Santorum comes under closer scrutiny in New Hampshire (Reuters)

MANCHESTER/NORTHFIELD, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Republican presidential upstart Rick Santorum found himself under increasing scrutiny on Thursday as front-runner Mitt Romney tried to chip away at his credibility ahead of the key New Hampshire primary.

Santorum's surge in Iowa, which held its nominating contest on Tuesday, was so quick that his record as a U.S. senator and strong conservative views against abortion and gay marriage escaped close attention from his 2012 presidential rivals and the media.

His entry into New Hampshire was rocky. College students booed him at New England College over his position against gay marriage and he was forced to explain a remark he made in Iowa that appeared to single out blacks as recipients of federal assistance.

A Suffolk University tracking poll showed Romney on cruise control in New Hampshire ahead of its primary next Tuesday but that Santorum had risen to a distant third. It gave Romney 41 percent support, Ron Paul 18 percent and Santorum 8 percent, and Romney spent the day campaigning in South Carolina.

After finishing a close second to Romney in Iowa and bursting into the limelight, Santorum is under the microscope, drawing fire from Senator John McCain, a Romney supporter who clashed often with Santorum over government spending when they were Senate colleagues.

McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, is a sharp critic of spending items called earmarks that typically escape the scrutiny that accompanies U.S. budget legislation, to the dismay of conservatives.

"He was an avid earmarker and a staunch defender of porkbarrel spending," McCain told Reuters. "I just don't think he can portray himself as a fiscal conservative. We all know that earmarking is a 'gateway drug' to corruption."

Santorum's efforts to obtain taxpayer funds for spending projects for his home state of Pennsylvania have long been an issue. McCain specifically cited the $500,000 that Santorum engineered for a polar bear exhibit at the Pittsburgh zoo as an example of wasteful spending.

"The polar bears are living well," McCain said wryly. "That's the good news."

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Santorum has fought back against accusations of profligate spending, saying he wanted to make sure his taxpayers got their "fair share" of money back. He says he will fight for deep spending cuts if elected next November.

Santorum is hoping to recreate his Iowa magic in New Hampshire, which holds the second contest to determine a Republican challenger to Democratic President Barack Obama.

He wants to finish strong enough to generate momentum going into South Carolina, where a conservative like him has a better chance.

"Obviously Mitt Romney is at 40 percent in the polls, the chances in five days to make up a 35 or 40 point lead is going to be pretty limited but we expect to make a run and to move up in those polls," Santorum told reporters in Manchester.

The NAACP civil rights organization complained about a remark Santorum made in Iowa in which he appeared to say, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Santorum insisted to Fox News that he had "blurred" the word and did not actually say blacks.

"Senator Santorum's targeting of African Americans is inaccurate and outrageous, and lifts up old race-based stereotypes about public assistance," NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said.

Romney's big lead gives him great expectations in New Hampshire, perhaps more than he can reasonably expect to fulfill in a state that is unpredictable and can provide crucial momentum to the second-place finisher.

McCain said he believed the race will tighten in New Hampshire and doubted Romney will end up with 40 percent support or more.

"It's important for the Romney campaign and all of us who are supporting him not to raise expectations," said McCain, who surprised George W. Bush here in 2000. "So much of this is the expectations game. I think he'll win New Hampshire well but I can't imagine any candidate winning with 43 percent of the vote."

Keeping Obama in their sights, the Republicans blasted Obama for bypassing Congress to fill politically sensitive posts.

Obama upset Republicans by making four recess appointments - naming Richard Cordray to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Board and filling three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board.

Ron Paul called Obama's move a clear disregard of the U.S. Constitution.

"The president must be called to account for his actions," Paul said in a statement, adding that Congress may need to take action to rein in Obama's "flagrant contempt" for the rules.

(Additional reporting by Ros Krasny and Scott Malone)

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Herman Cain Tones Down Rhetoric on Muslims Under Fire (The Atlantic Wire)

One way in which Herman Cain has set himself apart from the other Republican 2012 candidates is by being outspoken and uncensored. He's open about his opinion of the other candidates. He's open about saying that Barack Obama was raised in Kenya. And notoriously, when he first entered into the GOP fray, he garnered much attention by saying that he wouldn't appoint Muslims to his cabinet or as a federal judge.

Related: First Republican Primary Debate Postponed

As much as being outspoken aids fringe candidates seeking name recognition, it seems to cause endless trouble as soon as that candidate tries to position themselves as someone to be taken seriously. For example, in the case of Donald Trump, legitimate intentions or not, once he had successfully drawn enough spotlight that the media started to take him to task, he quickly seemed to stop having quite as much fun.

