Do Mississippi and Alabama represent Newt Gingrich's last stand?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Today's Southern primaries - in Mississippi and Alabama - might be Newt Gingrich's last stand. Or not. But they probably should be. He's not going to be our next president.
The former House Speaker has staked much of his campaign on the South. His only two victories so far were in South Carolina and his home state of Georgia. And he's hoping to deliver two more today.
He should have an advantage in the South. But the polls say he doesn't. They show him virtually tied with Romney in both Alabama and Mississippi.
A piece in The Daily Beast suggests that even if Gingrich wins today it won't matter. Patricia Murphy writes that historically Republicans who won in the South alone were doomed - candidates from Barry Goldwater to Mike Huckabee.
She describes a Southern strategy as a "recipe for disaster... not a path to the nomination."
CNN's Howard Kurtz also writing in The Daily Beast suggests that the media drumbeat for Gingrich's exit is growing louder because we want the race to go on longer. If Gingrich and Rick Santorum keep splitting the conservative vote, Romney is likely to wrap things up sooner, rather than later.
One top Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham, already says the race is "about over." Graham says that it's Romney's to lose due to his commanding delegate lead. CNN estimates that Romney has 459 delegates compared to 203 for Santorum and 118 for Gingrich.
But back to Newt. He says even if he doesn't have a "good day" today, he will stick around until the convention in Tampa. Maybe not.
If Gingrich loses in one or both Southern states today money might become harder to get; and without money, he goes nowhere.
Here’s my question to you: Do Mississippi and Alabama represent Newt Gingrich's last stand?
Tune in to the Situation Room at 4pm to see if Jack reads your answer on air.
And, we love to know where you’re writing from, so please include your city and state with your comment.
In light of recent events, what's the point of staying in Afghanistan?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
How much is enough?
The United States has been in Afghanistan for more than 10 years. And President Obama insists we will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014.
Why?
What will be accomplished by staying in that godforsaken hellhole for another 20 months that hasn't been accomplished in 10.5 years?
Events are beginning to conspire against the U.S. mission there. We had pictures of U.S. Marines urinating on dead bodies. We had the accidental burning of copies of the Quran, which further inflamed the hatred of the American presence there.
And now we have a U.S. soldier allegedly massacring 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children. The Taliban are threatening to begin beheading U.S. soldiers in response to this latest outrage.
Yet the Obama White House is insisting that none of this will deter us from our mission, which is what exactly? I have no idea what the hell we're doing there anymore. Isn't Osama bin Laden dead?
The Karzai government is a puppet regime that is barely friendly to our government, and the rest of the country hates our guts. Not unlike the way we might feel if an army of occupation had taken up residence in the United States and begun desecrating our dead, burning our Bibles and massacring our women and children.
Not to be cynical, but it's my nature. The one thing that might hasten our departure from Afghanistan is if Obama's re-election campaign is in trouble come Labor Day.
Suddenly with his second term in doubt, my guess is he might decide to move up the timetable for bringing our troops home. Hey, whatever it takes.
I don't know about you, but I've had a bellyful of Afghanistan.
Tune in to the Situation Room at 5pm to see if Jack reads your answer on air.
And, we love to know where you’re writing from, so please include your city and state with your comment.
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