• Glad-handing, cheesy grins and more political speeches as candidates prepare for another set of GOP primaries on Tuesday

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    Former Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters during a town hall style meeting at Wisconsin Building Supply on April 2, 2012 in Green Bay, Wis. With one day to go before the Wisconsin primary, Mitt Romney is making a final push through the state.

    NBC News reports:

    Darren Hauck / Reuters

    Presidential candidate Rick Santorum reacts while signing a cheese head during a visit to Simon's Specialty Cheese Retail Store in Appleton, Wis.

    The Wisconsin GOP primary is still a day away. And, yes, Rick Santorum could always pull off a surprise tomorrow. But it's also hard not to recognize that the general election has already begun. On Friday, Mitt Romney unveiled a new stump speech that focused exclusively on President Obama and not his GOP rivals. Then, on Sunday, Vice President Biden appeared on "Face the Nation," where he unloaded on Romney.

    Also late last week, a conservative group with ties to the Koch Brothers launched a $3 million-plus TV ad campaign in battleground states, while the pro-Obama Super PAC is now up with its own response. And yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said “the chances are overwhelming that [Romney] will be our nominee. It seems to me we’re in the final phases of wrapping up this nomination.” To be sure, we might see final minor twist or turn in this GOP primary race, but with seven months until Nov. 6, the general-election train appears to have finally left the station.

    Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich waits back stage while his wife, Callista Gingrich, introduces him during a campaign town hall-style meeting at the Hodson Auditorium on the campus of Hood College, April 2, 2012 in Frederick, Maryland. Md. After acknowledging it is impossible for him to win the GOP presidential nomination outright, Gingrich has vowed to stay in the presidential race even after firing a third of his campaign staff last week, taking the fight to the party convention.

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  • Voters go to the polls in the Alabama presidential primary

    Photos by Erik S. Lesser / EPA

    Voters cast their ballots in the Alabama primary at the Vaughn Park Church of Christ precinct in Montgomery on March 13, 2012.

    A woman feeds her completed ballot into an electronic reader at the Vaughn Park Church of Christ precinct on Tuesday.

    The JacksonChannel.com reports: Tuesday's Deep South primaries could answer questions for all three Republican presidential candidates.

    Polls are open in Mississippi and Alabama as Mitt Romney tries to make a southern breakthrough. At the same time, Newt Gingrich is seen as needing wins to stay in the race while Rick Santorum looks for a knock-out blow against Gingrich. Santorum wants to go one-on-one with Romney.

    Related story: First Thoughts – Why Romney could lose (and also win)

    Read more political coverage @ NBC Politics

     

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  • Supporters of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich at Nevada rallies

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    Members of the Fisher family show their support to Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney at a campaign rally at El Aero Services Inc. at Elko International Airport in Elko, Nevada, on Friday.

    Rick Wilking / Reuters

    Dee Hummel (R), a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, cheers at a campaign rally at Stoney's Rockin' Country dance hall in Las Vegas on Friday. At left is Hummel's daughter Cindy Buck.

    Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

    Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney supporters arrive to a campaign rally at El Aero Services Inc. at Elko International Airport in Elko, Nevada, on Friday.

    Evan Vucci / AP

    Supporters listen to Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speak at Stoney's Rockin Country in Las Vegas on Friday.

    Slideshow: Newt Gingrich

    Duricka / AP

    Historian, author, member of Congress and speaker of the House — a look back at his public life.

    Launch slideshow

    Slideshow: Mitt Romney's life in politics

    Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images

    From governor's son to presidential contender, a look at the life of Republican Mitt Romney.

    Launch slideshow

    More coverage of the Republican primary race in PhotoBlog.

  • Gingrich, Romney shake it in Florida

    Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

    U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shakes hands after a St. Lucie Meet and Greet event in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Jan. 28.

    By Katie Cannon, Senior Multimedia Editor

    Oh, the handshake…

    Shaking someone’s hand is a relatively intimate experience, as it can convey a decent amount of information about a person and should always be done, according to American etiquette, naked. Well, at least with a naked hand unless customs or health precautions suggest otherwise.

    There’s nothing worse than a limp, too-smooth, sweaty-palmed handshake from a man that says, “I couldn’t tell a socket wrench from an Allen wrench to save my life.”

