Rick santorum who is he learjet

And we are tracking that two-ship convoy trying to bring more than a million gallons of fuel to ice bound Nome, Alaska, before the town runs out. The American icebreaker and Russian tanker are still about miles out. But after cutting through 50 miles of ice on Monday, they only made it 50 feet yesterday. It is the first-ever to supply fuel to the Arctic Alaska through sea ice. And the company that brings us Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and other iconic treats has filed for bankruptcy.

But Hostess brand says the stocks will keep coming while it reorganizes, with no plans to layoff workers or close plans.

The company based in Irving, Texas, was founded at the beginning of the Great Depression in and employs some 19, people.

So good news, I know for some folks. The Twinkies will survive -- Wolf. All right. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks very much. A tale of two campaigns in South Carolina. Can Jon Huntsman gain any ground after gambling on New Hampshire? And can Newt Gingrich regain his footing in the conservatives' stronghold? Joe Johns is standing by to join us. We'll assess as well in our strategy session.

Plus, a brazen bombing in the heart of Tehran, who is beyond the latest hit on an Iranian nuclear scientist. They've come to bury a year-old man they say was killed by pro-government gunmen.

Here are some stories we're working out for our next hour: Cameras were rolling when a French journalist was killed in the violence in the uprising in Syria. It's the first death of a Western reporter. We'll talk about his disappointing finish in New Hampshire and his strategy in South Carolina. He's joining us live.

Dozens of bus crashes all the caught on videotape. And the video has just been released, raising serious concerns about public transport in a major U.

Stand by. A new battle is under way in South Carolina. As Mitt Romney tries to roll up the opposition, some of his rivals are fighting to survive and they're fighting hard. Let's go live South Carolina. CNN's Joe Johns is already on the scene for us. Joe, what's going on?

Coming down pretty much on the side of Mitt Romney, quite frankly, saying in his view some of the rhetoric needs to be cooled down when talking about Bain Capital. Investment banks, he says, you can't be for free market capitalism and against the banks at the same time.

Again, as I said, his first event coming off that third-place showing in New Hampshire, he was greeted by a large standing room only crowd on the top floor of a business school here on the campus and received very well.

Nonetheless, it's a real uphill battle for him here in South Carolina because there are so many Evangelicals, so many value voters, and others, including Tea Partiers who don't seem to be really in the Jon Huntsman wheelhouse.

On the other hand, there is Newt Gingrich who actually flew out to South Carolina last night after his final event in New Hampshire. He was banging away at the issue of Bain Capital. Crony capitalism where people pay each other off at the expense of the country is not free enterprise and raising questions about that is not wrong.

Listen to this web ad. This is a completely airtight kennel mounted on the top of our car. He climbed up there regularly, enjoyed himself. He was in kennel at home a great of time as well.

We love the dog. It was where he was comfortable. We had five kids inside the car. My guess is he liked it a lot better in the kennel than he would have liked it inside. So you see that. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich has one more thing out there, that would be a fundraising letter to people here in South Carolina.

Stressing the urgency of the moment, telling people there's no more time for talking about Mitt Romney and making the case that if it doesn't happen next week in South Carolina, Romney is almost certainly going to be the nominee for the Republican Party.

They're probably going to very, very ugly. I wrote about that on my blog post today as well. Thanks very much, Joe. Let's dig a little deeper right now on our "Strategy Session. Guys, thanks very much for coming in. Alice, let me start with you. Romney is a little more moderate than several of the other Republican candidates. Here's the question -- since the Tea Party and other more conservative members of the Tea Party and elsewhere were doing well, why is Romney doing as well as he is?

One thing to your point, things are going to start getting really dirty in South Carolina. Politics is a blood sport there. Things are going to start getting dirty. But as we saw in New Hampshire, this is the home of the live free or die state.

They're a little bit more independent thinking. As things transition into South Carolina, we're going to get down into the bible belt.

As I learned working with Governor Huckabee in '08, the message changes dramatically. You come down to the south and you're talking about Gods and guns, but still Romney is doing well.

There are several reasons behind that. First of all, money. You can't deny the fact that money is a big factor in being able to put ads on there and also helping with staff and organization, but also he's got the money and the momentum from doing well in Iowa as well as New Hampshire.

But more importantly there's interesting numbers that came out of exit polling last night, Wolf. People were asked of all of the candidates, who would you be most satisfied with if they were the nominee. And given all of that, Romney came out 61 percent far ahead of the others. So they're looking at does he have the money to carry on and take on Obama? Certainly people are satisfied with him even though he is a little bit more moderate than the others.

