As the Republican presidential prospects arrive in Washington, D.C. for
tonight’s CNN debate focused on national security, President Obama will
travel to New Hampshire to push Congress to extend the payroll tax cut,
according to The Hill.

“The
White House brushed off suggestions the president’s trip to the Granite
State, which holds the nation’s first presidential primary in seven
weeks, was being made with an eye toward 2012… New Hampshire will be
an important swing state next year. Obama won it by nine points in 2008,
but Romney is practically a favorite son. He was governor of
neighboring Massachusetts, owns a summer home in the Granite State and
is campaigning heavily to win its primary… As it stands, the payroll
tax cut and other provisions, like a patch for the Alternative Minimum
Tax and benefits for the unemployed, are set to expire at year’s end.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds Newt Gingrich jumping to the front of the GOP presidential field with 26%, followed by Mitt Romney at 22% and Herman Cain at 14%.

Key finding: 48% of Republican voters say that that among all GOP contenders he has the knowledge and experience necessary to be president, compared to Romney’s 22%.

Said pollster Peter Brown: “When it comes to the Republican horse race, the scenario hasn’t changed much over the past few months – just the players. Speaker Newt Gingrich is the latest GOP contender to rise to the top, powered by conservatives who remain skeptical about Gov. Mitt Romney.”

Meanwhile, in general election match ups, President Obama edges Romney, 45% to 44%, beats Gingrich, 49% to 40%, and crushes Cain, 50% to 37%.

Fox News obtained a copy of Donald Trump’s forthcoming book, Time To Get Tough, in which he writes he was so close to running for president that he had already prepared to disclose his finances, something many suggested he would never do.

In an afterword section, Trump claims a net worth of just over $7 billion, of which $3 billion he calls “brand value.”

Newt Gingrich had some tough words for the Congressional Budget Office, CNN reports.

Said Gingrich: “The CBO is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.”

Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican, called the allegation “ludicrous.”

Said Holtz-Eakin: “I think if you parse that phrase carefully, he got one out of three
right. I do agree it is an institution. If you’re
playing baseball, that’s a decent batting average.”

Herman Cain reversed himself and will sit down for a taped interview with the editorial board of the New Hampshire Union Leader, caving to pressure after skipping his previous interview.

Politico:
“Just last week, Cain backed out of a Union Leader interview because
the paper insisted on a 60-minute interview, as opposed to the
20-minute, camera-free conversation Cain hoped for. The newspaper
blistered Cain in a Monday missive titled, ‘Recording Cain: What’s he afraid of?‘”

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll confirms what many other recent national polls have found: Newt Gingrich is the new GOP presidential frontrunner.

Gingrich leads with 24%, followed by Mitt Romney at 20%, Herman Cain at 17%, Rick Perry at 11%, Ron Paul at 9%, Michele Bachmann at 5%, Rick Santorum at 4% and Jon Hunstman at 3%.

Said pollster Keating Holland: “But don’t think that Gingrich has risen in the polls simply because other alternatives to Romney have fizzled. The number of Republicans who would be pleased or enthusiastic if he won the party’s nomination has grown from 51% in May to 70% now — not the kind of numbers you would expect if voters were ‘settling’ for Gingrich.”

“I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once, as a wayward teenager, and never did it again.”

— Mitt Romney, in a forthcoming People magazine interview.

Mitt Romney told the Nashua Telegraph that his staff wiped electronic records at the end of his term as governor because they didn’t want “opposition research teams” to have access to them.

Said Romney: “Well, I think in government we should follow the law. And there has never been an administration that has provided to the opposition research team, or to the public, electronic communications. So ours would have been the first.”

[Read more…]

A new American Research Group poll in New Hampshire finds Mitt Romney leading the Republican presidential field with 33%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 22% and Ron Paul at 12%.

Support for Romney has remained steady for months. In April, support for Romney was at 32%. Romney was at 29% in June and 30% in September. 

Paul Begala: “Republicans, apparently, will date anyone before they’ll marry Mitt. Remember their brief fling with Donald Trump? Then, after he decided not to throw his hair into the ring, they fell for Michele Bachmann, the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya of the far right. Then it was Rick Perry — the guy who claims he jogs with a loaded gun (without a safety) tucked into his shorts. And now that they’ve tired of Herman Cain’s, umm, hands-on style of leadership, it’s Newt’s turn.”

“And so, like MacArthur, Newt has returned. I, for one, could not be happier–but then again, I’m a Democrat, so I have to take my political pleasures where I can find them. I seriously doubt Newt will be the GOP nominee. But a guy can dream, can’t he?”

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination, the Nasua Telegraph reports.

Jonathan Bernstein: “The political science literature tells us that high-profile endorsements are important indicators for at least two reasons. One is that these endorsements probably have a direct effect, as primary voters with little way of choosing from among similar-sounding candidates may turn to opinion leaders to sort things out. The other, and perhaps more important, factor is that high-profile endorsements are the most visible ways of seeing the co-ordination of party actors as they compete over the nomination and eventually settle on a candidate.”