MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA —After 15 debates and months of campaigning, one thing is still true of the Republican presidential field: No one wants to take on Mitt Romney. At first, during last night's South Carolina GOP debate, there were signs that Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry would remove the gloves and challenge the former Massachusetts governor. Gingrich opened his bid with a defense of his statements on Bain Capital—“I don’t think raising questions is a prerogative only of Barack Obama. … I raise questions that I think are legitimate questions.” Perry continued along those lines, pressing Romney to release his tax returns (to the large applause of the audience). “Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax, so people can find out how you made your money,” Perry said. “The people of South Carolina have to decide whether they have a flawed candidate or not. We cannot fire our nominee in September. We need to know now.” Santorum attacked Romney on...

¡Somos Republicans!—the country's self-proclaimed largest Latino Republican group— endorsed New Gingrich today, saying that the candidate "has been working hard for many years to include American Hispanics in the overall conversation for a better America." The group also lamented Jon Huntsman's departure from the race and criticized Mitt Romney's "non-humanitarian approach" to immigration reform. While I never quite understand groups that support a party that is actively antagonistic to their key interests (see GOProud, the Log Cabin Republicans), Gingrich is indeed the best of the lot when it comes to immigration reform. Whereas the two lead candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, oppose anything other than stricter enforcement of immigration laws, Gingrich has come out in support of certain provisions of the DREAM Act; has proposed offering undocumented immigrants with deep ties to their community a path to citizenship; and recognized that much of the immigration problem is...

When he first got into the presidential race, I assumed Jon Huntsman was playing a long game. In the 2012, Tea Party-dominated Republican Party, a guy who had worked for the Obama administration and who, though ideologically conservative, was not inclined to treat anyone who disagreed with him as a despicable socialist demon worthy only of spittle-flecked contempt, had no chance of winning, a fact he surely must have understood. So one reasonable path was to run a respectable campaign, watch Mitt Romney lose in the general, and prepare for a strong race in 2016, when conditions would be more favorable. After all, Republicans typically have to run multiple times before they get their party's nomination. In the last four decades, the only Republican who got the nomination on his first try was George W. Bush (and Gerald Ford, but he was president at the time). So it seems like a sensible plan. But there's one hitch: In order for Huntsman '16 to have any chance, the party is going to have...

Stephen Colbert announced last Thursday that he would form an exploratory run for the president in South Carolina. But, much as his real counterparts acted like true candidates long before their campaigns became official, Colbert's faux presidential campaign has begun to follow the lead of the real campaigns. He appeared on ABC's Sunday show The Week yesterday, and his super PAC (now officially controlled by Jon Stewart) has released a negative ad against Mitt Romney. The ad calls Romney "Mitt the Ripper" for his killing spree against corporations since they are, after all, people. Narrated by John Lithgow, the commercial turns Romney's words against him and ends with an image of Romney superimposed next to a wood chipper that chews up companies taken over by Bain and spits out money on the other side. Colbert himself is not mentioned; instead, the ad urges voters to turn against Romney, showing a sample ballot with the only two options being "Mitt Romney" and "Not Mitt Romney," the...

Around 150 bigwigs from the social-conservative movement gathered in Texas Friday night to endorse a candidate. Organizers didn't come out and say it, but the implicit goal of the gathering was to rally around a single alternative to Mitt Romney before he rolls past the competition in South Carolina and Florida. Surrogates for each candidate—save Romney and Jon Huntsman—addressed the crowd Saturday morning before the voting took place. The field was narrowed down through a series of votes until one candidate could attain two-thirds support. After three rounds, Rick Santorum emerged as the favorite, winning 85 of the 114 votes cast (some voters slipped off between the rounds of voting). Ron Paul and Rick Perry received mild support early on, but they quickly fell behind, leaving only Newt Gingrich and Santorum. The conservative revival was held outside Houston at the ranch of Paul and Nancy Pressler. Some of the most familiar names in evangelical politics attended, including Focus on...

Mitt Romney greets voters at a rally in Charleston, South Carolina. Two of the most recent polls from South Carolina show a tight race for victory in the primary. A new survey from the American Research Group finds Mitt Romney in the lead with 29 percent of the vote, to 25 percent for Gingrich, 20 percent for Paul, 9 percent for Rick Perry, and 7 percent for Rick Santorum. A second poll , from Rasmussen, has Santorum in somewhat better straits; Romney still leads—with 28 percent of the vote—but Santorum has the third-place spot, with 16 percent of the vote. Newt Gingrich takes 21 percent of the vote. Together, these numbers seem like bad news for Mitt Romney. Yes, he’s in the lead, but Ron Paul is on an upward trajectory, and Newt Gingrich remains alone among the candidates who actually stand a chance of catching up to the former Massachusetts governor. What’s more, Romney seems to have reached a ceiling in his overall support in the state. His trend line is basically flat and could...

When Mitt Romney talks about his nongovernmental experience, he tends to reduce it to a simple declaration: "I understand how the economy works." He probably says this to one audience or another a dozen times a day. What he doesn't do is go into any detail about what kinds of insights this deep understanding has brought him to. After all, what he proposes on the economy is the same menu as every other Republican—lower taxes on the wealthy and investors, fewer regulations on business. If his experience in private equity has given him some profound economic wisdom, it's hard to tell what it consists of. The new focus on Romney's time at Bain Capital is giving us an opportunity to ask some well-needed questions not only about him but also about the nature of capitalism and the relationship of business and government. The candidate who claims, "I'm a businessman, not a politician" is a long-standing pet peeve of mine, since it implies that what we really need in government is people who...