Barack Obama, Republican Presidential Candidate | featured news

Those skeptical of whether Rick Santorum has what it takes to win a general-election contest this fall have focused on, among other things, his drumbeating on social issues in a year when Republican strategists believe hitting President Obama on the economy is the way to win the White House.

Mitt Romney faced attacks from both sides after squeaking a record narrow victory in Iowa, with New Hampshire's leading newspaper Thursday urging Republicans to back his rival Newt Gingrich and President Barack Obama's re-election campaign training its sights on him.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann tells a small group of supporters that she's staying in the presidential race, saying she's the only true conservative who can beat President Barack Obama in November.

Mitt Romney says if Newt Gingrich can't stand the heat coming from his allies, then just wait until President Obama starts coming. "This is politics, and if you can't stand the heat in this little kitchen, wait until the Obama Hell's Kitchen turns up the heat," Romney said on Fox News . He made similar comments later on MSNBC.

This just in: Rick Perry says he thinks President Obama is an American citizen. Perry told a pair of Florida interviewers today that he has no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii and that he was only kidding around when he raised the so-called birther issue this week.

Mitt Romney extended an olive branch towards one of his leading GOP rivals and continued to attack President Obama's Iraq policy on Saturday, as he made an appearance in a state he's counting on to launch him towards the Republican presidential nomination.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry accused President Obama Saturday of endangering U.S. troops by announcing plans to end the nation's military role in Iraq by Christmas. "The last thing you want to do is put those men and women's lives in peril, and I think that's what the president's done by making a political statement to his base that he's going to be out of Iraq by a date certain," Perry said.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain scolded President Barack Obama on Sunday for making "insulting" remarks to the Congressional Black Caucus and called fellow Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry's handling of a race matter "very insensitive."

Tea Party supporters walk past a sign of Sarah Palin during the Tea Party of America's "Restoring America" event at the Indianola Balloon Festival Grounds September 3, 2011 in Indianola, Iowa.

Wading into a tense foreign policy dispute, Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney on Tuesday criticized the Palestinian Authority's effort to seek a formal recognition of statehood by the U.N. General Assembly. The GOP rivals also used the jockeying at the U.S. to assail President Barack Obama's policy toward Israel.