1. I haven’t been successful working with Congress because I don’t attend enough Washington parties.

2. We have job losses because of ATMs.

3. It’s all George Bush’s fault.

4. Rich corporate jet owners are ruining the country.

5. I can’t raise taxes because of gridlock.

6. I inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression.

7. Only government can create jobs. We need more shovel ready projects.

8. I’ve saved or created [enter # here] jobs.

9. Anyone who opposes me is racist.

10.  The mean Republicans in Congress won’t compromise!

Liberal moderators of recent GOP debates have gone to great lengths to keep the candidates attacking each other and steer the discussion away from uncomfortable topics like the economy, the budget and the debt ceiling. George Snuffleupagus, Diane Sawyer, John King and Brian Williams have set the bar pretty high, so Wolf Blitzer will have to get very creative at the CNN debate in Jacksonville. Here are some questions Wolf can use to keep the focus off of Obama:

1. Do you think any of your opponents were beat up on the playground as a child? If so, why?
2. Newt said beet sugar is more important than cane sugar. Why would he say that? Which type of sugar do you think is more important?
3. Does Mitt Romney use the same hair gel as Jon Edwards? If so, should that disqualify him?
4. Where do you stand on contraception in gay households in states that don’t permit gay marriage?
5. If we can solve the problem of illegal aliens by relying on them to do self-deportation, can we also cut police department staffing and rely on self-arresting criminals?
6. Terri Schiavo died 7 years ago, but I don’t think Brian Williams fully explored the issue in the last debate. Do you think her parents had more right to make her medical decisions than her husband?
7. When Jeb Bush was Governor of Florida, he frequently held press conferences in both English and Spanish. Should we be conducting this debate in Spanish?
8. If elected President, would you have Margaritas in the White House served with or without salt?
9. Is it culturally sensitive for FSU to have the Seminole as their mascot?
10. Mitt—you hired undocumented workers as gardeners. Should all gardeners in Florida be subjected to self-deportation?
11. The University of North Florida doesn’t have a football team. Is that fair?
12. There is a famous photo of an alligator and an anaconda that got in a fight in the Everglades. Should the photographer who took the photo lose his health insurance for trespassing on federal property?
13. Should dependent children of undocumented workers be allowed to vote without showing ID?
14. Should Che Guevarra have been self-deported?
15. Boxers or briefs?

The mainstream media is doubling down on their attacks of Newt, accusing him of being “racist” because he called Obama a “Food Stamp President.” Yes, Newt said it. But nothing about that comment is racist. Newt didn’t mention race. He’s talking about Obama’s failed economic policies. He never mentioned race, but that isn’t stopping the mainstream media from inventing a race issue.

Everyone from NBC, CNN, New York Times and Washington Post are all jumping on the bandwagon, relentlessly accusing Newt of being racist. They even point out that there are fewer blacks on food stamps than whites. So what? Newt never mentioned race—the media did. Yes, black leaders are piling on, picking up the chorus that Newt is somehow racist and condemning him for something he didn’t say.

Perhaps liberals are over-sensitive because it strikes a little too close to home. When Kanye West made his famous speech “President Bush doesn’t like black people,” unemployment among black Americans was 8.2%. After three years under Obama, unemployment among black Americans is now 15.2%. But keep in mind, Newt didn’t even point that out. Newt simply said that liberal economic policies have failed and that people would rather have paychecks than food stamps. What’s racist about that?

I’m a conservative and I’m voting in the Florida primary on Jan 31st. Right now, Newt has my vote. If you want my vote, you’re going to have to earn it. You won’t get my vote attacking other Republican candidates. Everyone has baggage, and every candidate has drawbacks. I understand that. I’m well aware of Newt’s drawbacks and past scandals. Frankly, that’s not what I care about in this election. I care about electing a leader who can turn this country around and restore the liberties and entrepreneurial spirit that made our country great.

I want to be inspired. I want to believe that you’ll stand toe to toe with Obama and fight for conservative principles. I need to know that you’re with us, all in, 100%. Prove to me that you deserve my vote—not because the GOP establishment said so or because you raised more money—but because you can take the fight to Obama again and again. Convince me you have the passion and energy and conviction to turn this country around.

