After Iowa, Santorum suddenly at the top of the GOP race

Just a few weeks ago, Rick Santorum was the earnest campaigner in Iowa with the trademark sweater vest.

The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania was the first candidate to visit all 99 counties, and he held 381 town-hall meetings and speeches -- not counting stops at diners and other one-on-one retail politicking opportunities.

Far down in the polls, he was regarded as an afterthought.

But after surging in polls just days before the Iowa caucuses and finishing in a virtual dead heat with presumptive front-runner Mitt Romney -- losing by just eight votes -- Santorum has jumped to the forefront of the GOP political discussion.

After Iowa, the Big Three aren't Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. They're Romney, Santorum and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who finished third.

The next test is only days away -- Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.

Santorum did well in Iowa because he ran an old-fashioned campaign, traveling throughout the state, shaking hands and meeting with small groups of people, said Michael Federici, a political-science professor at Mercyhurst College.

And conservative Iowans, particularly evangelicals, were looking for an alternative to the more moderate Romney, Federici said.

After Michele Bachmann, who dropped out of the race Wednesday, and Perry and Gingrich all rose and fell in the Hawkeye State, many voters were looking for someone to galvanize around, and they decided on Santorum, Federici said.

Federici said the others had the chance to challenge Romney, and now it's Santorum's turn. But with that rise in standing will come scrutiny from the other candidates and the media, he said.

Even so, Federici said one candidate will emerge as "the conservative favorite, and right now, that's Rick Santorum.''

After Iowa, Santorum got a polling bump in New Hampshire, where Romney is still leading by a wide margin.

But Federici said that Santorum doesn't need to win New Hampshire to remain a viable candidate. "He needs to finish in the top 3,'' he said.

Federici said Romney is now in the position to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, which would be a remarkable start in his bid for the GOP nomination. That will bring more money to the campaign and momentum heading into the rest of the nominating season, he said.

"New Hampshire has this habit of not following Iowa. ... They could change their minds, but right now it looks like New Hampshire is going to go to Romney,'' Federici said.

Four years ago, Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses, but John McCain won New Hampshire to begin his march to the nomination.

The remaining GOP field doesn't want a quick victory for Romney, so there will be "a concerted effort on the part of the other candidates to tear him down,'' Federici said.

Federici said Paul's devoted group of campaign workers helped his cause in Iowa. "That one-to-one contact with caucus participants is so important and has a big payoff,'' he said.

"It's not as well suited to a primary state, especially with a large voting population,'' he said.

Comments from one of Paul's local supporters, Joe Salorino, were indicative of a third-place finish.

"I could be happier, but I could be a lot unhappier as well,'' said Salorino, 54, of Springfield Township, an assistant organizer of the Erie branch of the Ron Paul group.

"I think the fact that he's in the top tier, if you will, is really important. Iowa is important to establish that you have a good ground game and a good campaign,'' he said.

"It's not crucial to win Iowa, but it is important to place well, and he did,'' he said.

"It confirms his legitimacy as a candidate, and I think it will propel him to fight. This thing is so fluid, it's hard to say what's going to happen,'' said Salorino, who e-mailed elected officials in Iowa urging support for Paul.

This much is certain: New Hampshire is next, followed by the South Carolina primary. The field could be narrower by then, but expect the new top tier to remain in the thick of the race.

JOHN GUERRIERO can be reached at 870-1690 or by e-mail.

Read the Campaign '12 blog at GoErie.com/blogs/campaign and post comments.

Source: http://www.goerie.com/article/20120105/NEWS02/301049890/After-Iowa-Santorum-suddenly-at-the-top-of-the-GOP-race

bradley cooper elisabeth hasselbeck roger craig roger craig cadillac xts rambus rambus

31 inmates killed in northern Mexico prison fight (AP)

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico ? A vicious fight among inmates armed with makeshift knives, clubs and even stones left 31 people dead in a prison in a drug cartel-plagued state in northern Mexico, authorities said.

Another 13 prisoners were wounded in the brawl in the penitentiary in the Gulf Coast city of Altamira, Tamaulipas state's Public Safety Department said in a statement.

The fight started when a group of inmates burst into a section of the prison they were banned from and attacked the prisoners housed there, the department said.

Local media said the fight was between members of the rival Gulf and Zetas drug cartels but authorities wouldn't confirm the reports. Tamaulipas state has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the two former allies.

Tamaulipas state officials said many of the dead were killed by makeshift knives. A state official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation said several of the inmates were beaten to death with clubs or stones.

Soldier and marines managed to take control of the prison, the official said.

