Given Romney’s comments criticizing/attacking Gingrich in his speech, it wouldn’t be surprising if Gingrich decided to return the favor during his victory speech tonight and during his TV interviews tomorrow morning.

9:25 – Crowd chanting “Newt can win! Newt can win!” Gingrich’s opening line: “Let me first of all thank everyone in South Carolina who decided to be with us in changing Washington.”

“The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for a half century to force us to quit being American and try some other system. It is not that I am a good debater, it is that I articulate the deepest held values of the American people.”

Gingrich praises Santorum: “Rick Santorum showed enormous courage in Iowa when he had no money, nobody covered him, and he just kept campaigning.” Crowd starts chanting “VP! VP!”

“If Barack Obama can get reelected after this disaster, think how radical he would be with four more years.”

Gingrich says if he is the GOP nominee, he will challenge President Obama to seven three-hour debates.

Gingrich says he will challenge president and “elite media” on “growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites.”

“I want America to be so energy-independent, no American president will ever bow to a Saudi king.”

Gingrich hitting Obama for nixing the Keystone XL pipeline deal.

Gingrich invoking his own version of John Edwards’ “Two Americas” stump speech

9:50 – Gingrich finishes his speech, walks off to Toby Keith’s “Only in America.”
[Correction: The song is by Brooks and Dunn, not Toby Keith.]

“Three states, three winners. What a great country!”

Santorum to Gingrich: “Good job, buddy. Good job.”

Santorum makes reference to Obama’s infamous 2008 comment about people clinging to guns and religion, says his father and grandfather came from that.

“They [the left] don’t believe in you. They believe in their ability to care for you. That’s not America.”

Wants to be the candidate that provides “the good sharp contrast”

8:50 – Santorum’s closing words: “I ask you – it’s a wide open race. Join the fight!”

“This is the beginning of a long hard slog!” Ron Paul invokes former SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld.

“If you win elections and you win delegates, that’s how you promote a cause!”

Paul goes into standard stump speech about liberty and cutting spending.

Ron Paul crowd chanting “End the Fed! End the Fed!”

“We need to restore the Constitution and restore liberty.”

Calls for getting rid of the PATRIOT Act.

8:30 – Ron Paul wraps up his speech… Still waiting to hear from Santorum and Gingrich.

Opening line: “You should hear them when we win.”

Thanks Gov. Nikki Haley and other state lawmakers right off the top.

“We are now three contests into a long primary season.” Note Romney’s emphasis on the word long.

8:00 – Romney goes into standard anti-Obama stump speech.

“President Obama has no experience running a business and never run a state. Our party can’t be led to victory by someone who has never run a business and never run a state.”

“We cannot defeat that president with a candidate who has joined in that very assault on free enterprise.
When my opponents attack success free enterprise, they’re not only attacking me, they’re attacking every person that dreams of a better future. They’re attacking you.”

Romney never mentions Gingrich by name except the brief congratulations at the beginning. But make no mistake, the speech was about as much of an attack against Gingrich as much as it was against President Obama.

Romney finishes at about 8:10.

Update: The Associated Press calls the race for Gingrich at 7:25. Still no projection from CNN.

Update II: At 7:35, CNN projects Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina primary.

Mexican team bobbles heart headed for transplant

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican medics are drawing catcalls after they dropped a heart being rushed to a hospital for a transplant.

Mexico City police say they used a helicopter to deliver the heart in “a rapid, precision maneuver.” But after exiting the chopper, a medic stumbled and the plastic-wrapped heart tumbled out of a cooler onto the street.