Gingrich, 67, acknowledged during a Wednesday night interview with Sean Hannity that it won’t be easy to unseat Obama, but that the President’s liberal policies needed to be replaced by conservative values that will assure growth within the domestic energy industry.

“I think that this country has enormous potential to break out … but it is not a future we are going to get to until we clear away the liberal policies, the liberal bureaucracies and the Washington-centered system,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich will return to the Hawkeye State next week on a multi-city tour that includes stops in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque.

Throughout his life, Gingrich said, he’s preached citizenship, so not to run would be a “fraud.”

“We have to win the argument that President Obama has the wrong policies and those have led to the wrong outcomes,” he said.

“I think we are going to have a very clear, very vivid choice.”

Despite chalking the options before Americans up as a choice, Gingrich said that Obama will be difficult to beat.

“He will be, because, first of all, he’s going to say whatever he needs to to win,” Gingrich said. “Second, he’s going to have all the advantages of the mainstream media. He’s going to have all the advantages of left-wing billionaires like George Soros. He’s going to have all the advantages of the Hollywood crowd, and they are going to go out — and all the advantages of the unions. So they are going to try to raise a billion dollars for a very practical reason: He can’t afford to run a fair election. If he was on an equal playing field, he’d lose … on his record, on his values, on his beliefs.”

The media, Hannity noted, has already made mention of Gingrich’s past, including his personal life, and Gingrich responded that conservatives “aren’t going to get an even break from the elite media” and that “most Americans will look past the elite media.”

Gingrich said he would create a new contract with America by working with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

“President Obama should be ashamed of himself,” Gingrich said. “The President of the United States, a year and a half before an election, to deliberately use dishonest scare tactics demeans the United States of America. He said things about [U.S. Rep.] Paul Ryan’s budget that were falsehoods, and he said things that were deliberately divisive. He did the same thing in El Paso on immigration … by saying ‘I really want to work with you, but let me go out and lie about you for a while now.’”

Yet, his most vehement criticism was reserved for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who Gingrich described as “consistently wrong.” Members of the U.S. House, he said, should “investigate what his beliefs are.”

Hannity asked Ellison about a statement he made recently: “I think if you listen to Fox News, the station 24-7 is trying to incite and divide Americans along religious lines, scapegoating the Muslim community, and this is a sort of well-worn, right-wing tactic.”

Hannity asked, “This is an incredible charge. This is a charge of bigotry. Can you give me a specific example?”

“I don’t apologize for it,” Ellison said. “If you are telling me you are going to be more even-handed on issues of religious tolerance, that’s a good step, and I thought that by inviting me here, I thought that’s what you were trying to do.”

Ellison didn’t have any specific examples available, but Media Matters did. A good example was Hannity’s criticism of Ellison for taking his oath of office on the Qur’an.

At the time Hannity said Ellison’s oath “will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones” and suggested that using the Qur’an for a swearing-in is comparable to using “Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which is the Nazi bible.”

“When you only identity terrorism and extremism with one religion, I think that’s too bad,” Ellison told Hannity. “We are at war with violent extremists who would kill Americans, they might be Muslims, they might be white supremacists, they might be people who would kill at abortion clinics. We are trying to protect Americans from any violent extremists, Muslim, Christian or Jewish, anybody.”

Watch it:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

In fact, in an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America Wednesday, Bachmann, a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2012, told George Stephanopoulos that the certificate of live birth issued by Obama presidential campaign more than three years ago “should settle it” and that she “takes the President at his word.”

Upon further follow-up by Stephanopoulos, Bachmann replied that Obama’s place of birth “is not the main issue facing the United States right now” and that the focus should be on the national deficit.

Earlier in the week, however, Bachmann, appearing on Fox News with Jeanine Pirro, seemed to place importance on the ongoing “birtherism” conspiracy, saying that “all [Obama] had to do is just answer some questions.”

“I think the president has neglected to focus on answering that question for people, and that’s why a lot of people still have it lingering in their minds,” she added.

The assertion that Obama had not done enough to alleviate concerns about his place of birth was also a topic Bachmann discussed during another interview this week with Sean Hannity of Fox News.

“This has to be the easiest problem to solve,” Bachmann told Hannity. “All the President has to do is show [his birth certificate].”

A poll released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling found that 48 percent of Iowa Republicans continue to question Obama’s place of birth.

One of those Iowans is state Sen. Kent Sorenson, a key Bachmann 2012 supporter, who filed a bill that hoped to require all presidential candidates to place their birth certificate on file. Bachmann, questioned by Stephanopoulos about the Iowa proposed legislation, seemed to agree with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer that such state-level laws were not appropriate, but that she would support a change in federal law.

