Free Republic

Assuming Romney is the projected nominee, he will need a VP that will please the GOP,Tea Party & Conservative Base. Most of us want Marco Rubio, but he still hasn't shown any serious interest. That leaves McDonnell&Ryan next in line. Either one will give Romney a boost against Obama. Virgina&North Carolina being crucial would be the reason to choose McDonnell. Wisconsin & the rust belt would be the factor with Paul Ryan. It's a tough decision. There are a few others, but if there was a poll, Ryan would probably be the choice if Rubio bowed out.

FOX News says Romney & GOP kept Gingrich off of Virginia ballot

Only twelve states have held primaries or caucuses, and shockingly, many of them have either been scandal ridden, had their dates manipulated in violation of proposed nomination calendar, or broke the delegate distribution rules set by the Republican National Committee. State GOP chairs in Iowa and Nevada have resigned in disgrace, and others have come under heavy scrutiny following the completion of their caucus or primary. The Iowa Caucuses became the butt of too many jokes when Iowa GOP Chairman refused to declare Rick Santorum the winner of the caucuses following the state GOP’s certification process, which clearly showed Santorum...

TROY, Mich. — Employing a trick they used during the hotly contested Florida primary, the Romney campaign is deploying surrogates to Sen. Rick Santorum’s campaign events. At least two surrogates — former Michigan State Rep. Rocky Raczkowski and current State Rep. Aric Nesbitt from Kalamazoo — will be attending Santorum events throughout the state in the days leading up to the Michigan primary on Tuesday, a campaign official told ABC News. Other surrogates attended Santorum events held earlier in the week. Nesbitt was spotted at Santorum’s event this morning in St. Clair Shores. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Rep. Jason...

Thanks to some remarkable reporting from Big Hollywood, it has become increasingly clear the upcoming HBO movie "Game Change" is less a political melodrama than an all-out attempt to destroy the person and reputation of Sarah Palin. The movie is based on a poorly researched book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, and it was criticized at the time of its publication by Howard Kurtz, then a media reporter for the Washington Post, and the New York Times for its overreliance on unsourced "deep background" interviews that were difficult to verify. Two of those sources have been revealed, according to...

John Hinderaker encapsulates an assumption which has started to take hold among many of Mitt Romney’s backers: that the fault for what appears to be an increasingly likely 2012 election loss lies with conservatives for making this a real primary. Speaking of the see-saw of not-Romney candidates, he writes: The same pattern has been repeated more than once during the current, discouraging presidential nominating process. If the GOP loses this year’s presidential contest, the party will have no one to blame but its own activists. I'm hearing this meme repeated by many increasingly dejected Romney supporters around Washington, D.C. See,...

Back in the thick of the 2008 Republican presidential race, I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he ­responded without missing a beat. Then came the CEO’s one footnote, delivered with bemusement, not pique: “Still, whenever the rest of us would go out at the end of the day, we’d always find ourselves having the same conversation: None of us had any idea who this guy was.” Here we are in...

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's struggles in Michigan are fueling speculation that Republicans might have to resort to a doomsday scenario and launch a frantic search for a 2012 savior at their nominating convention in late August. Rare in the modern age of U.S. politics, a "brokered convention" could result in Republicans ditching their current crop of candidates and turning to someone else who they feel would have a better chance of defeating Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election. How did Republicans get to this point? Romney's failure to get conservatives fully behind him and put down yet...

[Big SNIP] ....If Romney can't win, he'll be certain that the person who beat him is so damaged, so beaten up by his negative campaign ads that they will have no chance against Obama. Unfortunately for Republicans, it creates a lose-lose situation. Mitt Romney cannot defeat Obama. His flipping and flopping is well documented and will be highlighted by the Obama campaign as the signature of one with a lack of character. He is such a poor speaker in interviews that he attempted to appeal to the middle class by trying to bet Rick Perry $10,000 and later saying that,...

