Newt dinged Mitt in Sunday’s debate for repeatedly claiming that he had never envisioned, sought or pursued a career in politics. Newt has a point on this one. As Benjy Sarlin and Evan McMorris-Santoro reports, Mitt’s #humblebrag on this score is a key part of his new and improved bio for the 2012 race.

A growing body of evidence gives a not altogether unreasonable basis for thinking the economy may grow both faster and sooner than expected. It’s not the consensus view of economists, but it’s not tinfoil hat territory either. Brian Beutler explains.

Top brass at the Consumer Electronics Association say Apple won’t be missed at this year’s big CES trade show.

Has the man once known for repeated public comments about the grossness of gay sex gone soft on gays?

In the preceding post I referenced this swift-boat-style ‘documentary’ on Mitt Romney and Bain Capital which the Gingrich-backing SuperPAC (Winning Our Future) has bought and will use as the battering ram against Romney in South Carolina. They’ve put up a trailer for it now which you can see after the jump. It really is right out of the Swift Boat witch’s brew, the camp lighting, rumbling black clouds, the cinematography of 30 second hit ads expanded out longform.

Just watch … Read More

Last night I saw a link on Twitter to the news that Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul had given $5 million to a Gingrich-backing SuperPAC to run a brutal series of ads against Mitt Romney in South Carolina. (The ad campaign will be based on snippets from a half-hour swift-boat style ‘documentary’ about Mitt’s time at Bain Capital.) I knew this was big if for no other reason than the fact that $5 million thrown at a relatively small state like South Carolina over little more than a week is enough to totally change the calculus of a race. After all, the whole story of Iowa is that Romney’s backers had enough money to crush Gingrich with a massive bombardment of negative ads. Gingrich simply had no money to respond.

But there’s much more afoot here. Read More

Relive the highlights of Sunday’s debate, all in only 100 seconds. Warning: contains “pious baloney” and beanbags.

Romney: Don’t run for office unless you’re independently wealthy and don’t need a salary.

9:49 AM: It kind of slipped by before. But did everyone notice that Gov. Romney essentially said that you shouldn’t run for public office unless you’re independently wealthy and don’t need a salary?

9:50 AM: Another point on Romney, the idea that Romney’s 1994 run against Ted Kennedy was a suicide run is preposterous. Since Kennedy reclaimed some of his legendary status after 1994, it can seem that way in retrospect or if you weren’t there at the time. But that’s not at all how it was at the time. It was the nadir of Sen. Kennedy’s political career, perhaps his personal history as well. And remember, it was 1994, a blow out year for Republicans. The final result was a sizable victory for Kennedy. But that’s largely because Romney muffed it in the stretch. He was in that race to win it. Make no mistake.

9:57 AM: Just out from the Suffolk daily tracking poll …

For the fourth day in a row, Mitt Romney has fallen in overnight tracking, and Rick Santorum has dropped into fifth place among likely voters in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, according to the latest Suffolk University/7News two-day tracking poll.

Ron Paul is gaining on Romney, while Jon Huntsman has rallied into third place.

Romney dropped 4 percentage points overnight to 35 percent. The former Massachusetts governor still holds a 15 point lead, but his margin has declined by 8 percentage points since last Tuesday, when 43 percent of likely Republican voters backed Romney.

9:17 AM: I think maybe Jon Huntsman woke up this morning and said WTF, I might as well give this a shot.

9:18 AM: I must say that Gregory is becoming a bit of a caricature of Washington insiderism with these jangling demands for middle class ‘pain’.

9:21 AM: With David Gregory vamping it up about spending cuts, wouldn’t talking about painful tax hikes make him look manly too?

9:29 AM: Okay, I’ll give him some credit. He finally got to taxes.

9:29 AM: Mitt ducks a chance to pledge fealty to Norquist.

9:32 AM: That was a surprisingly commonsensical answer from Gingrich on partisanship and one term presidencies.

9:36 AM: From a Republican perspective, Santorum’s point is actually a good one. Paul’s economic agenda he’d have no ability to push through; his foreign policy he could get to work on on day one.