“There is a federal piece of legislation that hasn’t gone anywhere that would also require that candidates put forward their birth certificate. I have no problem giving my birth certificate, it wouldn’t bother me at all. I’ve got one, it’s authenticated, take it,” Bachmann said.

The ABC News exchange from Wednesday morning is embedded below:

After a question by O’Reilly about the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in transitioning a government for Egypt, Luntz began to ask the Iowa Republicans why the meters showed them all having such a negative reaction to Obama’s answers.

One woman said she believed the president’s religious convictions guide his policies. When Luntz asked her to clarify, she said, “I believe that he is a Muslim.”

Luntz then asked the rest of the group how many believed Obama is Muslim. About a dozen, or nearly half, raised their hands.

“Now do you understand the implications of what you’re saying here,” Luntz began to ask. “What the media’s going to say about this group and about the Iowa Caucus voters in the future. Do you realize what you’re opening up here?”

After that comment, several other members of the focus group said they believed Obama’s religious belief is “liberalism,” which they said was “the most intolerant of all.”

The president is of course Christian, but some of the Republicans said they did not believe him.

This isn’t the first time Iowa has garnered headlines for questions about the president’s faith. Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s three representatives on the Republican National Committee, was criticized last summer when she publicly questioned the president’s religion. In response, several prominent Iowa Republicans sounded off, with state Sen. Sandy Greiner saying she respects the point of view of anyone who says the president is a Muslim.

Gov. Terry Branstad said at the time that he would take the president at his word that he’s a Christian.

Luntz’ panels have been criticized as seeming too far right to be an accurate representation of any segment of the US population. The Pulitzer-prize winning website PolitiFact said Luntz coined the “Lie of the Year” in 2010, with the phrase “government takeover of health care.”

Luntz previously complained his airtime had been cut on Fox because his findings didn’t comport with the outlet’s orthodoxy, resulting from focus groups he conducted that ended up favoring Obama.

Also, on cable Monday night, on MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell concluded O’Reilly had interupted the president 43 times during the interview.

Yesterday evening, however, as I report today in my story about O’Donnell’s chances, Palin made things official. The former Alaska governor announced her endorsement on Sean Hannity’s radio program and also on her Facebook page. ”We can’t afford ‘more of the same’ in Washington,” she wrote. “Christine will help usher in the real change we need to get America on the right track.”

But with less than four days until the Delaware GOP primary, will it really matter? Palin’s endorsements throughout the midterm season have received a lot of attention, but she’s only batting about .500 when it comes to the success of her chosen ‘mama and papa grizzlies.’ Chris Good at The Atlantic, for one, thinks the endorsement might have less to do with Palin’s feelings about O’Donnell or her chances on Tuesday and more about simple repayment to Tea Party Express, the group that backed her up in launching Joe Miller over Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) in Alaska.

There’s no doubt that Palin’s endorsement will focus still more national attention on the Delaware race and maybe help even out the fundraising deficit that O’Donnell faces. Even with the Tea Party Express pledging to to spend $250,000 on O’Donnell’s behalf, it doesn’t come close to Rep. Mike Castle’s (R-Del.) haul of $3.2 million, the bulk of which he is reported to still have on hand.

But national attention, I point out in my article, is not what O’Donnell lacks. The Tea Party Express and the national media, both eager talk up a possible upset in Delaware for different reasons, saw to that several weeks ago, and the increased scrutiny has done nearly as much to hurt her campaign as it’s helped.

On the local level, her endorsement will only work if it drives turnout among the O’Donnell faithful (mostly in southern Delaware), but it’ll backfire if it provokes more moderate Republican voters (mostly in the more populous northern part of the state) to realize the stakes of the election and come out in droves for Castle. Because O’Donnell and the Tea Party Express had already succeeded in getting the conservative base excited and eager to vote well before Palin ever got involved, my bet is that the nod will do more to energize her opponents that her supporters.

Senate hopeful Christine O'Donnell stands with Tea Party protesters in Delaware. (O'Donnell campaign)

After Tea Party candidate Joe Miller’s shocking upset over Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) in Alaska’s Republican Senate primary, the media’s attention shifted quickly to an unlikely location — the politically staid state of Delaware. Seemingly overnight, the press discovered Christine O’Donnell, the perennial (and unsuccessful) far-right candidate challenging longtime Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.). Why? Because the Tea Party Express, a California-based organization increasingly picking winners and influencing races, endorsed O’Donnell. It promised to spend whatever it would take for her to win. So, all eyes turned to the first state.

[Congress1] “But wait, it gets better,” read the group’s pitch to its supporters in its official endorsement. “This is a Special Election, meaning that the winner will be seated the day after the election — which means Christine O’Donnell could be the deciding vote in the U.S. Senate to block the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda during the ‘lame duck’ session after November’s elections, but before the new Congress is sworn in.”

