Mitt Romney, as expected, has won the Florida primary with a solid 14.5 point lead over Newt Gingrich with 96% of precincts reporting. Newt responded to the spanking in his usual gracious fashion with what sounded suspiciously like a victory speech (he didn't bother to congratulate Romney) and instead declared the Republican race henceforth a contest between himself, the "conservative leader" who is not actually leading in any credible polls these days, and the "Massachusetts moderate."

The long, proud tradition of aging rock stars suing republican candidates for using their songs on the trail continued today. Frank Sullivan, Survivor's only true survivor and co-author of the song "Eye of the Tiger," filed a lawsuit against Newt Gingrich, who has taken to entering political rallies while the Rocky theme blasts on the PA system.

Over the last week, as we approach tomorrow's contest in Florida, things have gotten pretty heated between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. They're fighting for the lead and lashing out at each other, while both are claiming that the other is sad and misguided. On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took a look at some of the highlights of their fight, with appropriate Mortal Kombat interstitials.

Here's former political person Sarah Palin continuing her weird quest to endorse Newt Gingrich without really endorsing him, telling weekend Fox News muppet Jeanine Pirro that Republicans should vote for Newt Gingrich now to "rage against the machine" and "annoy a liberal."

Newt Gingrich is not pulling any punches as he awaits his sure-to-be-staggering defeat by Mitt Romney in Florida. As reported by CNN, Gingrich made an appearance on ABC's This Week and said that Romney flat-out lied about his political past. Well, now I've heard everything.

Our old friend Herman Cain delighted the internet — if not the Gingrich campaign — by officially endorsing Newt Gingrich in Florida Saturday night. No, I can't say for sure that Gingrich didn't appreciate the plug, but I think the NBC News story said it best.

The 10th President of the United States, John Tyler, was born in 1790 and still has two living grandchildren. And one of them, 84-year-old Harrison Tyler — born 138 years after his grandfather — just got suckered into a Politico interview, in which he had much to say.

God, Newt Gingrich blew it so badly in last night's debate. After lobbying for several days to allow debate audiences to cheer again, and landing Wolf Blitzer, the most destructible sally of a debate moderator in world history, he simply allowed Mitt Romney to take advantage of the crowd and win the debate and couldn't even scream Wolf Blitzer back into his cubby hole of sadness once.

Here's yet another reason that a viable Newt Gingrich presidential candidacy is in America's best comedic interests: It brings out his fellow scumbag crooks that he's worked with over the years to pledge their loyalty for his Restoration.

Except for that one clip of the two teenage girls fighting out back in the circle pit while the mother encourages them on, this one from a Newt Gingrich rally is about as good as videos of annoying Floridians being annoying (at length) come. This lady shows up and heckles Gingrich monotonously and without interruption for minutes — the first couple of which Gingrich engages her — while she staves off everyone calling her a moron, an asshole, and so on, until the camera is swatted away.

Newt Gingrich was campaigning on Florida's Space Coast today when he decided, fuck it, I'm pandering: "By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American." Sure, why not. What about Mars? "Gingrich also said he would push to develop propulsion technology that would get man to Mars." He would merely "develop" the project. Such a cop-out.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has now hinted twice that she has some super lethal dirt on Newt Gingrich that would prevent him from ever becoming President of the United States. "There's something I know," she told CNN yesterday, mysteriously, bringing up all sorts of questions: How did he kill that mailman, and on which side of I-95 between Virginia exits 12 and 13 is he buried... or is it something else? But alas, she knows nothing beyond the infinite amount of dirt that's already in the public record.

Mitt Romney's tax returns are out, and so we've learned the truth: Mitt Romney is a rich person. Hadn't you always suspected? And because the first thing you want to be reading this Tuesday in January is a description of tax forms, here's your guide to Romney, his taxes, and the political effects thereof.

Mitt Romney is in trouble — he's losing to Newt Gingrich, the worst presidential candidate in history who isn't named Mitt Romney. What sort of indignant attacks will he pull on Gingrich tonight, now that he's vowed to stop being such a baby? Let's watch and discuss, together, in this Open Thread. The debate starts now at 9:00, on NBC.

This has been a remarkably entertaining Republican primary season. Amidst all the insanity, there is one thing that is so odd, unnatural, and reprehensible that it boggles my mind. No, I'm not talking about Rick Santorum. I'm talking about Callista Gingrich's hair. Her butter-blonde helmet is a feat of modern engineering. How does she get it just so?

Newt Gingrich is going to win the South Carolina presidential primary tomorrow. Not just because he yelled at two debate moderators for asking him debate questions this week, which brought him up about 20 percentage points in the polls. That wasn't enough to close the deal. But now that television survivalist Chuck Norris has endorsed him in a meditative World Net Daily piece, Romney's got no chance.

On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took stock of the latest issues hurting the campaigns of the Republican candidates. Newt Gingrich is dealing his ex-wife's open marriage claim, Rick Santorum never shared a couch with anyone but his wife, Mitt Romney didn't really win in Iowa, and things got so bad for Rick Perry that he bowed out this morning. Even Colbert has some problems: the Jon Stewart-lead Super PAC rolled out an ad attacking him yesterday. Who could have known that an off hand remark about Rosa Parks could ever be used against him?

The main focus of tonight's Daily Show was the ABC News bombshell that Newt Gingrich asked his second wife for an open marriage before eventually divorcing her, while she was sick to boot. It's not really all that surprising, Newt has always been on the side of the free market and less regulation. If only it didn't completely contradict his years of moralizing about traditional American values, particularly the sanctity of marriage.

This has already been the best day of shallow political horserace infotainment in the election cycle, and the evening bill of events hasn't even begun. There's a Republican debate between four candidates in South Carolina on CNN right now. It's going to be filthy and nasty and an embarrassment to humanity, hooray. At 11:30, ABC's interview with Newt Gingrich's second ex-wife, Marianne, will air and you perverts will love it. Here's your open thread, which we're trying out instead of a liveblog because why the hell not? Enjoy.

ABC News is out with this preview and some excerpts from its hotly anticipated interview with Newt Gingrich's (second) ex-wife, Marianne, that's set to air tonight. It's catastrophic.