South Carolina is Newt's last chance

• "“If I don’t win the primary Saturday, we will probably nominate a moderate,” [Gingrich] said Tuesday, alluding to Romney. “And the odds are fairly high he will lose to Obama.”" - Politico
• NBC poll: Newt Gingrich gains ground on Romney in South Carolina
• CNN/Time Poll: Race for South Carolina tightening
• "Have the tea partiers found their man to challenge President Obama? The leader of South Carolina’s chapter of the Tea Party Patriots says they have — and it’s Newt Gingrich." - Daily Caller
• Nate Silver examines the polling evidence for a late Gingrich surge

Interview with Newt's ex-wife to air on ABC?

"ABC plans to air an interview with Marianne Gingrich Thursday night on Nightline,  after the second and final debate before the South Carolina primary on Saturday. Ms. Gingrich was married to the former House speaker for 18 years. After they divorced, Mr. Gingrich married his current wife, Callista, with whom he had an extramarital affair." - WSJ

• "If the interview does air tomorrow, how hard will Santorum and Romney go after him at the debate over it? Santorum’s desperate to have social conservatives unite behind him, but this is an awfully messy attack to try with the, er, “Chevrolet” sitting in the audience in front of him." - Hot Air

South Carolina roundup

• "Mitt Romney's campaign on Wednesday sharpened its attacks on Newt Gingrich, portraying the former House speaker as an unreliable and bombastic leader" - Washington Examiner
• "Now it's Rick Santorum's chance to step in the "I-hate-capitalism" cow pie that Newt Gingrich has just managed to step out of." - American Spectator
• GOP hopefuls tout abortion stances at 'personhood' forum - The Hill
• "Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry also criticized Romney's past shift on the abortion issue, seeking to raise questions among South Carolina's powerful evangelical voting bloc." - CNN
• Evangelical activists praise Santorum, rip Romney for 'homophilia' - LA Times
• Female turnout critical in South Carolina primary - Washington Times

Media attack Romney for his tax situation

• "Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven." - ABC News
• "Romney is not, in fact, the richest recent presidential contender. That honor goes to John Kerry. Do you remember ABC, or any other news outlet, running stories like this one – ”Kerry parks millions in Cayman Islands,” or Switzerland, or whatever – in 2004? No, I don’t either." - Powerline
• 10 reasons why Mitt Romney is in big trouble over his taxes - Toby Harnden

Karl Rove: It's time for Romney to talk about his record at Bain

"Bain invested in struggling or stagnant companies needing both money and management assistance... Without entrepreneurs like Bain willing to pony up with cash and expertise, many of these companies would still be struggling, stagnant or dead with all jobs lost. The temptation for Team Romney will be to avoid this fight now and wait for Mr. Obama to raise it. But Florida is the place, and early February the time, to set the record straight. Doing so will not only deliver a body blow to Mr. Romney's most aggressive GOP competitor; but it will strengthen him for the coming battle. However nasty the GOP primary has become, it is a stroll in the park compared to what lies ahead." - Karl Rove for the WSJ ($)

• Many Bush-era hard-liners are Romney security advisers - Washington Times

Rick Perry will quit - but will he be a hero or a spoiler to the anti-Romneys?

"Rick Perry will quit. He knows it. I know it. You know it. The question is whether he will quit before Saturday’s primary and help someone else win as a hero and king maker, or will he quit next week and see Mitt Romney win with Perry serving as the spoiler, keeping either Gingrich or Santorum from winning." - Erick Erickson at RedState

Rick Santorum may have won Iowa

"There are too many holes in the certified totals from the Iowa caucuses to know for certain who won, but Rick Santorum wound up with a 34-vote advantage. Results from eight precincts are missing — any of which could hold an advantage for Mitt Romney — and will never be recovered and certified, Republican Party of Iowa officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday." - Des Moines Register

Polling shows a Ron Paul third-party candidacy would more-or-less guarantee Obama re-election

• "The Pew Research Center finds 44% of registered voters would support Obama, 32% would back Mitt Romney and 18% would get behind Paul in a three-way race." - USA Today

VP watch: Sen. Portman to endorse Romney - Washington Examiner

Congressmen rush to drop piracy bills as websites go dark

"The unprecedented online demonstration against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — epitomized by a black censorship bar plastered over the Google logo — spurred a rush for the exits on Capitol Hill as lawmakers rapidly withdrew their support for the legislation. ... GOP Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Boozman (Ark.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) dropped their support for the Senate version of the anti-piracy legislation, and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said the legislation should be put on hold." - The Hill

• "[T]he other side of this is that the biggest supporter of SOPA/PIPA is the Motion Picture Association of America, headed by former Democratic Senator Chris Dodd. You might think that a Senate career that ended with a series of scandals would blunt Dodd's influence, but you'd be wrong; Hollywood maintains a strong grip on the Democratic Party." - American Spectator

Republicans and Democrats equally to blame for standing of Congress - Washington Examiner editorial

House rejects debt ceiling hike in largely symbolic vote - LA Times

Obama administration rejects Keystone Pipeline

"The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter." - Washington Post

• "President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday handed Congressional Republicans a rallying point, with Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) warning, “This is not the end of the fight.” “All options are on the table,” Boehner said when asked whether he would look to include pipeline language in a conference committee’s deliberations to extend a popular payroll tax cut." - Roll Call
• "By blocking the Keystone pipeline and destroying as many as a half million American jobs, Barack Obama has handed the Republicans a club with which they should beat him, and Congressional Democrats, nonstop from now until November." - Powerline
• Obama treats Canadian friends like enemies - Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner

Obama's first re-election TV ad defends energy record

"Pushing back aggressively at his critics, President Obama’s reelection campaign is launching its first television ad campaign of the race Thursday with a spot that defends his ethics and energy policy. The commercial fires back at the conservative organization Americans for Prosperity, which started its own $6-million ad campaign this week attacking the Obama administration’s support for the failed solar energy company Solyndra." - LA Times

Obama rejects GOP field's foreign policy attacks

"“I think Mr. Romney and the rest of the Republican field are going to be playing to their base until the primary season is over,” Obama told TIME’s Fareed Zakaria during a White House interview that will appear in the next issue of TIME magazine. “Overall, I think it’s going to be pretty hard to argue that we have not executed a strategy over the last three years that has put America in a stronger position than it was than when I came into office.”" - TIME

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