For presidential candidates, posing with supporters’ babies is a rite of passage as important as eating deep-fried state fair food or enduring endless debates. TIME celebrates this hallowed tradition with 34 photos of infants in varying states of joy, indifference and abject terror on the campaign trail in 2012.
TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.
“The Establishment is right to be worried about a Gingrich nomination,” the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary, declared Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Because a Gingrich nomination means that we’re going to change things, we’re going to make the Establishment very uncomfortable.” The Republican Establishment, such as it can be defined, is uncomfortable, alright.
TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.
Jim Ulmer has a problem. Hundreds of people are crammed into a strip mall in Orangeburg to hear Newt Gingrich speak, and the man of the moment is nowhere to be found. Which leaves a handful of local Republican officials–including Ulmer, the Orangeburg County GOP chairman–to warm up the fidgety crowd. “Is he here yet?” Ulmer jokes. “I’ve run out of spit.”
The CNN spaceship is set to launch, with blue gels on the lights that give the auditorium an alien aquarium vibe. It’s the 17th GOP debate of 2012 cycle. Roll the intro montage: “Welcome to the South, the heart of the Republican Party,” says the hokey disembodied voice, doing its best imitation of a Stephen Colbert send up, “where tradition lives and values matter.”
Newt Gingrich’s indignant response to the first question of Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate in South Carolina sucked every cubic centimeter of oxygen from the auditorium.
Rick Perry dropped out of the Republican presidential race and endorsed Newt Gingrich on Thursday morning, delivering a short, jaunty speech to supporters in South Carolina. ”I have come to the conclusion that there is no viable path forward for me … I am suspending my campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich,” he told supporters in [...]
As GOP presidential rivals compete in the notoriously nasty primary race in South Carolina, negative ad season is reaching its climax. Here is a comprehensive guide to all the mudslinging currently underway on Palmetto State airwaves.
Big crowd. Curdling screams in Myrtle Beach. You think this is a vacation town? Think again. This is the ultimate political fighting championship, a no-holds-barred blood sport. Little bear Bret Baier announces that Fox News has done away with the time-is-up sound. That’s how crazy the 16th GOP debate is going to be.
