took whenever anyone raised questions about Obama's Muslim background or the farcical rantings of his controversial Christian minister in 2008, or the role Kennedy's Catholicism played in the 1960 presidential race. The story includes the obligatory quote from the candidate assuring us that his religion does not "define my candidacy." The church's authority is limited to church affairs and "ends where the affairs of the nations begins" he tells the probing reporter. Debate over? Not quite. The reporter goes out of his way to find a religious professor at our own Indiana University-Purdue University to sound the alarm.

The Mormon church is distinct from many other American denominations in what it asks from adherents in money, time and commitment -- and not just because it asks young Mormon males to spend two years proselytizing for the faith as missionaries, said Jan Shipps, a religion professor at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, and one of the preeminent non-Mormon authorities on the church.

Romney has spoken about the 30 months he spent in France as a missionary, but his role within the church as an adult is largely unexplored. Shipps said Romney has held several significant posts within church leadership, including bishop and "stake" president, a leadership post that covers a sizeable geographic area and requires a significant commitment of time.

Beyond that, Romney appears to have lived up to rigid financial requirements within the church that asks parishioners to contribute 10 percent of their annual earnings.

In other words, the story is trying to convey to you that Mormons are not like other Christian churches, the only real reason behind the story. You can bet that this will be just one of many stories that will surface in mainstream media reports discussing Romney's religion for less than pure motives. The media will assure us it's just to inform the voters, not to foment prejudice against the candidate and his religion. That can only be the case when one is discussing a liberal Democratic candidate.

George Romney's Natural Born Citizenship Problem: A Different Era

During last night's Fox News Republican presidential debate for the South Carolina primary, liberal panelist Juan Williams asked a very pointed question of Mitt Romney about his position on immigration reform that drew heckles from the audience. “Governor Romney, your father was born in Mexico. You still have family there — yet you have taken the hardest line of anyone on this stage on immigration reform,” Williams said. Although Williams' question didn't mention the natural born citizenship cloud hanging over President Barack Obama' presidency, the question was a back-handed way of throwing the issue in Romney's face. Although Mitt Romney clearly was born to U.S. citizen parents in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Internet blogs and chain e-mails have been making the rounds trying to cast doubt about Romney's natural born citizenship status. Williams has been very vocal in his view that the so-called "birther" debate surrounding Obama's eligibility was all about racism. Liberals immediately tried to cast the audience reaction as a sign of anti-Mexican bigotry within the Republican Party.

When Mitt's father, George Romney, ran against Richard Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, there was a very intense public debate over whether Mitt's father met the constitutional eligibility requirement because of his birth in Mexico. George's parents, Gaskill and Anna Romney, were both U.S. citizens born in Utah, but George's grandfather, a practicing polygamist, had fled with his family to Mexico in the 1800s to escape prosecution for the outlawed practice. George's parents, who were monogamous, were married in Mexico and George was born there in 1907. George's parents fled Mexico with their children during the Mexican Revolution when he was five years old. Census data indicated that all of the family members were listed as U.S. citizens, including George, despite his birth in Mexico.

The We The People of the United States blog contrasts the news media's treatment of the debate over Romney's natural born citizenship status in 1968 compared to the media's virtual blackout of the issue during the 2008 presidential campaign. The New York Times, for example, featured a number of serious stories on the subject starting in 1967 and continuing right up to the time Romney dropped out of the race in 1968. In one of the stories, a very prominent Democratic member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Celler, who served in the House for 50 years and chaired the House Judiciary Committee, elevated the debate. Celler, a practicing lawyer who was considered an expert on immigration law matters, was very outspoken in his view that Romney's natural born citizenship status was "a wide open question" that demanded further inquiry. Celler suggested the establishment of a special commission to rule on his eligibility without any hint that his motives in so requesting were less than honorable:

Representative Emanuel Celler expressed “serious doubts” yesterday as to whether Gov. George Romney of Michigan is eligible for the Presidency. Mr. Celler called it a “wide open question” and suggested that the Republican party appoint some sort of commission to “come up with an answer to this situation. … Mr. Celler, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that although he had no plans to challenge Mr. Romney’s eligibility, the question should not be allowed to go unanswered. … Most constitutional experts have held that he is eligible since his parents were United States citizens. … The Romneys never gave up their citizenship and returned to the United States … George Romney was 5 years old. … Mr. Celler suggested that a commission to rule on Mr. Romney’s eligibility be composed of “eminent professors of law, retired jurists and lawyers.