They're still satisfied thinking that he can take on President Obama. Jamal, you like James Carville and a whole bunch of other Democrats that I've been speaking these past few days that simply assume that Mitt Romney has it wrapped up? He's got the organization.

He's got the money. It looks like he's going to probably get to the finish line, but I will give a caveat here, which is that South Carolina is the place where presidential ambitions go to die for a lot of people. I think Newt Gingrich is in the smacking business right now. It's a pretty tough ad on Mitt Romney. If he gets the nomination, will they simply sit on their hands, stay out of it? Not energize the base, what do you think? We've had all along throughout this GOP primary.

We had basically two campaigns. We've had the Romney campaign and the anti-Romney campaign. All the other candidates are basically in that field. But at the end of the day, the GOP voters and conservatives out there, they don't want their votes to go to waste.

They're going to vote for the person they see will have the means, resources and the message to beat Barack Obama regardless of anything else. So if Romney is the nominee, we're going to see Tea Party people. We're going to see the faith community. We're going to see all conservatives joined together. Because they want to the stand behind the candidate that will take Barack Obama on and move him out of the White House and get the conservative message in there regardless of any other thing aside from that.

Most importantly they want Barack Obama to be a one-term president. He won that battle, but he's got to be careful because I think he's on the verge of losing a broader war, which is the war to define himself. He has yet to come up with an answer to the Bain Capital, one percenter, manager critique that we're starting to hear from his rivals as well as from the Democrats.

If he doesn't, he's in danger of happening to him what happened to John Kerry in when he got swift voted. His billions also have the potential to alienate large swaths of the electorate. And his Republican rivals have labeled him an ego-driven celeb and an electoral sideshow because of his all-over-the-map policy history — much of which agrees with today's Democrats — and his past enthusiasm for anti-Obama 'birtherism.

Ben Carson Retired Physician. Religion: Seventh-day Adventist. Base: Evangelicals. Founder of the Carson Scholars Fund, which awards scholarships to children of good character. University of Michigan Medical School.

Family: Married to Candy Carson , with three adult sons. The Carsons live in Maryland with Ben's elderly mother Sonya, who was a seminal influence on his life and development. Claim to fame: Carson spoke at a National Prayer Breakfast in , railing against political correctness and condemned Obamacare — with President Obama sitting just a few feet away.

Achilles heel: Carson is inflexibly conservative, opposing gay marriage and once saying gay attachments formed in prison provided evidence that sexual orientation is a choice. Ted Cruz Texas senator. Religion : Southern Baptist. Base: Tea partiers. Former Texas solicitor general. Supreme Court clerk. Former associate deputy attorney general under President George W. Princeton University. Harvard Law School. Family: Married to Heidi Nelson Cruz , with two young daughters.

His father is a preacher and he has two half-sisters. Claim to fame: Cruz spoke on the Senate floor for more than 21 hours in September to protest the inclusion of funding for Obamacare in a federal budget bill. The bill moved forward as written.

He has called for the complete repeal of the medical insurance overhaul law, and also for a dismantling of the Internal Revenue Service. Cruz is also outspoken about border security.

Achilles heel: Cruz's father Rafael, a Texas preacher, is a tea party firebrand who has said gay marriage is a government conspiracy and called President Barack Obama a Marxist who should 'go back to Kenya.

Jim Gilmore Former Virginia governor. Former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Army intelligence agent. Board member of the National Rifle Association. University of Virginia. Family: Married to Roxane Gatling Gilmore , with two adult children. GIlmore is a survivor of Hodgkin's lymphoma. He is nest known in Virginia for eliminating most of a much-maligned personal property tax on automobiles, working with a Democratic-controlled state legislature to get it passed and enacted. Achilles heel: Gilmore is the only GOP or Democratic candidate for president who has been the chairman of his political party, giving him a rap as an 'establishment' candidate.

A social-conservative crusader, he is loathed by the left for championing the state law that established hour waiting periods for abortions. Gilmore also has a reputation as an indecisive campaigner, having dropped out of the presidential race in July Mike Huckabee Former Arkansas governor.

Former Fox News Channel host. Ordained minister and author. Ouachita Baptist University. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary did not finish. Family: Married to Janet Huckabee , with three adult children. Huckabee is a survivor of spinal cancer. Claim to fame: 'Huck' is a political veteran and has run for president before, winning the Iowa Caucuses in and finishing second for the GOP nomination behind John McCain.

