Mitt Romney won New Hampshire by a fifteen point spread. That's no surprise. Eeking out the Iowa victory along with the convincing win in the Granite State boosts his prospects in South Carolina and Florida. If he wins there, it's over. But in a way it was over before it started. Check out his fiery speech. Ron Paul finished a strong second. He gave a good speech, too. A quarter of the GOP vote in a six-man race isn't fringe; it's a huge chunk of the party. Given Paul's capacity to attract young people and independents--groups the GOP struggled with in 2008--Republicans shouldn't be so quick to condescend when dealing with Paul or his Paullowers. For so long, pundits attempted to dismiss the Texas congressman. But pundits don't decide. People do. If the media did decide, John Huntsman would have performed better than third place yesterday. Has there ever been a Republican presidential candidate more fawned over by the Fourth Estate? Huntsman says "third place is a ticket to ride." Too bad for him the third contest is in South Carolina and not Vermont.

So when will flynnfiles.com formally endorse Ron Paul?

Ron Paul is telling everybody but Romney to drop out of the race. Er.....ok. ???

If Paul comes in second or a close third in SC, then he'll be taken seriously.

Rural New Hampshire (north and west) are Paul country and they possess that old Yankee contrarian spirit, which makes and oddball like Paul attractive to them.

I don't see that in the South.

A Romney victory, barring unforeseen future events, virtually guarantees an Obushma victory in 2012, for a few obvious reasons. Firstly, most conservatives hate Romney (although they do admire his ability to destroy people's lives for a buck). Secondly, he's a sociopath, and that's going to shine through as the media glare highlights the attitudinal and personality difference between him and Obushma and Romney's astounding inability to connect with voters. Thirdly, no matter how many times bunglers scream that Obushma is a Kenyan Muslim Socialist, Wall Street, the Illness Death and Suffering Industry, and the military-industrial complex love Obushma and will back him strongly in the November 2012 race. Say hello to four more years, and possibly four more wars.

I wouldn’t be so quick to make that assessment PMA. It’s not like Obama is riding a wave of popularity. In fact, an overwhelming number of voters polled fear a second term for the Marxist-in-Chief and barring rampant voter fraud, it likely won’t matter who gets the GOP nomination because BIO will lose.

I’m not a huge Romney fan as I’m not particularly happy with the legacy that he left here in Massachusetts. But he has a broader voter appeal than some of the other candidates and will certainly pull more of the women’s vote (and for that, as with Obama, they should repeal the 19th Amendment!) if he gets the nomination.

We can thank Newt for getting the whole Bain Capital thing out there. This is one less thing that Obama can use against Romney in the general election. Which would be ironic anyway as not only did Romney not destroy lives, but nursed various businesses back to health through Capitalism’s creative destruction and created more REAL jobs than Obama has in his three years with all the weight of the office and in the process going the other way and destroying the economy along with the housing and job markets.

You do have this right: “Obushma is a Kenyan Muslim Socialist, Wall Street, the Illness Death and Suffering Industry, and the military-industrial complex love Obushma”.

Outside of the Obushma foolishness, contrary to how he likes to project himself, especially when he’s exercising his class warfare shtick, BIO is no man of the people and there is much money from those sources mentioned that will attempt to insure that their investment toward ill gained profit is protected at the expense of losing the United States of America.

I did like Paul's call for the other candidates to surrender now, and be treated fairly. Quite generous, really.

Paul and Romney have been very cordial with each other this time around, infact RP defended Romney re the firing/restructuring attacks.

This is fascinating stuff! Is Paul planning on a convention where he not only gets speaking time - but gets respect while speaking. U! S! A!

SC is huge for Paul, the GOP and the country.

If the GOP Establishment continues to disrespect Ron Paul supporters they will all but guarantee Barack Obama's reelection. There are thousands of us who would figuratively go to the ends of the earth to support Ron and his cause, but won't lift a finger to help Mitt or some other "respectable" member of the moderate "opposition" to Obama's welfare and warfare state.

Well there you go. Another demonstration of the maturity and the stability level of some of the Paul zombies.

If they can't win, they will take their ball and go home.

From my standpoint as not being a Paul supporter, if Paul were the win the nomination, I for one would not be happy. But I would hold signs, make calls, campaign and generally do whatever I could to insure the ejection of the current occupant of 1600 Penn. Ave. for the sake of the nation’s future.

It’s attitudes like the one demonstrated here that are why the Dems win far more elections than their opposition. At the end of the day, they are united in their quest to make sure that they win with whomever their candidate is. In the meantime, your typical GOP/Libertarian voter who is supposed to be above the pettiness fails to prove it.

I'm still trying to figure out what Paul supporters want. Would they like to see him 'pass go' and just have the nomination handed to him and be immune to all of the slings and arrows that the other candidates have to endure? Or is it that they alone are so f'ing smart, that they can't abide having another one of the knuckle dragging GOP candidates rise to the top?

It's the primaries asdf, people can be principled and picky. I'm interested, who is your personal choice out of the GOP field?