“We have to look at the root cause of why the economy is struggling as much as it is,” Santorum said. “Government intervention. Government regulation. Government taxation. Government is crushing and destroying the American spirit and the American free enterprise system.” Santorum said that government spending was impinging on personal freedoms and ultimately chipping away at what made the country great. “When the government gets as big as it’s gotten and starts to take over more of your life, then you get smaller as the individual, you get weaker, you lose control over your lives. You lose the rights that...

KENTWOOD – Jerome Bush, an 81-year-old lifelong Republican, shook GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s hand Wednesday, recalling doing the same with his father, George Romney, during his campaign for governor more than 40 years ago. “I voted for his dad,” said Bush, the former supervisor of Fillmore Township in Allegan County. “Right now, I’m still undecided if I’m going to vote for him.” It illustrates the difficulty the former Massachusetts governor is facing on the 2012 campaign trail. Three polls released Wednesday show Rick Santorum ahead of Romney in the state where he was born and raised, a place once...

By a more than two to one margin, Americans say that the more they learn about Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, the more they dislike him, per a new Washington Post / ABC poll: Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question. Judgments about former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who denounced Romney...

In some of his harshest words yet, Newt Gingrich explained Friday why he didn't call rival Mitt Romney after the former Massachusetts pulled a decisive Florida primary victory earlier in the week. Pointing to Romney's post-South Carolina campaign strategy, which turned noticeably negative against the former House speaker, Gingrich said Romney didn't earn any kudos. "They outspent me five to one to quote destroy Newt Gingrich?" Gingrich said in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "You know, I think that doesn't deserve congratulations. I think that's reprehensible, I think it's dishonest, and I think it's shameful."...

It’s easy to collect Mitt Romney's "rich" remarks into a highlight reel. Have a few laughs. Sure, we ask, what's the guy thinking? We note that presidential races require your A-game. But then it's tempting to shrug. And say he's still on track to win the GOP nomination. That the general election will turn on the economy. Oh, those silly pundits. How they do obsess over every sound bite. But listen to Rush Limbaugh on Romney: “He comes across as the prototypical rich Republican.” And one begins to hear why Romney’s gaffes are no joke. It’s commonly said that this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acpxp93P1M0&feature=g-all-u&context=G277ceb8FAAAAAAAACAA

.......The Democrats and the Obama re-election machine have sat by and watched the Republican Follies over the past 48 hours, and by doing nothing they have gathered manna from heaven for the upcoming campaign. First, Gingrich is carpet-bombed in Florida, reacts petulantly is taken off his game and forgets what won South Carolina for him... .....Then Romney is seized by foot-in-mouth disease. By claiming he doesn't care about the really poor and would fix any holes in the safety-net he has reinforced the image of a greedy Wall Street banker out to make money at any cost. ....Mitt Romney then...

Have at it y'all ! Hey Florida -- let's show the Nation and all the RINO slugs some TeaPower today ! This one oughta be good for a couple thousand ! ( oy, my poor ping page ! )

Even if Mitt Romney wins in Florida on Tuesday, he still may lose the presidency come November. The old adage of “divide and conquer” may work well in war, but in politics it’s not always a smart strategy, especially in Republican primaries. Ronald Reagan’s name has been evoked quite often in this race. The Gipper must be turning over in his grave that Mitt Romney has so badly violated his 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Reagan’s law not only sounds great, it’s smart politics. Reagan understood that the very same Republicans a candidate attacks...

I’m so tired of the refrain that a critique of Mitt Romney’s work at Bain is “an attack on capitalism.” Capitalism means that you RISK capital, so that you will profit if things go well and you will incur a loss if things go poorly. Private equity firms, like Bain, are in the business of maximizing profit for investors (not to “create jobs” as characterized by Romney supporters), which is perfectly reasonable and legal. To do that, private equity firms often make investments then extract “consulting fees” and “special dividends” in excess of the original investment to ensure that no...

When Mitt Romney faced questions on the campaign trail four years ago about investments in firms engaged in embryonic stem cell research, the presidential candidate had a ready explanation -- he was unaware because his vast financial portfolio was under the control of an independent trustee. Last week, Romney's campaign pulled out the same explanation when ABC News sought details about the candidate's holdings in the Cayman Islands, a notorious offshore tax haven. "We remind you that Gov. Romney does not choose anything; these are BLIND TRUSTS," a campaign official wrote in an email. But government ethics experts and election...

