All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Reverend Al Sharpton, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have teamed up for a national tour to spotlight education reform, and the trio stopped by "Washington Unplugged" Monday to discuss why their efforts to encourage cooperation on the issue.

"I think you guys think if nobody walks away [with] a black eye that we did not have a meeting," Sharpton joked to CBS News' Fernando Suarez.

"When you have Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich show up to talk about an issue together you tend to get a lot more attention than if either one of us shows up buy oursleves," Gingrich said. "And that's led already around the country to a conversation about education reform."

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The election may still be three years away, but it seems it’s never too early to speculate: A USA Today/Gallup poll sizing up the potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates was released today. Taking the top spot? Former Arkansas governor (and 2008 presidential hopeful) Mike Huckabee.

The poll found that the top four Republican contenders for the presidential nomination are Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Seventy-one percent of declared Republicans would "seriously consider" voting for Huckabee, 65 would consider voting for Romney and for Palin, and 60 percent would consider voting for Gingrich.

Among Americans overall, the order remains the same: Huckabee leads, with 40 percent saying they would seriously consider voting for him. Romney closely follows with 39 percent. He’s followed by Palin with 33 percent and Gingrich with 29 percent.

The results suggest that the identity of Obama's 2012 opponent will rest largely on who is selected by "the Republic faithful," even in states with open primaries. No more than 20 percent of Democrats and no more than 40 percent of independent voters say they would consider voting for any one candidate.

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is once again making headlines by publicly pondering a 2012 presidential bid.

Yesterday, as Politics Daily and Politico report, Gingrich talked about a possible bid on CSPAN's Washington Journal.

In the interview, Gingrich said he would make the decision in February of 2011 and that probably would run if he and his wife, Callista, decided that they feel "a requirement as citizens that we run," which would be based on how they asses the other candidates running for the Republican nomination.

"We are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country," Gingrich said. "And we'll decide, if there's a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there's not a requirement… if other people have filled the vacuum, I suspect we won't."

When pressed by host Steve Scully about what factors would play into the decision, Gingrich said it would hinge on whether there is another candidate in the field who aligns with his message.

Gingrich said he thought politics should be "about ideas" and that the Republican Party needed to offer alternatives rather than to just oppose Democrats.

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We're two and a half years away from the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses but that's not stopping the fevered pitch of speculation about who's up and who's down in the GOP, who might be running and who isn't.

Case in point: Gallup is out with a poll today that shows, "About one in four Republicans and Republican-leaning independents make Mitt Romney their top choice for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, giving him a slight edge over Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee.

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the choice of 14% of Republicans, with much smaller numbers choosing current Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Haley Barbour of Mississippi."

Now, while the blogosphere will light up about this "news," we should all take a deep breath before we start planning for the Obama vs. Romney debates.

Let's go ahead and turn on the time machine and go back and look at some early presidential polling in past years.

Gallup, Aug. 9, 2005: "There are two leading candidates for the GOP nomination at this point (should they end up running, of course): Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Twenty-seven percent of Republicans who are registered to vote pick Giuliani as their nominee, while 24% pick McCain. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice comes in third with 19%, followed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist with 9%, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 4%, and New York Gov. George Pataki and former Virginia Gov. George Allen with 3% each."

Friendly reminder: Giuliani didn't get past January 2008's primaries.

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Democrats are having a field day musing over who the “leader” of the Republican Party might be, in no way hiding their glee as they point and snicker at the messy circumstances the GOP currently finds itself in.

Is Rush Limbaugh the voice of the Republicans? Or perhaps Dick Cheney? Newt Gingrich? Michael Steele? Sarah Palin? Mitt Romney? Karl Rove? Eric Cantor?

And the list goes on.

The Democratic National Committee calls it "GOP Survivor" and is reveling in their rivals’ quagmire.

But Democrats, while understandably giddy, should remember that they were in a comparable situation just over four years ago.

After President George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in 2004, there was similar quagmire talk and the identical question was being asked of the Democrats. They had lost ground in both the House and Senate, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle failed in his re-election bid, and a newly minted senator, Barack Obama, was just a glimmer in the eyes of the crystal ball readers.

Was John Kerry the voice of the Democratic Party? Or perhaps Al Gore? Nancy Pelosi? Hillary Clinton? Howard Dean?

And the list went on.

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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in Politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama to talk "paygo" today...