Fresh off a thrilling victory in Alaska, the Tea Party Express is seeking to carry its momentum into Delaware. But while the group’s endorsement and cash infusions into the election have raised O’Donnell’s profile, they have also ginned up additional scrutiny on the candidate. The attention has raised the hopes of Tea Party groups in the area, and might lead in more donors and voters. But it has also led political activists and journalists to dredge up more than a few questions about her fitness for office, lowering her chances of a win on Tuesday.

When the Tea Party Express endorsed O’Donnell, immediately, some expected what happened in Alaska to happen in Delaware. The states do have promising similarities. Both states have small populations where outside groups can have big impacts. Both have closed GOP primaries that block independents from voting and therefore provide an opportunity for conservative frustration to win the day. And in both states, the GOP endorsed a candidate with a host of moderate stances that made Tea Party groups simply furious.

Republicans’ relative moderation led Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, to endorse O’Donnell on Thursday, on Sean Hannity’s radio program and her Facebook page. There, Palin wrote: “The wave of positive change can really sweep across our land with the election of Constitutional Conservatives who promise to use common sense and rein in the federal government spending! Please support Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. She will support efforts for America’s energy security, patient-centered health care reform, cutting government waste, and letting the private sector thrive and prosper! We can’t afford ‘more of the same’ in Washington. Christine will help usher in the real change we need to get America on the right track.”

“I was hesitant for a while but I’ve since jumped on board,” says local Delaware Tea Party State Coordinator Chris Shirley on her decision to get behind O’Donnell. “I cannot hold my nose and vote for Mike Castle. I told [the state GOP] I’d even consider voting Democrat so at least I’d know what I’m getting.”

Despite his conservative credentials on most issues, Castle’s votes in favor of cap and trade legislation and abortion rights made him anathema to the state’s small but devoted conservative population, which, according to Shirley, has been organizing to get out the vote.

“We’re going to try to get every vote out we can,” Shirley notes. “I’m not going to tell people which candidate to get the vote out for, but I’m going to try to get the conservative vote out. We want to get conservatives to go vote and make it evident that… this is one election that we need you to come out for.”

Meanwhile, the out-of-state funding provided by Tea Party Express has begun pouring in. The most recent Federal Election Commission electronic filings indicate the group has spent at least $69,000 on advertisements attacking Castle and over $78,000 on communications supporting O’Donnell. It’s still small change compared to the group’s outlays in Alaska, but the burst of spending so close to the primary date has been enough to get O’Donnell’s campaign off the ground by getting her on the airwaves.

“Do I think she has a following here in Delaware? Absolutely,” Russ Murphy, founder and director of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots, argues, though he declined to estimate the size of his own organization. Polls seemed to show it: One by NSON Opinion Research for Tea Party Express had O’Donnell close to Castle, 36 percent to 44. If you singled out only the likeliest voters, the poll added, Castle’s lead shrunk to a mere two percentage points.

But the attention brought scrutiny, and O’Donnell has not held up well under the increased media pressure. Media picked up a March story in The News Journal on her finances, revealing that she had at one point or still did owe money on her previous home mortgage, to the IRS, and to her former university. The article went on to note that O’Donnell possessed thousands of dollars in campaign debt from previous unsuccessful runs at office and was paying rent on her residence with campaign funds because she was using it as a headquarters.

Meanwhile, the state GOP lambasted O’Donnell for erroneous claims she had made about winning two out of three counties when she had run in Delaware in her previous 2008 race against Joe Biden, then a senator.
“O’Donnell is hoping that voters have a short-term memory and ignore her record in Delaware,” said Tom Ross, Delaware GOP Chairman, in a statement. “Sadly, Christine continues to avoid the tough questions and will spin her own reality with the hope that the national press won’t catch on.”

News of O’Donnell’s financial difficulties alone might not have done much to diminish her base of support — “The majority of the people look at it and say who amongst us isn’t having trouble?” argues Murphy — but the O’Donnell camp’s less-than-gracious responses to such accusations have only served to further alienate mainstream Republican voters from her cause.

When conservative talk-show host Dan Gaffney pressed O’Donnell on some of the criticisms levied against her, O’Donnell suggested he was being “paid off” by Castle’s camp. Likewise, when the Weekly Standard inquired as to her housing situation, O’Donnell alluded to another home but refused to disclose its location, alleging that her previous residence had been burgled and vandalized by political foes.

“In 2008 they broke into my home,” O’Donnell said, though she admits she filed no police report at the time or ever. “They vandalized my home. They wrote nasty notes on my front door, on my front porch. They jeopardized my safety. They did the same thing to our campaign office. They broke into our campaign office. They vandalized our campaign office. They stole files. My campaign signs that had my picture—they put a spear in my mouth poked out my eyes, and cut out the part of my heart, and wrote nasty names all over those campaign signs.”

