The Iowa political director for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign resigned Tuesday for suggesting that evangelicals stood ready to help God "expose the cult of Mormon." Craig Bergman had been with Gingrich's campaign for only a week and now he's out of a job for speaking disparagingly about former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. Bergman, a "tea party...

Four of Gov. Nikki Haley’s staff members will testify about a state agency’s controversial decision to allow a Georgia port to expand after a state Senate panel took the unprecedented step Friday of subpoenaing them.“Yes, we will testify,” Rob Godfrey, Haley’s spokesman, said Friday. “And these senators will confirm, again, what they already know to be tru...

The Savannah River Maritime Commission, a board created by the Legislature four years ago to deal with port issues, said Monday the state Department of Health and Environmental Control doesn’t have the sole authority to grant a water-quality permit for a proposed new Savannah port, which that agency issued last week.The maritime commission’s unanimous vote Monday sets up a legal batt...

He is the man with the mustache who takes a rebellious drag on a cigarette in the Herman Cain Internet ad gone viral."We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen," he says before taking a puff. "But then America's never seen a candidate like Herman Cain."Meet Mark Block, Cain's unorthodox campaign manager. Perhaps no one is more responsible for the Georgia businessman's meteoric rise in the presi...

Their chief target is Wall Street, but many of the demonstrators in New York and across the U.S. also are thoroughly disgusted with Washington, blaming politicians of both major parties for policies they say protect corporate America at the expense of the middle class."At this point I don't see any difference between George Bush and Obama. The middle class is a lot worse than when Obama was electe...

The Tea Party movement roars into the Republican presidential spotlight tonight, as grassroots conservative-coalition members are scheduled to question GOP candidates at a Tampa, Fla., debate.The two-hour debate, co-sponsored by the Tea Party Express and CNN, promises to include some topics that rarely come up in national political forums, such as the candidates’ views of the Constitution a...

The government's labor dispute with Boeing Co. is turning into a political headache for President Barack Obama, giving his Republican rivals a fresh opening to bash the administration's economic policies.From congressional hearings to presidential debates, outraged Republicans are keeping up a steady drumbeat of criticism over the National Labor Relations Board's lawsuit against the aerospace gian...

The U.S. House of Representatives is a notoriously poor launching pad for presidential ambitions, but Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who formally kicked off her campaign Monday in the town where she was born, enters the contest for the 2012 Republican nomination with several strengths. They include deep family roots here in the first state to vote next winter, a strong conservative record tha...

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., -- a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate -- will speak at the Columbia Tea Party's State House rally on April 18, according to the group.Bachmann, an outspoken opponent of federal spending and the national health-care law, is one of the national faces of the Tea Party. Bachmann flirted with announcing a presidential run last month, before saying sh...

One of the first victims of Washington's new tough-on-spending culture is a historic preservation program that saved the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and preserved thousands of other fragile national treasures.A pet cause of then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Save America's Treasures" began in 1998 as a way to safeguard historical documents, films and artifacts such as the M...

Former U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle is slated to headline a Christian movie premiere in South Carolina in her latest whistle stop as a tea party-backed Republican weighing a future campaign.Organizers for the "The Genesis Code" movie premiere in Columbia, S.C. say Angle has agreed to come to the event on Feb. 18.Angle traveled to Iowa last month for another premiere of the conservative Chri...

Yet another government fell Tuesday to the rumblings of revolution that are sweeping the Middle East, as Jordan's King Abdullah II dismissed the country's prime minister and Cabinet after weeks of protests. The surprise move appeared aimed at pre-empting the types of massive protests that are under way in Egypt and Tunisia and are being planned in other Arab countries, including Yemen, Sudan, ...

Sarah Palin indirectly countered politicians trying to tie her political material to the weekend shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on Monday read what he said was the tea party favorite's e-mail to him in which she said she hates violence and war.According to Beck, Palin said: "Our children will not h...

When voters went to the polls two years ago, Nikki Haley was a South Carolina state representative mostly known for backing Gov. Mark Sanford's vetoes and stepping on toes in a push to force lawmakers to record every one of their votes.Alvin Greene was toiling away in the Army, an anonymous grunt with a string of bad performance reviews from an earlier stint in the Air Force. Tim Scott was a Charl...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski's stunning write-in victory was a political poke in the eye to Alaska's other favorite daughter, Sarah Palin.The former governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate backed scores of congressional and gubernatorial candidates this election, a sought-after endorsement that helped lift several Republicans to victory.But she and her husband, Todd, invested far more time and money ...

S.C. Republican Party chairman Karen Floyd will not seek a second term, according to Republican sources.Floyd has called an afternoon press conference.During Floyd’s two-year term Republicans captured all nine statewide constitutional offices, won a Congressional seat held by Democrats for two decades and built the largest Republican majority in the history of the S.C. House of Representative...

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint spent months using his hefty campaign account to vault from first-term U.S. Republican senator to national tea party rainmaker. Now, he faces voters in his own state.DeMint entered Tuesday's election with a massive lead in fundraising and in recent polls that underscore his popularity in a conservative state."I'm really fond of Jim DeMint, I think he's been courageous and bold...

Nikki Haley's victory in South Carolina's bruising GOP primary for governor moves the state lawmaker closer to becoming her state's first woman chief executive and America's first Sikh-born governor, while assuring her a place on the national political scene.Like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who immediately touched off presidential talk when he won his state's governorship, Haley's primary victory...

Two iconic political names - Campbell and Thurmond - stand out in the crowded field of hopefuls seeking the Republican nomination in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District.Paul Thurmond, son of the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, and Carroll Campbell III, son of the late Gov. Carroll Campbell, inherited the best-known names among the nine candidates in the June 8 primary for the GOP nomination...

Gov. Mark Sanford headlined a rally Thursday by tea party activists at the State House, warning Americans could "spend ourselves into oblivion."The rally, which drew about 1,000 people, was the second year in a row that tea party activists have gathered on April 15 - the day income taxes are due.Speakers also called for more accountability by state lawmakers, including recorded votes and disclosu...