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The Republican Party has released advance excerpts from several of the big speakers tonight, including vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and three of McCain's former rivals for Republican nomination -- Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

You can watch the video and read the text from more speeches at the convention here.

Sarah Palin

On her experience as a public servant:

"I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn’t need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities."

On why she is going to Washington, D.C.:

"I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country."

On energy policies that the McCain-Palin administration will implement:

"Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems - as if we all didn’t know that already. But the fact that drilling won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines...build more nuclear plants...create jobs with clean coal...and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources. We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity, and produced by American workers."

On John McCain:

"Here’s how I look at the choice Americans face in this election. In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

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Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee today commented on the efforts of some of his supporters in Michigan and Ohio to convince presumptive GOP nominee John McCain not to ask former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney to be his running mate.

"I think a lot of people, not just social conservatives, but a lot of the Republicans I know are not necessarily comfortable with Romney," Huckabee told CBSNews.com. "But it has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with inconsistencies in positions he's held, and that's it."

In response to buzz about the former Massachusetts governor becoming McCain's running mate, an alliance of Ohio social conservatives, many of whom are former Huckabee supporters, have formed a group called "Social Conservatives Against Romney." Romney had moderate positions on many hot-button social issues, including abortion, before his run for president.

Huckabee has also been discussed as a potential running mate for McCain, though he is seen as a long-shot possibility.

Evangelical leader Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told CBSNews.com last week that Romney "would be an excellent choice" for McCain.

"There are people in the evangelical community who would have a problem with his Mormonism," he added. "I am not one of them. I mean, I'm very clear that I do not believe Mormonism is a Christian faith. But that does not disqualify someone from being President or Vice President. And my guess would be that, probably, about 15 to 20 percent of the evangelical community would have a problem with his Mormonism."

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won't try to acquire donations to repay the $45 million in loans he made to his unsuccessful presidential campaign, The Boston Globe reports. Romney intends to send a letter to the Federal Election Committee that explains he will "forgive the outstanding loans."

"Mitt Romney's priority right now is raising money for other Republicans and not trying to recoup the money he put into his own race," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told CBSNews.com.

While not unexpected, the move could help heal any remaining wounds from the bruising primary battle Romney had with presumptive GOP nominee John McCain by demonstrating that Romney has no intention of asking McCain to help him recover some of his debt.

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Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney stepped in for legendary radio host Paul Harvey yesterday. Harvey is recovering from pneumonia and prepping for surgery, and Romney was one of the guests asked to fill in until his return April 25.

You can check out Romney's radio skills on Harvey's site, by clicking on the Thursday show.

Now, the rest of the story: This is just the latest high-profile move by Romney since he dropped out of the race on Feb. 7th. His campaigning on behalf of presumptive GOP nominee John McCain – and his promise to raise $15 million for the presidential run of a man who he once suggested was similar to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on key issues – has prompted speculation that Romney running for vice president.

Romney boosters suggest that the former venture capitalist could shore up McCain's economic bona fides as the country enters a difficult economic period, but a group of social conservatives have launched an effort to keep Romney off the ticket for being insufficiently socially conservative.*

*CORRECTION: This post initially stated that former Romney supporter and conservative leader Paul Weyrich was behind the “NoMitt” campaign. Weyrich was merely one of those listed as backing the initiative, and he released a statement this week asking that his "involvement in this effort be disregarded." You can read it here.

CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder has two items out today related to the future of former GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

The first report relates to a group of prominent conservatives who have formed a group to submit a petition calling on John McCain not to pick Romney as his running mate.

One of the group's sponsors, Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich, had previously endorsed Romney's candidacy. But Ambinder writes that other sponsors are allies of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

The group is paying for full-page newspaper ads, which tell McCain that Romney "would fatally harm your appeal to voters with deep constitutionalist and social conservative commitments."

And after a short stint out of the limelight, Romney appeared alongside McCain at fundraisers in Colorado and Utah last week. Now, Ambinder writes, Romney's "national leadership team" is scheduled to meet in Houston for a "reunion." A top Romney fundraiser writes in an email to the group that Romney "has asked his supporters to help Senator McCain’s campaign financially."

The Beach Boys, who are apparently not among Romney's favorite musical artists, are on the bill to entertain the assembled group.

In his first interview since ending his presidential bid, Mitt Romney said he would "be honored" if John McCain were to select him as his running mate. Appearing on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Romney said that he and John McCain had buried the hatchet since their bitter GOP primary battle.

“There are really no hard feelings, I don’t think, on either side of this,” he said. “There were no attacks and so forth that make people feel like we will never come together. Instead these campaigns are all coming together. We are supporting our nominee enthusiastically, aggressively. I intend to campaign for Senator McCain. I have already asked my fund-raising team to meet with his team. They've done so. We're laying out ways to support his campaign.”

Some conservative pundits including Fred Barnes and Karl Rove have recently made the case that Romney would be a solid choice for McCain.

It's clear that the former Massachusetts governor would bring several assets to the table, not the least of which is the fact that he is well-regarded within the conservative establishment and solidified his standing with his fiery CPAC speech, which was the curtain call to his own presidential bid. Romney is a solid debater, well-steeped in economic issues (an admitted weakness for McCain) and a proven fundraising star. Though he wouldn't be expected to bring Massachusetts into the Republican column, Romney could certainly put Michigan—where he was born and raised and won his only major primary victory—into play.