The New York Times reports today — based on unclear sourcing — that Mitt Romney has endorsed a strategy of raising doubts about Newt Gingrich’s “emotional stability.” Well, if that’s the case, here’s Exhibit A. A Florida source passes along a mailer that the Romney campaign — not the pro-Romney Super PAC; his campaign — just dropped in the state, and it comes as close as possible to making that case, hitting Gingrich as “erratic” and “reckless.” The mailer also prominently features a quote from my colleague Jennifer Rubin, describing Gingrich’s “well of sleaze.” Here’s page one: (GRAPHIC AT LINK)...

Dear Mitt: In this year's contest for the Republican nomination, you have demonstrated your ruthlessness. Your attacks on fellow Republicans have show that you are willing to be as brutal, vile, and remorseless as is necessary to defeat your opponent. Presumably, this is how you made $200 million in about 12 years at Bain. In 2008 and now in 2012 you have left a field of wounded warriors in your wake: Huckabee, Giulianni and now Newt. We can see you are willing to be as dirty and nasty as you need to be to win. But the question remains, will...

As Ben Domenech notes in his Transom, Mitt Romney’s advisors have now advised him to support “a $2 gas tax, a VAT, and open Taliban talks.” Add to that list not repealing Obamacare. Norm Coleman, an advisor to Romney, went on record saying

What Gingrich's S.C. Romney-Stomping Means For FL's 'Battle Royale' Gingrich crushed once-mighty Mitt Romney in South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary, in a victory that transformed Florida’s upcoming vote from a snoozer into a dogfight. “This sets the stage for a battle royale in the Sunshine State,” said Nelson Warfield, a political consultant for former Rick Perry’s recently ended campaign who’s also a member of Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s inner political circle. “Newt Gingrich changed the narrative of this race,” Warfield said. “Before South Carolina, Romney was the slow, inevitable candidate. And Florida was going to be his coronation. Now Romney has...

Is the date Jan. 21 about to be a lot brighter for Newt Gingrich? As South Carolina votes Saturday, Mitt Romney’s campaign sent a press release wishing Gingrich a “happy anniversary” for the House decision to reprimand him, which happened on Jan. 21, 1997. Headlined “Happy 15th Anniversary, Mr. Speaker,” the release said, “Fifteen years ago today, Newt Gingrich became the first House speaker in American history to be reprimanded by his colleagues.” Gingrich was investigated for tax irregularities and for campaign finance disclosure violations in the late 1990s. The matter, conducted when Republicans controlled the House, was settled when...

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV)-- Mitt Romney took the stage in front of hundreds of supporters and thanked them for their help in taking second place in South Carolina. "Thank you so very much," he said to the crowd. "You should hear it when we win!" He went on to thank South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and his campaign staff and told the people of South Carolina that he owed them "so much." But in the end, it was another candidate who walked away with the primary win. "I want to congratulate speaker Gingrich for a hard fought race," said Romney. "Tomorrow...

GILBERT, S.C. — Mitt Romney and a top surrogate called for Newt Gingrich, Romney's chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, to release the House Ethics Committee report that led to a reprimand of Gingrich and a $300,000 fine. After Romney was pressed on his tax returns, Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) stepped in and interrupted Romney. "The people of South Carolina are not talking about tax returns. They're not. They're talking about jobs, spending and the economy," she said before taking a shot at Gingrich, who is neck and neck with Romney in recent polls of South Carolina. "In all...

FLORENCE, S.C. — Mitt Romney delivered a 13-minute speech here on Tuesday morning, shook hands with an audience that filled only a small part of a ballroom and caught a plane for a fund-raising gala in New York, a clear sign that he is looking beyond South Carolina. The outward confidence in Mr. Romney’s posture belied a deeply uncertain and fluid conclusion to the Republican presidential primary here. His rivals have shifted away from assailing his business record and are reminding conservatives through radio and television advertisements about the health care bill he signed as governor of Massachusetts and about...

