US politics live: Gingrich v Romney battle for the GOP nomination

 

It's takes two: Newt Gingrich versus Mitt Romney. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters/Nicholas Kamm/AFP

2.27pm: Fiery stuff from Obama in his Osawatomie speech just now – thank you Fox News for cutting off the speech midway for an interview with Michele Bachmann – and what sounds like some pre-election message-testing:

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt's time, there's been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. "The market will take care of everything," they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn't trickle down, they argue, that's the price of liberty.

It's a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker. Here's the problem: It doesn't work. It's never worked. It didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It's not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 1950s and 1960s. And it didn't work when we tried it during the last decade.

And Obama follows up with this:

We simply cannot return to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics if we're serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. We know that it doesn't result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and its future. It doesn't result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that's enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.

Sharp line: "you're on your own economics" – or Yoyo economics, for short. A neat metaphor for the up and down vicissitudes of the marketplace.

2pm: President Obama is now speaking in Osawatomie, Kansas, famous for being the site of a speech by Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 (and a violent "Bleeding Kansas" fight, pre-Civil War, involving John Brown).

In 1910, President Roosevelt used his Osawatomie speech to launch his "New Nationalism" crusade ahead of the 1912 presidential election. Which Teddy promptly lost.

1.49pm: Meanwhile, Ron Paul unleashes an ad-hit against Newt Gingrich, accusing him of hypocracy, thus doing Mitt Romney's dirty work for him.