    I want a handshake to be firm and have some texture … like the guy regularly does a little work outside. Maybe that’s because those are the kind of hands I grew up with in my family … my dad, my uncles, my grandfathers and my great grandfathers all either worked the land or worked construction to put themselves through school and had the rough, worn hands to prove it.

    That being said, maybe not everyone is appreciative of the same sort of grip.

    John Curran / AP file

    Actress Elizabeth Taylor and former Navy Secretary John Warner, wave to supporters on Friday, June 2, 1978, in Richmond, Va., during Warner's campaign for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate.

    I recall a story my dad tells involving two relevant topics here: his handshake and politics.

    He was dragged by my mother to a political shindig for John Warner when Warner was running for U.S. Senate in Virginia in the late ‘70s, and Warner also happened to be married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time.

    My dad and my mom were in the event-typical receiving line to shake hands with the couple. My mom ahead of him in all of her glory at those sorts of things, shaking and smiling while my dad did his best as the dutiful husband to grip and grin through his social pain.

    Dad shook Warner’s hand first and then consciously went to ease his grasp a bit for Taylor. No sooner had he touched her hand, she began to shriek in pain. My mom shot my dad a look that could have killed as she turned various shades of crimson, while my dad looked for a table to crawl under as Taylor was tended to by her entourage. 

    Come to find out, a blood vessel had freakishly burst in her hand just as she went to meet my dad’s grip, so it really wasn’t his fault, though I’m not sure how many people at the Strawberry Banks in Hampton, Va., knew it that night.

    One thing is for certain, I don’t think my dad ever shook another politician or politician spouse’s hand again.

    I wonder if candidates on the campaign trail remember events such as these as vividly as we do, or if they shake so many hands that a zillion palms in different cities simply add up to percentage points won or lost.

    How about you? Any tales to tell of a memorable political palming?

    Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters after delivering a campaign speech about innovation on Florida's Space Coast at Astrotech Corporation, Jan. 27, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The commerical aerospace company provides satellite and spacecraft pre-launch processing and other services.

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  • GOP rivals try to land punches during NBC/Facebook debate in NH

    Charles Krupa / AP

    Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum reacts as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney answers a question during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Jan. 8.

    NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro write:

    Talk about night and day -- or, more accurately, night and morning. At last night’s GOP presidential debate, Mitt Romney’s rivals largely took a pass at hitting the front-runner for the Republican nomination. But at this morning’s NBC/Facebook debate here, they piled on Romney in the first 30 minutes; the arrows were out from the start. As he has on the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich called Romney a “timid Massachusetts moderate.” Rick Santorum added, “If his record was so great as governor of Massachusetts why didn't he run for reelection?... We want someone who's gonna stand up and fight for the conservative principles, not bail out and not run and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy.” And Jon Huntsman took issue with Romney’s criticism of Huntsman serving as President Obama’s ambassador to China: “This nation is divided … because of attitudes like that.”

    Full story: First Thoughts: Rivals pile on Romney

    Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

    Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, left, looks on as Texas Governor Rick Perry makes a thumbs up gesture as they participate in a Republican presidential candidates debate in Concord, N.H., Jan. 8.

    

  • GOP candidates spar at New Hampshire debate

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    Republican presidential candidates U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), left, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum participate in the ABC News, Yahoo! News, and WMUR Republican Presidential Debate at Saint Anselm College Jan. 7, in Manchester, N.H. The GOP contenders are in the final stretch of campaigning for the New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, to be held on Jan. 10.

    msnbc.com National Affairs Writer Tom Curry reports:

    Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who looked for a bounce out of his virtual tie in Iowa, did mention in passing Romney's support for an individual mandate to buy health insurance and Romney's support for the bailout of financial firms in the fall of 2008, but didn't press Romney on these points.

    Santorum also tried to attack Romney early in the debate by alluding to his business career at the investment firm Bain Capital. Santorum said, “Business experience doesn’t necessarily match up” with the skills needed to be president. Romney replied that career politicians such as Santorum “don’t understand what happens out in the real economy.”

    Read the full story: Romney emerges mostly unruffled by rivals' charges in New Hampshire debate  

    Watch the NBC News / facebook debate on 'Meet the Press' Sunday morning.