Campaign 2012

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is facing his most important challenge yet — winning Georgia on Super Tuesday. Georgia is considered Gingrich's home because he represented parts of the state in Congress for 20 years, but he hasn't lived there for more than a decade.

Over the weekend, Gingrich held several rallies, including one in Peachtree City, south of Atlanta, where he stressed that this area has long supported him.

"It is great to be home," Gingrich told the crowd. "I believe that I carried Fayette County in every single election, including the two that I lost."

Gingrich admitted that running for the Republican nomination is a tough fight, but he said he is prepared.

What's the best way for Mitt Romney to stop Rick Santorum?

For the answer, we went to someone who has done it before.

Democratic strategist Saul Shorr helped Bob Casey defeat then-Sen. Santorum, R-Pa., in a landslide in 2006. Santorum lost by 18 points.

But Shorr says that was a general election; in a Republican primary, Romney will have a much harder job.

"Here's Romney's challenge ... in a lot of these primaries you're dealing with an electorate that's made for Santorum," Shorr says. "They have questions about Romney's conservatism, and they don't have any questions about Santorum's.

"Look, when Romney's folks took out Newt Gingrich ... it was really like shooting fish in the barrel."

It's the story that continues to, well, dog Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney. And, according to some experts, it could jeopardize his standing with voters who care about animals. And yes, it turns out, that is not an insignificant voting bloc.

The incident happened back in 1983, and it's been public since 2007. But it seems that only now a critical mass of voters is hearing it for the first time.

The dog story was told by a Romney son and published by The Boston Globe as part of a multipart series on the former Massachusetts governor. The anecdote was intended to highlight his problem-solving skills.

The new CBS News/NY Times poll definitely contains the kind of information that could put a little spring in any president's step.

The poll, released Tuesday, found President Obama's approval rating had bounced back up to 50 percent from 47 percent in January. Not a huge improvement but in presidential politics, getting to at least 50 percent approval is seen as key for an incumbent hoping to win re-election. The recovering economy gets much of the credit for his rising approval rates.

Stung by a series of defeats earlier this week, Mitt Romney got a much-needed boost Saturday with a win in the straw poll of the Conservative Political Action Conference and a victory in Maine's nonbinding caucuses.

Yet Romney walked away without delegates and tallied fewer votes there than he did four years ago. This time, he barely beat rival Ron Paul.

Both candidates spent the morning wooing voters at caucuses in southern Maine. For Romney, a visit to a Portland elementary school Saturday followed a town hall-style meeting Friday night — his first in several weeks. In both places, he hammered home his commitment to conservative values.

Former Barrington state Sen. Jackie Cilley stressed her blue collar roots has she kicked off her campaign at the Manchester YWCA. Cilley recalled growing up in a tenement and taking a job at the Waubec mill before heading to college and going on to teach at UNH’s Whittemore School of Business. Cilley said she believes in compromise, but said she won’t stand for what she called attacks on education, workers, women and gays being made by “The Free State/Tea Party/John Birch politicians in Concord.” Cilley also she won’t be taking a pledge to veto a sales or income tax.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's decisive win over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Florida returned him to the front-runner's spot in the Republican presidential race. Romney emerged from that battle with his strengths, but also his weaknesses, on full display.

Sometimes hard-fought nominating contests produce a more formidable general-election candidate. That's what happened to Barack Obama in 2008. But Dan Schnur, a former Republican strategist, thinks it's too soon to tell if this Republican primary battle will have the same effect.

With his lopsided win in Florida, Mitt Romney displayed nearly all the skills and talents a front-runner might need.

He was able to decimate his leading opponent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, through a series of disciplined and sustained attacks, and he had the organizational capacity to press every tactical advantage.

The only thing he failed to do, some critics maintain, was present a convincing case that he's the best possible Republican candidate to take on President Obama.

Romney did score well among Florida voters who see the ability to beat Obama as their paramount concern, according to exit polls.

As the Republican candidates were rallying their supporters in Florida on Tuesday night, their campaigns were quietly sending disclosure reports to the Federal Election Commission in Washington. The big picture: Mitt Romney had more money than Newt Gingrich. President Obama had more than either of them. And a few of the new superPACs filed donor lists filled with high rollers.

Tuesday's disclosures run only through Dec. 31 but still reveal some essential truths.

In the last quarter of 2011, Gingrich's campaign had its best fundraising of the year. But so did Romney's.

On their disclosures, Gingrich reported raising almost $10 million. Romney reported $24 million.

With his convincing Florida win on Tuesday, Mitt Romney has re-established himself as the clear front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. But he has not yet managed to restore his luster as the GOP's "inevitable" choice.

NPR is projecting that Romney has won the Florida primary, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in second place. With 89 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had nearly 47 percent of the vote. Gingrich had nearly 32 percent. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had about 13 percent, with Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 7 percent.

NHPR brings you live NPR coverage Tuesday night from the Florida primary.

Robert Siegel and Audie Cornish will host live coverage, which will begin at 8 p.m., when the last polls close, and run until 10 p.m.

Coverage will feature candidate speeches, interviews, and expert analysis from NPR Contributors E.J. Dionne (The Washington Post) and Matthew Continetti (The Weekly Standard), along with polling insights from The Pew Center’s Andrew Kohut.  We’ll also hear from NPR’s Mara Liasson and Ron Elving.

For more information, visit www.npr.org.

The White House is on the road to win public support for its economic policies.  President Obama was in Iowa and Arizona yesterday.  Today, Vice President Biden visited a manufacturing plant in Rochester. The vice president described what the administration means when it says it wants to give everyone a fair shot at the American dream.

Vice President Biden spoke at Albany Engineered Composites, a company that has been expanding on the Seacoast.  That trend fit well with one of Biden’s roles, that of cheer leader for the productivity of American workers.

“We start off as a nation better positioned than any the world to be the dominant economic force in the 21st century as we were in the 20th.”

Vice President Joe Biden visited a Rochester manufacturing plant to tout the administration’s economic policies.  Biden was upbeat, saying America is in the best position to continue to be the dominant economic power in the 21st century.

Speaking at Albany Engineered Composites, the vice president said the country should change tax law to reward companies that bring jobs home from overseas operations.

"We're committed to boost the trend," Biden said. "We're not the job creators.  And the best way to do that is to shed the policies of the last ten years that have encouraged investment to go abroad.  And discourage investment to be here. That's not anti-business.  It’s pro-business.”

The big story of the day is, of course, President Obama's State of the Union address last night. Since the speech wrapped, analysis from politicos, pundits, and wonks has been pretty much non-stop.