But would McCain be able to stomach picking someone he metaphorically compared to a pig only a couple of months ago. Many presidential candidates have made running mates out of men who were something far less than their best friends, McCain seemed to have harbored a special kind of animosity for Romney that reared its head again and again in debates and press conferences.

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Did Conservative Talk Show Host Laura Ingraham know Mitt Romney was about to suspend his campaign when she was introducing him at CPAC today?

You might not know by the way she was knocking John McCain, now the clear GOP frontrunner.

So much for getting out of the way of McCain's national campaign - Romney's stated reason for stepping aside.

In her intro, Ingraham took several not-so-subtle shots at McCain's conservative creds, an issue some right-leaning celebrities like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh have been hammering at in recent weeks.

Check out the video below:

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After a Super Tuesday that put him significantly behind John McCain in the delegate count, Mitt Romney and his advisors are reportedly assessing their options today.

The Romney campaign had planned to advertise in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore markets in advance of the upcoming contests in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia next Tuesday, CNN reports. Now, the campaign is considering whether or not to move forward.

"As of early this AM it was a go," a campaign source told CNN, though an advisor admitted that "it is tough to saddle up" this morning.

After his Jan. 29th loss to McCain in Florida, Romney briefly considered not buying ads in Super Tuesday states, though he ultimately decided to do so. Electing not to advertise would have been a tacit admission that he believed his campaign, into which he has invested more than $35 million of his own money, had become a lost cause.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that the McCain campaign is arguing that Romney's bid is indeed a lost cause. In a memo, McCain strategist Charlie Black suggests "the math is nearly impossible for Mitt Romney to win the nomination."

"The remaining contests account for roughly 963 delegates," Black writes. "For Mitt Romney to match our delegate [count], he would have to win more than 50% of those delegates." Black also notes that because many upcoming contests reward delegates proportionately, not on a winner-take-all basis, "Mitt will have to win by big margins in many states to garner every last delegate."

CBS News estimates that McCain presently has 677 delegates to Mike Huckabee's 159 and Romney's 152. 1,191 delegates are necessary to clinch the GOP nomination.

As the results came in last night, Romney vowed to continue his campaign.

“I think there’s some people who thought it was all going to be done tonight, but it’s not all done tonight,” Romney said. “We’re gonna keep on battling. We’re gonna go all the way to the convention. We’re gonna win this thing, and we’re gonna get in the White House.”

We’ve been following the split amongst conservatives who support GOP frontrunner John McCain – either wholeheartedly or grudgingly – and those who continue to fight against the prospect of a McCain nomination.

The list of those in the latter camp is not short: It includes Rick Santorum, Robert F. Bennett, Rick Santorum, David Keene, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, George Voinovich, Paul Weyrich, and Thad Cochran, who told the Washington Post that “the thought of [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine."

Yesterday, former GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole sent a letter to Limbaugh, one of McCain’s harshest critics, asking him to offer his “enthusiastic support” to “[w]hoever wins the Republican nomination.”

Dole admitted that he disagrees with McCain’s votes against the Bush tax cuts and on campaign finance reform, but writes that he “cannot recall a single instance when he did not support the Party on critical votes.”

He cites McCain’s pro-life record, calls him a “strong advocate for strict constructionist judges,” writes that he supported voluntary school prayer, and notes that McCain backed a balanced budget amendment, opposed pork barrel spending, and defends second amendment rights.

“McCain is a friend and I proudly wore his P.O.W. bracelet bearing his name while he was still a guest at the ‘Hanoi Hilton,’" Dole writes. “I believe our major candidates are mainstream conservatives and that our nominee will address our concerns by keeping taxes low, reducing corporate taxes, protecting and assisting the vulnerable, strengthening our traditional values, and above all, keeping America strong militarily, whatever the cost.”

Asked about Dole’s letter this morning, rival Mitt Romney told Fox News that Dole is “probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me.” That prompted McCain, appearing on MSNBC, to demand that Romney apologize to Dole.

“He’s a great American,” McCain said. “And for Governor Romney, who has never had any military experience, to disparage the service and courage of an American hero, I think is disgraceful.”

Romney, meanwhile, yesterday released a Web ad pushing his theme that McCain is not a conservative. In the spot, “Very Close,” an announcer asks, “Is John McCain really the heart and soul of the Republican Party?”

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Last night we noted that Mitt Romney had yet to buy any advertising in Super Tuesday states. Today comes word that he will: CBS News confirms that the Romney campaign is making a “significant ad buy” in California and other Super Tuesday states. The price tag is in the seven figure range, and the governor’s decision to make the buy was made this morning.

Romney has spent perhaps $40 million of his own money on his campaign. Coming off losses to John McCain in Florida and South Carolina, the former Massachusetts governor has been debating how much money to invest in advertising before Super Tuesday. Had Romney elected not to advertise, it would have sent a signal that he did not believe he had a legitimate chance at beating out McCain for the GOP nomination.

The Associated Press notes that Romney is worth up to $250 million. He has said that he and his wife have agreed on a cap on personal spending, though he has not said what it is.