Republican Presidential Candidates

"I've been watching the Republican debates. I watched these eight clowns on the stage and at the end I wanted to raise my hand and say, 'I don't believe in evolution.'" — Bill Maher "In Herman Cain's defense, there is very little in the pizza world that is not sexually suggestive. " — Jon Stewart "Mentioning executions is a surefire applause line for conservatives. It's like saying 'pot' to the audience of 'The Daily Show.'" — Stephen Colbert on Perry's execution record "2. I wanted to help take the heat off my buddy Herman Cain.

PARK CITY, Utah - Inside the ballroom of a posh resort in Deer Valley, the old Mitt Romney was back. Outlining the biggest challenges facing the country before an intimate gathering of 200 of his biggest donors, the man whose political career was built on his business success was dashing through graphs and charts in a PowerPoint presentation - one tracing the GDPs of the world's largest nations dating back to 1500. In a departure from some of his recent television interviews, in which he has sharply criticized President Obama, the 2012 Republican nominee did not mention his former rival, according to interviews with guests at the event.

Mitt Romney imposed a healthcare mandate before he opposed it. Tim Pawlenty touted a climate change plan that he now disowns. Ditto Jon Huntsman. Republican presidential contenders aren't just debating one another these days. They're disputing their own decisions and disavowing past positions. Their pirouettes reflect a profound shift in the Republican Party, a rightward turn that will be evident on a New Hampshire stage Monday when seven candidates meet in the first major debate of the 2012 campaign.

AUSTIN, Texas - For nearly 30 years, Rick Perry enjoyed an unbroken record of campaign success, winning 10 straight elections. Then, in 2012, the Texas governor waged a spectacularly unsuccessful bid for president. It was not just that Perry fell short of the Republican nomination; more than half a dozen contestants, of varying plausibility, waged equally unavailing efforts. Rather, it was the nature of Perry's free fall that did the real damage. In just a few months, he went from national front-runner to the brain-frozen bumbler who couldn't remember all three points in his own government-reduction plan, an episode that turned a sheepish "oops!"

They amble in every morning to the back table, shake hands and sit beneath the sign saying "B.S. Community table," which, depending on whom you ask, either stands for Bible study or another kind of B.S. This morning, the nine or so people at the diner are talking politics as they lean over cheese-covered grits, thick omelets and triangles of toast covered in butter. "When I was in the service, I remember when we were worrying about China. Now we're asking them for money?" says Cecil Wright, 84, the eldest member of this group of retirees, shaking his head.

The attack on the federal judiciary by Republican candidates for president has reached a new low and should be denounced by liberals and conservatives alike. In November, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that if elected president, his "appointees to the federal bench will not receive a lifetime appointment. "Now Newt Gingrich has pledged that if he were elected he would defy Supreme Court rulings with which he disagreed and that judicial review to ensure that the government complies with the Constitution has been "grossly overstated.

Is President Obama trying to wedge his way to a second term? The economy will doubtless be the overriding issue in November's presidential contest, and Obama is hardly ignoring it. But a successful candidate appeals to all sorts of voters harboring all sorts of concerns, and the president and his backers appear to be using a pair of wedge issues to target two groups, Latinos and women, with messages grounded more in emotionalism than economics....

The way things are going in the GOP presidential primary, there's now an outside chance that California's 169 delegate votes — the most of any state in the nation — could come into play. Who knew? It seemed, way back when, that Mitt Romney was a safe bet to make it to the dance with President Obama in November. Then Newt Gingrich came on like the bull terrier he is, followed by a surprising surge from Rick Santorum. If the seesaw ride continues, it could even make California's June 5 primary relevant for once.

NBC News is planning a two-hour prime-time debate featuring all major Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on Dec. 1, starting at 9 p.m., division president Lawrence Grossman said in a speech to the Center for National Policy in Washington on Monday.

After back-to-back debates last week in New Hampshire and South Carolina and a joint appearance Sunday night in New Hampshire, six well-traveled Republican presidential candidates will debate tonight in Michigan. MSNBC's broadcast of the Grand Rapids debate begins at 4 p.m. PST. The cable news channel's Web site, http://www.msnbc.com, also will carry the forum. Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," will moderate.