You won’t win my vote by attacking other Republicans. Attacking other GOP candidates isn’t helping you. If anything, that’s more likely to turn me away. Don’t waste millions of dollars on negative TV commercials attacking each other—that’s only doing Obama’s job for him—and it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. If you can’t win my support without attacking other conservatives, you won’t get my vote. Remember what’s at stake here. I want a candidate who will take the fight to Obama.

If South Carolina demonstrated anything, it’s that the American people don’t want to be told what to do. We won’t vote for someone because the party leaders tell us to, and we won’t vote against someone because of smear campaigns. I want a strong, inspirational leader who can turn this country around. Inspire me!

The focus on Romney’s tax returns seems to have caught him off guard, and he hasn’t done well at recent debates. Mitt appears to be on the defensive, and his attempts to side-step the issue made him sound awkward and uncomfortable. His problem now is that the longer he waits to release his tax returns, the more it looks like he has something to hide.

We all know Mitt Romney is rich. We also know he paid a much lower tax rate than most of us—whether it was due to capital gains or carried interest, a loophole in the tax code that lets VCs and hedge funds claim profits as long term capital gains at 15% instead of ordinary income at 35%. Now the mainstream media is spreading rumors that Mitt has money stashed in off shore bank accounts.

At this point, the accusations and innuendos won’t stop until Romney actually releases his tax returns. Holding out to avoid attacks because he’s wealthy won’t even postpone the inevitable—it will just stoke the fires and increase apprehension among voters. It’s not going to get any better if he wins the nomination, because Obama has a $1 billion war chest to attack him over the very same issue.

Instead of apologizing for his wealth, Romney should release his tax returns immediately and come back swinging, much like Newt did with the ABC expose. Instead of apologizing for making money, Mitt should defend the American dream, stressing that America is the land of opportunity where anyone can be successful with hard work. That’s what free enterprise is all about, and nobody should have to apologize for being successful.

You don’t see the media attacking Larry Page and Sergey Brin because Google made them billionaires, or Mark Zuckerberg because Facebook made him ridiculously wealthy. Romney shouldn’t be apologizing for his wealth—he should be stressing the opportunity every person in America has to pursue their dreams.

There’s still time for Mitt to get out in front of the wealth and class warfare issue, but he can’t do that by hiding from it. Bad news does not get better with age. He needs to stand up, take credit for his success and turn the issue to his advantage. Otherwise, he’s losing ground on an issue that should only be an Obama talking point.

During the 2008 campaign, the media never opened a debate in the Democrat primary by asking Hilary Clinton how missing documents from the Rose law firm showed up at the White House, or questioning her claim that she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia. Nor did they ever open a debate questioning Obama about his his cocaine use in college, his missing transcripts and birth certificate, or his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

When Newt fired back at an obvious media ambush during the opening question of the GOP debate in South Carolina, the mainstream media ratcheted up their attacks. Was it a coincidence that ABC decided to air their ‘surprise’ interview with Newt’s ex-wife after the last debate—and only hours before the South Carolina primary? Was it a coincidence that John King cited the ABC smear story to open the debate? Newt was right to be outraged, and his surge in support after his fiery answer shows that many voters feel the same way.

One thing is clear—the mainstream media isn’t even pretending to be impartial anymore. Republican candidates are constantly attacked and forced to defend themselves against every innuendo, while Obama gets a free pass on every issue. The double standard is now so obvious and so extreme that the media isn’t even making a pretense of being objective anymore.

After Newt fired back at ABC and CNN with both guns blazing, Ann Curry once again tried to ambush Newt during a live interview on NBC Today. First, she accused him of being racist because he called Obama a “food stamp President.” She went on to quote a New York Times editorial that implied that Newt and all South Carolina Republicans are racist:

“By mixing falsehoods with racial condescension, Newt Gingrich brought a raucous presidential debate crowd to its feet on Monday night in South Carolina, further cheapening his reputation and that of the state Republican Party…

In South Carolina, where a Confederate flag still waves on the front lawn of the State Capitol largely because of the efforts of the state Republican Party, it remains good primary politics to stir up racial animosity and then link it to President Obama.” –The New York Times

Curry wrapped up by asking Newt “Are you intentionally playing the race card to win votes?” Once again, Newt smacked down the liberal media ambush with a clear, forceful and passionate response:

“Modern liberals are totally off the deep end. When conservatives care about the poor and conservatives offer ideas to help the poor and conservatives suggest that the poor would rather have a paycheck than a food stamp, the very liberals who have failed them—at places like The New York Times—promptly scream ‘racism’ because they have no defense for the failure of liberal institutions which have trapped poor children in bad schools, trapped them in bad neighborhoods, trapped them in crime-ridden situations. Liberal solutions have failed, and their only answer is to yell ‘racism’ and hide.”

