Two Weekend Debates And New Economy Figures

Signs supporting various GOP candidates are seen planted on a grass covered median in Manchester, N.H. (AP)

GOP Presidential candidates have two debates this weekend in New Hampshire, where polls indicate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is still far ahead.

New polling numbers from CNN shows Gov. Romney will win 40 percent of likely republican voters in New Hampshire. In second place, Rep. Ron Paul has 18 percent; Sen. Rick Santorum trails in third place 11 percent despite a surprising showing in the Iowa caucus.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that GOP primary voters will eventually settle on a conservative alternative to Romney.

“I think you’ll eventually come down to one conservative and Gov. Romney and [Romney will] continue to get 25 percent.”

–Newt Gingrich

“Gradually you are going to see we have a difference of opinion about which will be the last conservative standing,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told reporters as in New Hampshire. “But I think you’ll eventually come down to one conservative and Gov. Romney and he’ll continue to get 25 percent.”

For his part, Romney is keeping his focus on President Obama, and leaving intraparty attacks to his new supporter, Sen. John Mccain.

Romney who he called President Obama a “crony capitalist and a job killer,” even as the latest numbers from the Labor Department indicate that employers added a net 200,000 jobs last month. This brings the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, the lowest since February 2009.

The unemployment rate fell for the 4th straight month.

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Guest

Rick Klien, political analysist at Topline

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BHA in Vermont

When are the Republican presidential candidates who blame Obama for the current economic state and unemployment rate going to tell us how they are going to force the “job creators” to create jobs when there is no demand for extra goods or services?