One story published by the NY Times discussed a New York Law Journal article authored by Isidor Blum, a retired constitutional law professor at NYU, that concluded Romney was not a natural born citizen.  "Blum asserts that the framers of the Constitution intended to exclude all foreign born persons from the Presidency," the Times reported. The journal's editor, Myron Kandel, told the Times that it was "an extremely significant question" and that "dialogue is necessary." "What if Romney gets elected and the courts decide he can't be president?" Kandel asked.


By the time the campaign heated up in 1968, the Times speculated that a court case over the issue was imminent. It even quoted Romney advisers as saying the candidate himself was willing to test the issue in the courts if an opponent didn't file a case against him first. The conservative newspaper editor of the Manchester Union-Leader, William Loeb, was very vocal about his opposition to Romney's candidacy and threatened to take the issue to court himself to have Romney removed from the New Hampshire primary ballot if Romney moved forward with his campaign. In the end, Romney pulled out of the race two weeks before the nation's first presidential primary in New Hampshire as his support in public opinion polls plummeted before the case could be heard by a court, rendering the issue moot. The Secretary of State of Oregon had a pending request to his state's Attorney General to rule on the question of whether Romney should be removed from Oregon's ballot when Romney dropped his bid.

What's interesting about the newspaper articles that discussed Romney's eligibility was the open view that any citizen could go to court to challenge his eligibility to serve as president. With respect to Obama's eligibility, dozens of lawsuits brought by citizens and members of the military who questioned Obama's authority to serve as their commander-in-chief, have been summarily dismissed without hearing the merits of their legal argument on the basis that they lacked standing to challenge Obama's eligibility. One newspaper report actually cited the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision upon which defenders of Obama's eligibility have relied to support their contention that he is a natural born citizen notwithstanding the fact that his father was a Kenyan national, making him a dual citizen at birth. The writer contended that the decision in that case meant only that Romney was a citizen at birth as a result of an act of Congress making children of U.S. citizens born abroad citizens at birth as opposed to a natural born citizen.

The "We The People of the United States" blog notes the disparaging way the New York Times has discussed persons raising questions about Obama's eligibility, always using the negative term "birther" to describe them. "She looks like a young Carol Channing, sounds like an overexcited Zsa Zsa Gabor, and has the ability to make absurd accusations with a completely straight face," the Times said of Orley Taitz, the attorney who has filed a number of lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility. How's that for a sexist description of a Russian female immigrant from the politically correct Times? The Times criticized news organizations that had covered the issue of using "the risible pretext of needing to be fair to both sides of an issue about which there was nothing up for debate--at least not in the real world." The law certainly didn't change during the 50-year intervening period between Romney's 1968 campaign for president and Obama's 2008 campaign, only the way the Times and the rest of the media chose to frame the debate--at least as far as Obama was concerned. The Times had no problem publishing stories questioning John McCain's eligibility on the exact same basis that Romney's eligibility had been questioned by the newspaper 50 years earlier.

Will The American People Elect Gordon Gekko President?

Romney-Bain Capital money shot

Republicans who fail to grasp how Mitt Romney's past corporate raider ways will be Obama to vilify his candidacy do so at their own peril. Despite Romney's claims to the contrary, he was not in the business of creating jobs as a venture capitalist at Bain Capital where he made hundreds of millions of dollars. He was a vulture investor. The American Thinker's Aaron Goldberg figures out what the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) figured out many years ago when Romney ran against him:

Mitt Romney was NOT primarily a venture capitalist. A venture capitalist invests in early-stage businesses with the hope that they grow and prosper. These early-stage businesses are often risky investments. Though most ultimately fail, some succeed spectacularly making the risks worthwhile. Apple Computer and Google are two such examples. This is what Mitt Romney means when he says some investments succeed and some fail. 

By contrast, Mitt Romney was primarily what is affectionately known as a vulture investor. Bain Capital invested in failing companies with the intention of either restructuring their business or stripping the business and selling its assets. This business model often adversely affects a company's employees. To be fair, if the company had gone bankrupt on its own, that would have adversely affected the company's employees too. The question Republican primary voters need to ask themselves is not whether Mitt Romney did anything illegal or immoral. In a climate of near 10% unemployment, do Republicans want a vulture investor to be the face of their party?

