2012: 'The real sympathy goes to independent voters' Who Will Decide the Election

2012

• A conundrum named Barack Obama (EDITORIAL Fosters Daily Democrat - NH) But the real sympathy goes to independent voters, who are going to have to weigh the pluses and minus of President Obama. They will have take some from column A and some from column B, then weigh carefully how much another term of an Obama presidency will do for them.
• GOP shouldn't hesitate - A big moment for Obama, yes, but this glory will fade (By Mike Pride, Concord Monitor) The 1996 Republican primary offers an object lesson. Then, as now, a Republican insurgency had taken over the U.S. House in the mid-term election, weakening an incumbent Democratic president… The best model for the kind of campaign Buchanan ran is more recent than 1996. The candidate who wants to rise above the pack in 2012 ought to rent John McCain's bus tomorrow and start mixing it up with voters at town-hall forums and high schools.
• Fox ends contracts of Gingrich, Santorum (Ben Smith, Politico)
• Newberry businessman to lead S.C. GOP (By John O’Connor, The Sun News) Connelly also said he will push to ensure South Carolina is the first Southern state to hold a primary. Florida lawmakers have threatened to ignore the Republican National Committee schedule and move up in the process.
• South Carolina GOP elects Obama's 'worst nightmare' (By: CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby) "You guys just elected Barack Obama's and Dick Harpootlian's worst nightmare," Connelly told the audience after his win, naming the president and the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party as his foils.
• The Republican presidential race just can't get started (By Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer Politics Writer) Johnson, the libertarian former governor of New Mexico, hardly qualifies for the first tier of potential GOP challengers. Were he a baseball player, he might be invited to spring training with the big club, and then he'd be on a bus to double-A.