Achilles heel: Huckabee may have a problem with female voters. He complained in about Obamacare's mandatory contraception coverage, saying Democrats want women to 'believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar. John Kasich Ohio governor. Religion : Anglican. Former chairman of the U. House Budget Committee. Former Ohio congressman. Former Ohio state senator. The Ohio State University. Family: Married to Karen Waldbillig Divorced from Mary Lee Griffith Claim to fame: Kasich was Ohio youngest-ever member of the state legislature at age He's known for a compassionate and working-class sensibility that appeals to both ends of the political spectrum.

In the s when Newt Gingrich led a Republican revolution that took over Congress, Kasich became the chairman of the House Budget Committee — a position for a wonk's wonk who understands the nuanced intricacies of how government runs.

Achilles heel: Some of Kasich's political positions rankle conservatives, including his choice to expand Ohio's Medicare system under the Obamacare law, and his support for the much-derided 'Common Core' education standards program.

Rand P aul Kentucky senator. Base: Libertarians. Board-certified ophthalmologist. Former congressional campaign manager for his father Ron Paul. Education: Baylor University did not finish. Duke University School of Medicine. Family: Married to Kelley Ashby , with three sons. His father is a former Texas congressman who ran for president three times but never got close to grabbing the brass ring. Claim to fame: Paul embraces positions that are at odds with most in the GOP, including an anti-interventionist foreign policy, reduced military spending, criminal drug sentencing reform for African-Americans and strict limits on government electronic surveillance — including a clampdown on the National Security Agency.

Achilles heel: Paul's politics are aligned with those of his father, whom mainstream GOPers saw as kooky. Both Pauls have advocated for a brand of libertarianism that forces government to stop domestic surveillance programs and limits foreign military interventions.

Rick Santorum Former Penn. Former lobbyist who represented World Wrestling Entertainment. They promised to slow the revolving door that turns politicians into lobbyists with free passes to the congressional gym.

Republicans said they would try to shut down the so-called loophole, a funding mechanism that wealthy Democrats in particular have exploited. In apparent response, Democrats vowed to end no-bid contracts for companies like Halliburton. As an opening salvo, it was not entirely insignificant.

But all the rhetoric hardly provided a blueprint for ending the Capitol's "culture of corruption. They can begin by taking a good long look in the mirror at their own ties to K Street, the downtown strip of office buildings bursting with more than 30, lobbyists. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, an appropriations cardinal who is no stranger to the lobbying game, put it a bit more bluntly on Wednesday, "You know part of the problem is us," he told a Senate committee.

So what does real reform look like? There is no simple answer or silver bullet. If history is any judge, each round of ethics reforms lasts only a few years before lobbyists, lawyers and lawmakers pierce it full of holes.

But ethics crusaders still hope to capitalize on this rare political moment, hurled forth on a powerful wave of corruption scandals plaguing the Republican Party. Lawmakers may just be willing to confront their own failings. That said, it's still an open question whether the final reforms, which are likely to be passed before the summer, will be anything more than cosmetic. For those keeping score at home, here is a list of five changes to look for in the coming months.

If you see some version of them pass the floor of the House or Senate, you will know that the chance for substantial reform has not been wasted on indignant press conferences. Stan Brand, a former Democratic counsel to the House, explains the problem this way: "If people are breaking the speed limit, the way to change that is to give tickets, not change the speed limit.

But in recent years, no one on Capitol Hill, particularly no one on the Ethics Committees, has shown an interest in handing out speeding tickets. With few exceptions, Republicans and Democrats still maintain an unofficial cease-fire, allowing all manner of violations to go unpunished unless federal prosecutors take interest. Part of the problem is that few in Congress want to serve on these enemy-making committees. If they do take the position, they risk banishment for doing their job.

Joel Hefley of Colorado. A former ranch hand who still raises quarter-horses on the range, he chastised House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for three instances of unethical behavior. Within a year, Hefley was bounced from his chairmanship, though he remains in Congress. The committees are now entirely AWOL. There have been no ethics inquiries into the Abramoff scandal or into the case of Rep.

Duke Cunningham, a Republican of California, who recently pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy to commit bribery. Similarly, Rep. Rick Santorum. February 9, , PM. In this article:. Story continues. Celebrity In The Know by Yahoo. Celebrity People. Politics The Daily Beast.

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