The safety department said 22 of the inmates killed were serving sentences for state crimes and nine for federal offenses. It gave no other details.

The port of Altamira in southern Tamaulipas, near the border with the state of Veracruz, is in a region that has seen a spike in drug-violence in the last two months. Authorities say the port is used to bring in cocaine and precursor chemicals used to make methamphetamine into Mexico.

In 2010, four inmates at the Altamira prison were killed when an armed gang stormed the penitentiary as 11 inmates were being transferred. Authorities did not confirm reports that the raid was an attempt to free prisoners. Gang raids on prisons are common in Tamaulipas.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120105/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_prison_violence

bérénice marlohe google offers tim gunn tim gunn death clock death clock cerebral palsy

Israel plans Jordan border fence to stop migrants

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, January 1, 2012

?

JERUSALEM, Israel ? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministerial colleagues on Sunday that he planned to strengthen barriers along his country?s border with Jordan, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The English-language daily?s website said Netanyahu told ministers from his Likud party that he feared illegal migrants who currently enter Israel from Egypt would head to the less-fortified Jordanian border once the Jewish state completes a fence along its southern border.

The Post said the new fence would cost 630 million shekels ($166 million, 129 million euros).

The northern part of the 238 kilometre (148 mile) border runs along the river Jordan and is dotted on the Israeli side with cliff-side army bunkers, barbed wire, lookout towers and electronic listening devices.

South of the Dead Sea, the frontier runs through rugged desert and mountains, pierced in places by canyons used as smuggling routes from Jordan.

As the Negev desert tapers toward the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat, only a few miles separate the Jordanian border on its western side and Egypt to the east.

Israel is currently erecting a giant, impenetrable security barrier along its 240-kilometre (150-mile) border with Egypt?s Sinai peninsula.

Work began a year ago, in a project initially aimed at stemming a growing tide of African migrants, as well as clamping down on cross-border trafficking in drugs and women.

The pace of work has sped up since August, when gunmen from Sinai sneaked across the border and staged a series of deadly ambushes in the Negev, putting fresh emphasis on security.

The Post quoted Israeli government data published on Sunday saying that in 2011 a total of 16,816 Africans entered Israel illegally from Egypt. In December alone, 2,931 people sneaked into Israel, it said.

Agence France-Presse

AFP journalists cover wars, conflicts, politics, science, health, the environment, technology, fashion, entertainment, the offbeat, sports and a whole lot more in text, photographs, video, graphics and online.

?

?

?

?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheRawStory/~3/tTn2solt5Og/

regenesis fanboys ucla usc ucla usc sean taylor usc football cybermonday

Exxon awarded $908 million in Venezuela dispute (Reuters)

CARACAS (Reuters) ? U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) said on Sunday an arbitration panel awarded it $908 million over a contractual dispute with Venezuela, following the South American nation's 2007 nationalization of its assets.

Exxon Mobil had filed a claim in 2007 with a World Bank arbitration tribunal seeking at least $7 billion in compensation

for a heavy oil project that President Hugo Chavez nationalized in a broad wave of state takeovers.

Venezuelan sources declined on Saturday to specify the amount Venezuela was ordered to pay, but said they saw the decision as favorable to Caracas.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing By Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120101/bs_nm/us_venezuela_exxonmobil

johnny knox monday night football monday night football bonjovi bonjovi kim jong un antonio brown

Spain: 2011 deficit could be higher than 8 pct (AP)

MADRID ? Spain's deficit for 2011 could be even higher than the larger-than-forecast 8 percent of GDP it announced last week, the finance minister of the new conservative government said Monday.

Luis de Guindos said in a radio interview that the government, which took power just before Christmas, found out only early last week how bad the numbers were and had no choice but to act quickly by increasing income and property taxes, despite an election campaign pledge not to raise taxes.

The conservative Popular Party swept to victory in Nov. 20 general elections, winning a comfortable majority in Parliament as voters enduring 21.5 unemployment and a stagnant economy dumped the incumbent Socialists.

De Guindos said the 8 percent figure ? up from a 6 percent forecast by the outgoing government ? would have come out in a matter of weeks anyway and would have almost certainly led to a punishing rise in Spain's borrowing costs.

So the government acted quickly by announcing Friday a package of tax rises and spending cuts ? totaling about euro15 billion ($19 billion) ? at the same time as it unveiled the new deficit estimate, so as to stay ahead of events, he said.

"It was an act of responsibility and political initiative to keep the Spanish economy from reaching a situation that would have been practically unsustainable," de Guindos told Cadena Ser radio.