**First Gitmo detainee to U.S...

**Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia today...

**Have Republicans found their voice?

**Hastert, the sequel?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yesterday, President Obama re-launched his economic stimulus plan, to lukewarm reviews. Today, he talks about how he's going to pay for a chunk of that spending: "paygo."

He will talk about his plan to stick to the "pay-as-you-go" system, or "paygo", which requires that any bills designed to cut taxes, to establish new programs or expanding programs be offset by higher taxes or benefit cuts somewhere else.

The idea has been proposed by the moderate and conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats to pay for the president's health care plan and other proposals. Members of the "Blue Dogs" will attend the president's remarks at 1 p.m. ET.

Meantime, Mr. Obama's attempt to re-focus on the positives of his stimulus plan yesterday ran into a wall of skepticism.

In an article headlined, "Obama's new stimulus plan same as the old," the Associated Press' Brett J. Blackledge and Matt Apuzzo write, "President Barack Obama is promising some exciting coming attractions for his stimulus plan. But it turns out they're just summer reruns. Obama promised Monday to ramp up spending from the $787 billion stimulus fund and create or save 600,000 jobs by the end of the summer.

"It was an effort to shift the focus away from persistently rising unemployment and beat back criticism that the money isn't flowing quickly enough. Those promises aren't new. Stimulus spending had always been expected to rise sharply this summer, and the White House has been predicting that 600,000 job total for about a month. Obama faces souring public opinion over his handling of the economy, which has shed 1.6 million jobs since the stimulus was signed in February. That total has far overshadowed White House announcements estimating the effort has saved 150,000 jobs, a figure that is so murky it can never be verified."

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In response to suggestions that some Guantanamo detainees may not be tried and sentenced to death in order to deny them the chance of becoming martyrs to their cause, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, "Someone who is desperate to be a martyr" will probably succeed.

"If we let them go, they'll go back to obtaining martyrdom by being suicide bombers," he said on CBS' Face The Nation Sunday.

When asked by guest host Harry Smith who is the most "Republican" — Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Colin Powell, Rush Limbaugh or himself — Gingrich said, "All of us are."

"Colin Powell is a great American. I'm proud to be a Republican. Dick Cheney is a great American. I'm glad both of them are Republicans," Gingrich said, referencing a debate between the two leaders born on Face The Nation.

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When Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasted President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor for being a racist on Twitter, he ignited a debate over her objectivity.

Speaking to Face the Nation guest moderator Harry Smith Sunday, senior White House advisor David Axelrod defended Sotomayor against charges that she is a racist.

"I think what she believes, Harry, is that everyone is the product of their experiences. She's the product of hers."

Axelrod called Gingrich's comment "unfortunate" and said, "I think that it is so unfair and so unreflective of who she is."

Later in the program, Gingrich said he wished to "reframe" his initial comment calling Sotomayor a racist, when really he does not know the nominee and meant that her words were racist.

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Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich says current Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should step down from her leadership position.

Speaking Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Gingrich said Pelosi should not have to leave Congress but should not be Speaker.

"What she said Thursday is a stunning, dishonest statement," he said. "She really disqualified herself to be speaker."

Gingrich repeated that message in a letter published Wednesday in the conservative periodical Human Events. In the letter, titled "Why Pelosi Should Step Down," he says Pelosi has damaged America's safety.

"The case against Nancy Pelosi remaining Speaker of the House is as simple as it is devastating," he wrote. "The person who is No. 2 in line to be commander in chief can't have contempt for the men and women who protect our nation."

Last Thursday, Pelosi said the CIA in a fall 2002 briefing misleadingly told her that detainees in the war on terror had not been subject to waterboarding. She put out a statement Friday saying that her comments were directed toward the Bush administration, wich authorized the CIA's use of waterboarding -- not "the dedicated men and women of the intelligence community...who work to keep our country safe."

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Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has stayed active in Republican circles since leaving office, told reporters in Virginia last night that he is considering running for president in 2012.

Gingrich and his wife "will look seriously and we'll probably get our family totally engaged, including our two grandchildren, probably in January, 2011, and we'll look seriously at whether or not we think it's necessary to do it," he said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"And if we think it's necessary we'll probably do it,” Gingrich said. “And if it isn't necessary we probably won't do it."

“I think it's conceivable that by 2012 you could have a second Contract for America,” the former Speaker added.

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