Related: Jon Stewart Not Exactly Bowled Over by These 2012 GOP Hopefuls

At a press conference following his speech at the RightOnline conference Saturday, it seemed Herman Cain has stopped having as much fun as well. In his own words, he lost his "cool" with a reporter and lambasted supporters of Rep. Ron Paul. Politico described it as a "tense half-hour press conference" and noted that "scrutiny is starting to take its toll on Herman Cain." The major issue he back-pedaled on was his statement about treating applicants for his administration differently if they were Muslim. Cain responded to reporters:

"I am not anti-Muslim. I am anti-terrorist. And so my statement has been misconstrued several times, I've even been called a bigot because I expressed a desire to be cautious if I were to consider a Muslim for my administration. That was the intent..."

"Because I'm thinking from the perspective of what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said when I first heard him two or three months after 9/11/01. Number one, he said, terrorism is going to last a long time, and number two, America's got to learn that they -- the terrorists, the jihadists -- they want to kill all of us."

"So, no, I'm not going to play nicey nice and say that I'm not going to take extra precautions in order to be able that make sure that we can do our job."

"If you're trying to make me lose my cool, you are succeeding," Cain said, his voice rising. "I never said I would use any special precautions!"

OK, then, TPM followed up: "So a Muslim applies to be in the administration, he gets in like anybody else?"

"Yes," Cain said.

Cain apologized to the reporter for getting worked up, according to Politico.

“It probably wasn’t politically correct to raise my voice,” he said. “I’m not going to be a punching bag, OK? But you can imagine that I’ve been asked that same question 18,000 times.”

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Gingrich wife under scrutiny in campaign upheaval (AP)

ATLANTA – Callista Gingrich has been a near constant presence at her husband's side, a visible symbol that the twice-divorced House speaker is now a devoted family man.

But Gingrich's third wife also is being cited by people close to him as a key factor in the staff revolt that has left his presidential campaign on life support.

At least 16 aides and advisers abandoned the Gingrich campaign on Thursday, an unprecedented exodus that has cast doubt on his viability as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Gingrich has pledged to push forward with his campaign and is set to offer a foreign policy address to a Jewish Republican group in Los Angeles on Sunday. It's a speech that Gingrich hopes will reset his White House bid, and it's a near certainty that his wife will accompany him.

In the implosion's aftermath, officials close to the Gingrich campaign privately pointed fingers at Callista Gingrich as the source of the tension between her husband and his staff. They say she exerted enormous influence on the former House speaker, controlling his schedule and encouraging him to disappear on a luxury cruise in the Greek Isles just weeks after he got into the race. That trip was the final straw, for some, who pleaded with him not to go.

These officials said Gingrich ceded to his wife's wishes, which sometimes involved his curtailing necessary time on the campaign trail in key states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private campaign business.

As criticism mounted, the candidate defended his wife's involvement, saying that the two of them "make decisions as a couple."

"I think most couples would find that refreshing and not a problem," he said outside his home in McLean, Va., an upscale Washington suburb.

In fact, it may have been no different from other campaigns; friction between political spouses and paid campaign staff is common, with both competing for the candidate's attention.

But several people involved in the campaign said Callista Gingrich was not the only problem.

Since Gingrich entered the race this spring, fundraising has been anemic and the combative former congressman has strayed off message repeatedly, most memorably in his NBC "Meet the Press" interview just days after entering the race in which he bashed a Republican budget plan that had passed the House as "right-wing social engineering."

But Gingrich sometimes seemed more interested in placating his wife than serious campaigning. And Callista Gingrich's iron-fisted control over her husband's calendar made planning nearly impossible. Gingrich would sometimes be late to meetings with donors because his wife needed some time at a hotel to freshen up. He would try to book trips so he could be home in time for his wife's choir practice.

Admirable in a husband. But perhaps incompatible with the grueling schedule needed of a serious presidential candidate.

"Yes, Newt is guilty of putting family ahead of politics," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said.

From the start, Gingrich put his wife front and center in the campaign, answering questions with "Callista and I" and featuring her picture prominently on his website. To a certain degree, it seemed an attempt to prove to social conservatives and other Republicans skeptical of him for his adulterous past. Gingrich, 67, has acknowledged he carried on an affair with Callista when he was speaker of the House and she worked at the House Agriculture Committee.

But, even if she did help bolster an image of Gingrich as a family man, she was linked with distractions early in the campaign. It was jewelry Gingrich bought for his wife that spurred days of bad press coverage focused on a no-interest line of credit worth up to $500,000, reinforcing the image that he was out-of-touch with regular Americans smarting from the recession.

Exacting and precise, Callista Gingrich, 45, is a slender concert pianist who sings in the choir of her Catholic church. She has a signature look: ramrod straight posture, elegant clothes, tight smile and flawlessly coiffed blond hair.

Since they married, the Gingriches have modeled their marriage on the partnership of Ronald and Nancy Reagan: a partnership.

They produce political documentaries together and screening those movies before tea party organizations and other groups has become a key part of Gingrich's presidential effort, a quixotic strategy some aides believe should be scrapped in favor of more on traditional grass-roots events.

Still, the couple seems intent on having a partnership of equals.

So much so that when they when they shoot a documentary they will go back into the editing booth and reshoot if one spouse has more lines than the other.

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Online:

Newt Gingrich: http://www.newtexplore2012.com

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