The two core arguments for Mitt Romney's candidacy are (1) that he knows how to create jobs and (2) that he stands a better chance of defeating Barack Obama than his competitors. Is it true that a slash and burn vulture investor is the best advocate for job creation? If you were a factory worker in Ohio or Pennsylvania or the upper Midwest and Mitt Romney killed your job because there was a more efficient use of the capital employed in your factory, are you really going to listen to what Mitt Romney has to say even if you believe in hard work and free market capitalism?

Greenberg is absolutely correct in his assessment that nominating Romney will play right into Obama's Marxist rhetoric and policies. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy used a single company in eastern Indiana, Ampad, that Romney's Bain Capital acquired when Romney ran the company to effectively end his chances of winning that race. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that 22% of the companies Bain invested in when Romney ran the company either filed for bankruptcy or went out of business. Nearly 10% of the businesses ran into so much trouble that the company lost all of the money it invested. Just ten companies during Romney's eight years in charge of the company produced over 70% of the company's profits. Yes, the Republican Party will find itself defending a Gordon Gekko-type character in one of the worst economic times our country has faced if it nominates Romney. He should play real well with middle Americans.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out this new documentary, "When Mitt Romney Came To Town", prepared by a pro-Gingrich Super PAC (thank you Jim Bopp) which exposes the reality of what Romney and Bain Capital are all about. The video about at the mid-way point tells the heart-wrenching stories of the harm Bain Capital did to employees of the Marion, Indiana paper company a Bain-controlled company purchased, Ampad, which slashed the wages of more than 200 employees who worked there before eventually shutting the plant down and firing all the employees. The documentary notes that Bain Capital began with seed money from anonymous Latin American investors. Nice.

Romney's Big Win In New Hampshire Pleases New World Order

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the American people will have an echo not a choice in this year's presidential race. Mitt Romney, a billionaire insider who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and who has absolutely nothing in common with ordinary Americans, is poised to put the GOP presidential nomination in the bag barely before the race has started. Romney's win tonight with 38% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary mirrors the large victory the Granite State gave to prior GOP nominees, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and John McCain. Ron Paul finished second with 24% ahead of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who finished third with 17% of the vote. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum finished fourth and fifth with about 10% of the vote each. Texas Gov. Rick Perry struggled to get a mere 1% of the vote.

The next primary is South Carolina where Romney had looked weak, but the continued collapse of Gingrich's campaign has seen his large lead disappear with the rise of Rick Santorum. Still, Romney is beating both candidates in the latest polls in South Carolina. Paul is performing badly in South Carolina and has no plans to compete in the Florida primary, the largest primary state ahead on the calendar. Nobody in the field seems positioned to challenge Romney in Florida, a winner take all state that will give the victor 51 delegates. Perry's campaign is over for all practical purposes. Jon Huntsman, who like Romney is a super wealthy Mormon with little in common with the American people, learned today that he won't be on the ballot in several large states, including Arizona, Illinois and Virginia. He built his entire campaign on pulling an upset in New Hampshire, spending more time there than any other candidate, and finished no better than a distant third. Rick Santorum is proving to be a flash in the pan for good reason. He has no national organization or money to compete as a serious candidate, aside from being dead wrong on most of the issues.

As I predicted last week, there is really only one candidate, Ron Paul, who has the money and organization to go the distance against Romney. The GOP establishment, however, has been pulling out all the stops to destroy Paul at its own peril. The Huntsman "Manchurian Candidate" video created by a Karl Rove-like operative within the GOP establishment, worked as intended to stop Paul's momentum in New Hampshire dead in its tracks and to allow Huntsman to double his support over the past week from the single digits to his 17% showing, while preserving Romney's big lead. Middle Americans have no reason to turn to someone like Romney as an alternative to the failed policies of Obama. He has managed to be on all sides of an issue depending on the place and time his political ambitions took him. There is absolutely no enthusiasm at all within the party for his candidacy, and he carries more baggage than any GOP nominee in recent memory. If you had told me a few months ago the GOP was going to deliberately throw the 2012 presidential race, I would have said you were crazy. Today, I'm convinced that is exactly what is transpiring before our very eyes.