Then came the final straw for some Republicans. Recently departed campaign staffers of O’Donnell produced a video on Liberty.com that casually asserted Mike Castle was having a gay affair. The completely unsubstantiated claim, along with the O’Donnell camp’s weak disavowal, provoked outrage from many conservatives, including some who had supported her heartily in the past.

“[W]ithout proof it is meaningless and even with proof it is a distraction from the issues and not helpful to tea party activists or Christine O’Donnell. It’s amateur hour,” wrote Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com and previous O’Donnell enthusiast. “The O’Donnell campaign, whether they wanted to or not, needed to respond to this aggressively. But then it looks like it is amateur hour there too.”

Further compounding O’Donnell’s woes is her tenuous connection to the state that she’s campaigning to represent. Local Tea Party groups are by no means a powerhouse in the state, and while Tea Party Express has been funnelling money into numerous ads and rallies, it has mainly been relying on out-of-state funds and organizers to make things happen.

“I think what they’re doing is working through Tea Party groups, some of them in Pennsylvania,” notes Murphy of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots. “It’s the [Philadelphia] Center City Tea Party, but I could be wrong. It’s the Tri-state Tea Party also. We have emails back and forth between the Tea Parties and our group.”

O’Donnell’s individual campaign contributions reflect the same pattern of paltry in-state support. A survey by TWI reveals that out of 83 individual donors to her 2010 campaign listed on the FEC website, only nine list their home address in Delaware. One of the nine is O’Donnell herself, who has twice donated money to her campaign. By way of comparison, 141 of 161 donations from individuals received by Joe Miller were from native Alaskans.

Despite her many difficulties, no one is counting O’Donnell out. Mike Castle is up with a brutal ad rehashing some of the criticisms levied at her by the News Journal, and Republican operatives have found the situation sufficiently troubling to leak juicy tidbits about O’Donnell to news outlets in Washington and beyond. But O’Donnell’s lack of the element of surprise is part of the problem. Her campaign, once in desperate need of the limelight, now appears on the verge of being undone by those same factors that launched her into contention.

Which Republicans are working to undermine traditional marriage? It’s unclear to me — perhaps Meghan McCain and GOProud, and then I’m out of ideas.

From Crew’s press release:

CREW’s IRS complaint against Freedom Alliance asks the IRS to consider revoking its charitable tax status because the organization has engaged in prohibited political activities.  When Freedom Alliance first formed in 1999, the IRS conditioned its charitable tax status on the organization removing politically partisan materials from its website and warned it not to intervene in political campaigns.  Despite those warnings, Freedom Alliance’s website includes links to Lt. Col. North’s columns, which are largely political, rents its mailing list to a communications firm that works for organizations that “seek to reach Republicans and conservatives across the United States,” and hosts an annual “Freedom Cruise” with Republican politicians such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.  In addition, Freedom Alliance appears to have a relationship with Team America, a PAC formed by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), dedicated to anti-immigration efforts and supporting conservative candidates.

Here’s the filing:

According to its 2006 tax returns, Freedom Alliance reported revenue of $10,822,785, but only $397,900–or a beyond-measly 3.68%–of that was given to the children of fallen troops as scholarships or as aid to severely injured soldiers.

On the other hand, 62% of the money went to “expenses,” including $979,485 for “consultants” and an “advisor.” Yes, consultant/advisors got more than double what injured troops and the kids of fallen troops got. The tax forms show that “New World Aviation” got paid $60,601 for “air travel.” Was that for Hannity’s G5? Like I said, neither the charity nor Hannity is talking. And finally, that year, Freedom Alliance spent $1,730,816 on postage and shipping and $1,414,215 on printing, for a total of $3,145,031, nearly half the revenue the charity spent that year and about eight times what the injured troops and the children of fallen ones received.

Read the whole thing — Freedom Concerts didn’t respond to Schlussel, who often operates on the fringe. But other conservatives are starting to pile on.

UPDATE: Freedom Alliance, which runs this project, responds to Schlussel and challenges her facts.

This is all becoming extremely reminiscent of the conservative push for Doug Hoffman in NY-23: After flying under the radar for weeks, he became a cause celebre and made the rounds on conservative talk radio and TV. The timing may have been off; Democrats portrayed him as a tool of extreme right-wingers, and they ended up surging from behind to win the race. The difference in Massachusetts is that Brown, who’s always had major party backing, started organizing on the ground much earlier than Hoffman. The other difference, however, is that Massachusetts is far safer Democratic territory than NY-23.