Gingrich surges to big win in South Carolina

By handing Newt Gingrich a victory in the South Carolina primary Saturday night, conservative GOP voters have flatly declared they are not yet satisfied with Mitt Romney as their nominee. They aren't sold, and want to hear and see more.
Republicans need to see Romney display the strength to defeat a serious candidate on neutral territory, unlike in New Hampshire. After all, if he can't win now, what does that portend for the fall?


Romney finished more than 10 percentage points behind the former House speaker Saturday, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul a distant third and fourth, respectively.


Gingrich, flashing just an occasional smile, marked his victory with a sober address to supporters in Columbia, praising each of his opponents and returning to a favorite tack — bashing the media and "the elites in Washington and New York [who] have no understanding, no care, no connection, no reliability" and fail to represent the American people.


"It's not that I am a good debater," he said, ignoring the boisterous chants of supporters and delivering his remarks in the tone of a college lecture. "It is that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people."


His only criticism was of President Obama — "A president so weak he makes Jimmy Carter look strong" — and the inspiration that Gingrich said the Democrat draws from the radical left.

How Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary

Newt Gingrich lacks the moral character to serve as President, his second ex-wife Marianne told ABC News, saying his campaign positions on the sanctity of marriage and the importance of family values do not square with what she saw during their 18 years of marriage.


In her first television interview since the 1999 divorce, to be broadcast tonight on Nightline, Marianne Gingrich, a self-described conservative Republican, said she is coming forward now so voters can know what she knows about Gingrich.


Newt Gingrich stormed to victory in the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday, coming from more than 10 points down in pre-election surveys taken just a week earlier. The CBS News exit poll of South Carolina Republican primary voters showed that his impressive debate performance during the last week of the campaign enabled him to assemble a coalition of tea partiers, evangelicals, and young white men. Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for much of the last month in South Carolina, was hurt by attacks on his role investment firm Bain Capital and his weak answers about why he does not want to release his tax returns.


Gingrich electrified debate audiences during the week with his confrontational exchanges and conservative rhetoric, and it showed at the polls. Nearly two-thirds of South Carolina Republican primary voters - 65 percent - said the recent debates were one of the most important factors in deciding whom to support, with 13 percent saying it was the single most important factor. Of those voters who said the debates were one of the most important factors in their decision, a whopping 50 percent cast a ballot for Gingrich, compared to 22 percent for Romney and 17 percent for Rick Santorum.

Gingrich wins South Carolina primary, beating Romney

Strong backing from conservative and religious voters and people fretting about the uncertain economy fueled Newt Gingrich's victory in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary, an exit poll of voters showed Saturday.
The data also showed that for the first time, the former House speaker grabbed two constituencies that his chief rival, Mitt Romney, prided himself in winning in the year's two previous GOP contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Gingrich bested Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, among the nearly half of voters looking for someone to defeat President Barack Obama this November, 51 percent to 37 percent. And of the 6 in 10 who considered the economy the top issue in picking a candidate, Gingrich prevailed, 40 percent to 32 percent.


The results mark the end of a tumultuous week in politics that saw Gingrich erase and then overcome the lead former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had in the Palmetto State following his victory in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Gingrich came on strong in the closing days of the campaign, looking to rally under his banner the many conservatives unwilling to get behind Romney, who had sought to posture himself as the eventual nominee.


"We don't have the kind of money at least one of the candidates has," Gingrich said in his victory remarks. "But we do have ideas and we do have people. And we proved here in South Carolina that people power with the right ideas beats big money."
VIEW full South Carolina primary results
Gingrich spent most of his speech Saturday night lashing out at "media elites" in New York and Washington, D.C., while castigating President Obama. He leaned on wonky explanations of policy to draw contrasts with the president, whom Gingrich accused of representing values antithetical to "classical" America.
"It's not that I am a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people," said Gingrich, who admitted at a Thursday debate to sometimes thinking in grandiose terms.

Dirk Nowitzki ready for heavy work week

NEW ORLEANS — Dirk Nowitzki will sit out for at least four games for the Dallas Mavericks so the star forward can get in better game shape while strengthening his sore right knee.


"We just thought it was a good decision for everybody. I'm not happy right now anyway, so the guys are better off when I'm not out there," Nowitzki said. "This gives me time to really do some of the stuff that I couldn't do when my knee was bothering me the last couple weeks. I couldn't lift and run and do the things I needed to do."


Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said he and the Mavericks' training staff decided Nowitzki needed "an uninterrupted eight days of work to resolve some physical issues and conditioning issues," adding that Nowitzki had "no choice" in the matter.


"He's going to be busting his (behind) this week. We're going to be on him hard," Carlisle added.


Saturday, Lamar Odom scored 16 points in his first start as the Mavericks overcame the absence of Nowitzki by beating New Orleans 83-81.


Nowitzki said that playing in the Olympic qualifying tournament in late summer was, in retrospect, the wrong decision. But, he said it was a decision he made for the love of his country. He said the combination of the long championship run and the Olympic tournament burned him out -- "I was so fed up with basketball, I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t smell it, couldn’t go in the gym" -- and then uncertainty of the lockout further skewed his normal training schedule. Now, he said, he's paying the price.


"You saw it, I couldn’t go by anybody off the dribble and that’s part of my game; right now is just basically a pop-up shooter every time I caught it and if I didn’t have it [a shot] I had to swing it because I just couldn’t make a move, couldn’t go by anybody and just didn’t feel comfortable," Nowitzki said. "So, that’s something I have to work on this week, again, is putting the ball on the floor and really getting confidence in my leg strength and getting that back and then I’ll be back to my old self."


He continued: "I already worked out this morning. I’m going to work hard this week. The knee definitely feels better than it did two or three weeks ago, but by me continuously playing on it I guess it wasn’t getting better quick enough, so it’s better for me to take this week and really work hard and lift every other day and really get my leg strength. I’m looking forward to it."


Nowitzki averaged 17.5 points and 5.4 rebounds through the first16 games, good enough to lead the team in scoring and rank third in rebounding, but well off his career averages.


He added that he heads into this week of work away from the game floor with a little extra motivation. Nowitzki said that he's been reading that some are suggesting that at 33 and fresh off an NBA Finals MVP, he could be on the cusp of wearing down.