Iowa Caucus Disappoints

It looks like the only real winner in Iowa tonight is Rick Santorum, the candidate with the least money, a virtually non-existent campaign organization and a remarkably naive view of the world. He's sharing the top honors tonight with Mitt Romney with each getting about 25% of the vote. Presumably, the religious fanatics came out to support Santorum just like they did Mike Huckabee four years ago. A win or close second in Iowa does little to move Santorum's campaign forward. With no money and no campaign apparatus, he will likely fail to make the ballot or field delegate slates in some of the upcoming states. Only Romney, Paul and Perry have the money and organization it takes to run a national campaign. Even Perry failed to make the ballot in Virginia with plenty of money and a large campaign staff, and he finished a disappointing fifth tonight behind Gingrich's 13% share of the vote with only about 10% of the vote. Romney is doing no better in Iowa this year than he did four years ago when he lost to Huckabee after spending $10 million and receiving only a quarter of the vote. Paul improved his numbers substantially but finished a disappointing third place with about 22% of the vote.

The first primary in New Hampshire is just around the corner. Mitt Romney is way out front there according to the latest polls with Ron Paul in a distant second place. As happened to his campaign in Iowa, Gingrich's New Hampshire effort has collapsed even with the endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader. Earlier polls showed Gingrich running well ahead in South Carolina and Florida, but his lead will most certainly dissipate rapidly in the coming weeks as he struggles to raise money and operate without a campaign organization. At least he has some staff. Santorum has virtually no staff to compete anywhere close to the level Huckabee competed in 2008. What this means is that the only alternative candidate that has both the money, organization and strength to go head-to-head with Romney is Ron Paul. The establishment Republican and media attacks on him have made it difficult for him to break out though.

After all of the bluster, Iowa produced only 25 delegates tonight. The New Hampshire primary produces even fewer delegates with only 16 at stake there. Thirty-one delegates are at stake in the South Carolina primary and 91 are at stake in Florida, which will be the real pivotal contests in the coming weeks. It takes 1,245 delegates to win the nomination. Reading the tea leaves, it's probably a pretty safe bet that this race will be over after Florida with Romney the overwhelming favorite to win the race. Bachman is probably out after tonight. Gingrich will be through after a dismal showing in New Hampshire. Perry will hang on until at least South Carolina in hopes of picking up Gingrich's support, but I have my doubts he can get his act together to mount a credible campaign. Santorum's fifteen minutes of fame end tonight in Iowa. Paul will stay in the race for the long haul. He'll have a chance to shine when he gets to the point of going head-to-head with Romney, but it will probably be too little too late.

UPDATE: The final vote count show Mitt Romney a winner by a mere 8 votes out of more than 122,000 votes cast. Bachmann has scheduled a press conference for later this morning where she is expected to announce she is dropping out of the race. Rick Perry has returned to Texas to reconsider whether he should move ahead. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is looking like the dog who chased a car he didn't expect to catch and then didn't know what to do with it when he got his teeth snagged in the bumper.

Des Moines Register Predictably Endorses Romney In Iowa Caucus

A Gannett-owned newspaper by definition represents the establishment so it comes as no surprise that the Des Moines Register, which gave us Dennis Ryerson at the Star, would endorse former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in next month's Iowa caucus, the first test in the 2012 GOP presidential race. "Sobriety, wisdom and judgment" are the key words the editorial staff chose in offering their endorsement to Romney. Other candidates in the field "pandered to extremes with attacks on the courts and sermons on Christian values." Romney is "very smart" because he came from a super rich family and earned a degree from Harvard. He also "offers smart and well-reasoned alternatives rather than simply to swing a wrecking ball in Washington's direction" so says the newspaper's editors. The editors dismiss Newt Gingrich as "an undisciplined partisan who would alienate, not unite." As for Ron Paul, they say his "libertarian ideology would lead to economic chaos and isolationism, neither of which this nation can afford." Really? The last four years haven't been an exercise in total economic chaos? What planet are they living on? And we really can afford the policy of playing policeman to the world and continue spending trillions of dollars fighting undeclared wars that never end? What a bunch of clueless nitwits.