He said both the central government and Spain's regional governments shared blame for the overspending.

As for the final 2011 deficit figure, he said: "It is possible that it will exceed 8 percent. Not by much, I certainly hope."

He said Spain right now, with its economy a mess and the eurozone in a debt crisis, could not afford to announce its deficit will be two points higher than forecast without also quickly taking measures like raising taxes, as unpleasant as that might be.

"If we had not, others would have done it for us," de Guindos said, suggesting the European Union would have stepped in somehow.

The deficit-reduction package is a first bitter taste of austerity for Spaniards under the new Popular Party government. It came as part of an extension of the 2011 budget because none for 2012 had been passed when the government changed hands.

More austerity is expected when a full-blown 2012 budget is approved in late March.

The government's goal is to get the deficit down to 4.4 percent of GDP this year.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120102/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_spain_financial_crisis

ravens new england patriots nfl nfl jets air jordans pecan pie recipe

Super PACs go stealth through first contests (Politico)

Super PACs spending millions of dollars on the brutal ads shaping the GOP presidential primary have taken advantage in the last few weeks of a pair of loopholes that will let them keep their donors secret until after votes are cast in the first four big contests.

Some of these new groups backing Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman wrote short letters this month to the Federal Election Commission requesting a bureaucratic change that lets them delay revealing their funders, while super PACs supporting Rick Santorum and Rick Perry are benefiting from a longstanding, but little-noticed, ruling that exempts their Iowa caucus ads from disclosure requirements.

Continue Reading

The loopholes are the latest development in a campaign that has seen an explosion of unlimited spending that?s difficult to trace. And exploitation of these loopholes likely guarantees that voters won?t find out who?s paying for a majority of primary campaign ads until late on the night of Jan. 31. That?s after polls have closed in states expected to go a long way towards determining the GOP presidential nominee ? the Iowa caucuses and primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.

The disclosure rules may need to be updated to reflect the rise of super PACs as driving forces in presidential politics, two Democratic FEC commissioners suggested in interviews with POLITICO.

?Super PACs are functioning as the alter-egos of the campaigns, and their activity was clearly not anticipated when the statutes were put in place,? Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic FEC appointee said. The commission, she said ?should reconsider the regulations about caucuses and disclosure, or at least take a hard look at them.?

Fellow Democratic FEC commissioner Cynthia Bauerly said in an email that the recent moves by the super PACs supporting Romney and Huntsman ?highlight the fact that more can be done to ensure that voters have the information they are entitled to in making decisions about federal elections.?

But the FEC, which has become mired in partisan gridlock, is unlikely to make any changes in time to affect the 2012 election. The other four commissioners did not respond to interview requests. The commission has already rubber-stamped the disclosure change by the pro-Romney ?Restore Our Future? super PAC, and is expected to do the same with the pro-Gingrich super PAC ?Winning Our Future? and the pro-Huntsman group, ?Our Destiny PAC.?

Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich press secretary who?s now a top adviser to Winning Our Future, said ?It?s ridiculous that we have the ability to raise unlimited money and direct the message of the campaigns when the candidates themselves don?t have this.?

But his group is merely playing by the same rules as other super PACs, he said, explaining ?this is the situation we have, that?s been given to us.?

Winning Our Future, which was established in early December, notified the FEC last week in a one-line memorandum that it ?is changing its filing status ? effective immediately? to one that will allow it to file its first report as late as the end of next month. But Tyler says the group intends to file before the deadline.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1211_70957_html/44033995/SIG=11m4dfcf8/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70957.html

“do a barrel roll” oakland texas judge texas judge tom brokaw maria shriver andy irons

ZDNet: Facebook phasing out support for Internet Explorer 7 http://t.co/FDfpEC4N

• Passer la navigation
• Twitter sur votre mobile ? Cliquez ici m.twitter.com!
• Passer cette ?tape
• Connexion

• Connexion
• Rejoignez Twitter !

Facebook phasing out support for Internet Explorer 7 zd.net/t0GjT3 Il y a environ 5 heures via zdnet API Retweeted by 2 people

ZDNet

Pied de page

• ? 2011 Twitter
• ? propos de nous
• Contact
• Blog
• Statut
• Ressources
• API
• Entreprises
• Aide
• Offres d'emploi
• Conditions
• Confidentialit?

Source: http://twitter.com/ZDNet/statuses/152886706935308289

ben breedlove kid cudi ben breedlove jim jones matt barnes hcm extremely loud and incredibly close mary tyler moore