In their attack on Newt, both Ann Curry and The New York Times failed to mention that the confederate flag isn’t flying over the South Carolina Capitol—it’s across from the Capitol over a memorial to Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. And the compromise to fly the flag over the Confederate War Memorial was brokered by a Democrat governor more than a decade ago. This is not a Newt issue, and it’s not new issue. Now the liberal media is trying to use it to dismiss Newt’s surge in South Carolina by painting the whole state as racist. In their eyes, that might somehow diminish Newt’s success by convincing the rest of the country to ignore South Carolina completely.

We all know the mainstream media is biased. Now it seems they’re trying desperately just to remain relevant. Meanwhile, the surge in support for Newt after his smackdown of the liberal media is showing what everyone else already knows. The mainstream media is a joke.

Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich could use a simple, tried and true tactic to reignite their respective campaigns heading into South Carolina and Florida. Herman Cain rocketed to the top of the GOP field in part because his 9-9-9 plan struck a chord with mainstream Americans. Yes, there were other reasons, too, but the 9-9-9 plan certainly helped. It was bold, it was simple and it resonated with voters.

Another equally bold and very simple plan either Perry or Gingrich could adopt is Connie Mack’s Penny Plan (H.R. 1848). In a nutshell, the Penny Plan cuts one penny from every dollar of government spending per year for the next five years. How can anyone argue with the simplicity of a 1% cut?

The Penny Plan also incorporates the premises of Cut, Cap and Balance:

• It cuts one penny of every dollar of federal government spending from 2012-2017
• It caps spending at 18% of GDP beginning in 2018
• It balances the budget by 2019
• It saves taxpayers $7.5 trillion over the next decade.

With more than 60 co-sponsors and support from FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union, the plan makes sense. If either Gingrich or Perry adopted the Penny Plan, it would be a win-win. The high profile support could help actually turn the tide and help rein in spending. And the candidate adopting this plan would win. Like Cain’s 9-9-9, the Connie Mack’s Penny Plan is a bold, clear and simple plan that voters would love.

Mitt Romney isn’t my first choice for President. Or even my second. But I have a real problem with conservatives attacking him because some Bain Capital investments resulted in job losses. I’ve been running my own businesses for 24 years, and I’ve seen a lot of companies go by the wayside—including one of my own. That happens in business.

Blaming Romney because some companies Bain Capital invested in didn’t succeed is missing the whole point of free enterprise. Entrepreneurs take risks and start companies because they think they see an opportunity in the marketplace. Investors take a chance on companies because they think they’ll be successful. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. As Romney said, “Not all businesses succeed.”

Think about the flip side of that coin. The only way to keep companies from going out of business is for the government to prop them up. That’s exactly what the government did with GM—where billions of taxpayer dollars were shoveled at the company to avoid bankruptcy—and the company filed for bankruptcy protection anyway. If Solyndra isn’t competitive and can’t stand on its own, should it go out of business? Absolutely.

Should the government have propped up Circuit City and Borders? How about Blockbuster Video or Kodak? No way. If a company can’t compete and goes out of business, do you blame the investors who risked—and lost—their money investing in the company to begin with? Not if you have any concept of how business works.

The upside and the downside of the free market is that some companies succeed and some don’t. Companies that aren’t competitive or that can’t adapt to changes in the marketplace go out of business, replaced by others that are smarter, faster, leaner or more efficient. For every Blockbuster Video there’s a Netflix, for every Borders there’s an Amazon. That’s life in the free market.

If you want to criticize Romney over his political record, go right ahead. But don’t criticize him because a company his firm invested in laid off employees.  I don’t agree with some of the moves he made as Governor, and I have some concerns about his conservative principles. At the same time, I completely respect what he did as a business leader.

Trotting out someone who lost their job at a Bain Capital company as an indictment of Romney isn’t just foolish—it’s dangerous. That implies that we should prop up companies that can’t compete on their own. Liberals seem to love that logic, but conservatives shouldn’t go near it.