How old is the Earth? Scientists say 4.5 billion years. But Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) isn't a scientist, so he's not sure. That's what the Republican rising star told an interviewer for GQ who posed the question. “I'm not a scientist, man,” Rubio, a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said. “I can tell you what recorded history says; I can tell you what the Bible says; but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians, and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.” In case the interviewer didn't hear him the first time, Rubio added: “I'm not a scientist.

In many ways, Jesus Martinez Jr. could be a teenager out of Republican central casting. The drawling 17-year-old doesn't believe in abortion, supports gun rights and favors a strict reading of the Constitution. He is also, perhaps most important, not a big fan of President Obama. American-born and a son of Mexican immigrants, Jesus reaches voting age one month before this year's presidential election. His sister Viridiana, 26, is a Raleigh-based activist on behalf of young illegal immigrants.

TAMPA, Fla. - Mitt Romney officially gained a historic presidential nomination Tuesday night as Republicans tried to steer national attention toward their storm-shortened convention and a tight fall race against President Obama. The former Massachusetts governor became the first Mormon to be nominated for president by either major party, a distinction that eluded his father, George Romney, an unsuccessful Republican candidate in the 1960s. The milestone, ensured months ago by Romney's primary-season victories, ended a nomination journey of more than five years that included his defeat in the 2008 contest.

TAMPA, Fla. - Republican officials started to exhale Friday as confidence grew that Tropical Storm Isaac won't shut down Mitt Romney's nominating convention next week. The Tampa area isn't out of danger, however. Forecasters cautioned that the projected track could shift significantly after Isaac passes Cuba and heads into the Gulf of Mexico. Wind and rain from Isaac's outer reaches are expected to arrive late Sunday in the convention city, along with thousands of delegates and guests.

WASHINGTON - Rep. Paul D. Ryan has cultivated his "affable wonk" persona into an effective moneymaker, winning over CEOs and K Street lobbyists to build a fundraising machine that has boosted his standing on Capitol Hill and helped make him one of the GOP's most influential figures. In 2002, the Wisconsin congressman established a so-called leadership PAC, a fund that allows him to raise money to give to other lawmakers, but the fund did little until 2006, when he began his rapid rise in the House Republican hierarchy.

RALEIGH, N.C. - Rep. Paul D. Ryan  shrugged off differences with Mitt Romney on abortion policy Wednesday, saying Romney's views, while more moderate than his, were "a good step in the right direction. " Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate under Romney, has taken a sharply conservative view on abortion in the past, saying he opposes it in all circumstances except to save the life of the mother - a position that would outlaw abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

U.S. treasurer: An article in Saturday's Section A about Republican presidential candidates seeking the Latino vote in Florida said former Treasury Secretary Rosario Marin had endorsed Newt Gingrich. Marin was the treasurer of the United States, not the Treasury secretary. Men's hairstyles: A timeline in Sunday's Image section about notable men's hairstyles said that Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for the theory of relativity. Einstein won the Nobel in physics for his "services to theoretical physics" and for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Five Republican presidential candidates will meet to debate in Phoenix tonight and a sixth will join them by satellite. CNN will broadcast the forum live from 5 to 6 p.m. PST on both its TV network and its Web site, http://www.cnn.com. Conservative activist Gary Bauer, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, publisher Steve Forbes, Utah Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, former diplomat and talk-show host Alan Keyes and Arizona Sen. John McCain met last week in Manchester, N.H.

THE VILLAGES, Fla. - Diving deeper into the Medicare fight, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul D. Ryan warned seniors Saturday that a key cost-control measure in President Obama's healthcare law would lead to rationing of their medical care. Ryan made the charge during a campaign speech at the largest retirement development in Florida, a state with the biggest proportion of seniors in the country and the most electoral votes of any 2012 battleground. The state is considered a must-win for Mitt Romney, and politicians in both parties say the Medicare debate could sway the outcome.

WOLFEBORO, N.H. - Contradicting one of his senior advisors, Mitt Romney said Wednesday that the individual mandate in President Obama's healthcare plan is a tax, and stands as evidence that Obama has broken a promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. On a holiday otherwise light on political skirmishing, Romney effectively overruled remarks from his campaign spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom. It was the second time in recent months that he has undertaken damage control after controversial remarks by Fehrnstrom.