"Paul zombies." Sure thing, friend. Great way to reach out and broaden the base of the "big tent" (which, in reality, is an ever-shrinking tent). That's almost as charming and winsome as serial adulterer Newt Gingrich's outlandish lecture about Ron Paul's views being somehow outside the bounds of decency.

When the GOP Establishment and the Beltway Right treats the man and his supporters like garbage, as if they are not respectable, then don't be surprised when they won't come to your candidate's aid.

Do I dislike Obama? Absolutely. But I will not be held hostage by more vague appeals to "the most important election of our lifetimes" a la the 2004 election. A "choice" between Romney and Obama presents a question of degrees as to how much bigger the federal government will get. Both are pro-police state (NDAA, Patriot Act). Romney wants to attack Iran. Obama got us into Libya.

Nor will I be held hostage by Supreme Court appointments. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, I will never forget the fact that the five justices who voted to affirm Roe v. Wade and the Court-manufactured right to an abortion were appointed by Republican presidents. Now we see pro-life supporters mislabel Ron Paul as not being pro-life when he has time and again proposed legislation that would effectively overturn Roe v. Wade. Asdf, where was Bush and his band of compassionate conservatives when the GOP had majorities in the Senate and the House to get that legislation passed?

What we want is for Ron Paul to be President of the United States. Reasons: he is the only candidate proposing real spending cuts (i.e., not the fake decreases in the percent increase in government spending year-to-year), he is the only candidate who votes according to the dictates of the Constitution, and he is the only candidate who wants to stop policing the world.

I like principled and picky. It's a healthy way to work things out through the nomination process and holds ALL of the candidates' feet to the fire.

But I can't stand this childish attitude that if one's chosen candidate doesn't win, a block of voters will stay home and not support the eventual nominee.

I hope that for the sake of pulling America out of the abyss, when the time comes, the passion will subside and whoever the loser's are will support anybody who opposes this current SHOTUS.

I don't think it's a childish approach. Romney isn't the nominee of my party. I'm not a Republican. I'm a right wing classical liberal. Your party and what is pawned off as the conservative movement has treated my candidate and his supporters like garbage for years. We were "unpatriotic conservatives" for opposing the Iraq War. We were not compassionate for supporting the Medicare Part D entitlement. We were and still are "dangerous." We were and still are "kooky."

On the other hand, believing you can impose democracy at the point of a gun in Iraq though, now that's just sober thinking. It's the same folks who cannot abide by Ron Paul, but have no problem giving pro-choice, pro-gay Joseph Lieberman a platform for his agenda. Paul Gottfried was right when he said, "the Ron Paul supporters do not look as if they’re going to swallow another Dole or McCain as a presidential candidate, and certainly not for the sake of a (for them) meaningless GOP victory. Unlike Ponnuru and his colleagues, these folks are not interested in bombing Syria or Iran or filling patronage jobs with neoconservative job applicants. Win or lose, this opposition is about smaller government and minding our business internationally."

Why would I vote for Romney? He might be a bit less of an economic statist on the domestic front than Obama, but he will continue the Bush foreign policy (as Obama has). He supports attacks on the Constitution like the NDAA and the Patriot Act. And then there's the Stop Online Piracy Act.

If Obama wins reelection the GOP will have no one to blame but itself.

From a middle class point of view: You can debate all you want. I think in the end you're only choosing between the lesser of two evils. It isnt something I'm comfortable with. Doubt you are either. Obama inherited a "shit storm". Whats the next Prez gonna do about it? Doubt he'll do anything more than talk at me about it.

Obama took a teetering fragile economy that with the right 'manager' at the helm could have been fixed and proceeded to complicate and push it over the edge.

Once in office, he chose to bypass traditional government, push the biggest most convoluted and expensive entitlement program in history and spend $5 Trillion dollars of borrowed money in a bit more than three years. In process he and his minions created so many regulations on the creation of private wealth and investment as to kill (or at least) slow down the golden goose that government depends on for its very survival while creating very much economic uncertainty.

Shit storm? Yes. And where it didn't exist before, Obama certainly has created one.

We were in debt before Obama, asdf. Your man, George W. Bush, gave us Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act, and an undeclared in Iraq. These cost us billions.

Only one candidate is serious about cutting spending and has proposed $1 trillion in spending cuts. Only one candidate will stop using our resources in this country to bomb bridges in Iraq and Afghanistan only to have to rebuild them. Only one candidate supports legislation like the We the People Act which removes the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over abortion cases, an Act that would immediately overturn Roe v. Wade and return the question of abortion to the states where it belongs. That man is Ron Paul. Why don't you support him and his agenda?

Yes, we were in debt before. And for sometime we've been in debt. But Obama went warp speed on it all and in a previous post I used much the same examples of Bush's non-Conservative follies and they still pale in comparison to Obama push to go where no President has ever gone before.

And Ron Paul would be fine with me. He's not my preference but I'd voted for him.

But, come on, we're $15 Trillion in debt and rising and you're talking about abortion? Please.