Rick Santorum accused rival Mitt Romney on Tuesday of running a “dirty politics” robocall campaign in South Carolina to discredit the former Pennsylvania senator and mislead voters in the state’s fiercely contested Republican presidential primary Saturday. Campaigning at the Yorktown aircraft carrier museum in Charleston Harbor, Santorum slammed the former Massachusetts governor for an automated call that plays a tape of Santorum endorsing Romney’s 2008 run for the GOP presidential nomination. “Gov. Romney, out there playing a recording from four years ago, and suggesting that I’m endorsing him, is another example of Gov. Romney misleading the public about my record...

MYRTLE BEACH, SC - Texas Governor Rick Perry is demanding Mitt Romney release his tax records, warning there can't be any surprises should the GOP front-runner become the party's nominee. "Anita and I put out our taxes every year since back the 80s, and every candidate up there, they should put their taxes out, including Mitt," Perry insisted during a town hall meeting. "You know, November, or excuse me, September and October, is not the time for us to be finding out that whoops, there's something out there that is a problem. We need to know it now." Perry has...

(CNSNews.com) - Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania won a plurality of votes from the Tea Party supporters who attended Tuesday night's Iowa caucuses, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won a plurality of those who say they oppose the Tea Party, according to an entrance poll published by CNN. Sixty-four percent of caucus-goers described themselves as Tea Party supporters, 10 percent described themselves as opponents of the Tea Party, and 24 percent said they were neutral about the Tea Party. Among Tea Party supporters, Santorum won 29 percent and Romney and Rep. Ron Paul tied for second with 19...

Don't be conned into nominating Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney once again pitches himself as the presidential candidate best poised to effectively reform government, in a new ad set to run in Iowa. The 30-second spot, which features footage from a speech by the former Massachusetts governor, will run in the Hawkeye State ahead of the first-in-the-nation Jan. 3 caucuses. "I'm going to do something to government. I'm going to make it simpler and smaller and smarter, getting rid of programs, turning programs back to states, and finally making government itself more efficient," Romney says in the commercial, titled "Conservative Agenda."

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

Guy Molinari, the Republican power broker and former Staten Island Beep, ripped Newt Gingrich as unfit to be president yesterday — a day before the front-running GOP candidate was set to attend a Tea Party rally in the borough. At least 600 people are expected to pack the Staten Island Hilton Garden Inn today to hear Gingrich speak at a 2 p.m. town-hall meeting. But Molinari, who served with Gingrich in Congress and supports Mitt Romney, rained on the former House speaker’s parade. “God help us if Newt Gingrich is elected president. I won’t vote for him. I love my...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was accused on Wednesday of flip-flopping for comments he made in 2007 indicating he was open to a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Romney's remarks, made on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he was a candidate for president, were circulated by rival Newt Gingrich's campaign the day after the former Speaker of the House of Representatives came under similar fire for suggesting during a debate Tuesday night that he was in favor of such a pathway for immigrants. Opponents of a pathway, a large swath of the early-voting Republican electorate, have...

Don’t expect Mitt Romney to backtrack on his Massachusetts health-care plan at any point this election cycle. “I am sure there are many people who have calculated, and perhaps correctly, that the healthcare plan I put in place in Massachusetts is not good for me politically, and if I want to encourage my political future, I should say it was a mistake and walk away from it,” Romney told Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto in an interview set to air later tonight. “You have seen a lot of candidates look at their biggest vulnerability, call it a mistake, and...

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney says allegations that rival Herman Cain groped a former employee are "particularly disturbing" and must be addressed. Romney told ABC News/ Yahoo! on Tuesday that he will not judge whether Sharon Bialek's claims against Cain are true. He declined to say whether they are disqualifying. ... Romney .. "These are serious allegations and they're going to have to be addressed."

Was it wise for Mitt Romney to offer any opinion on Herman Cain’s campaign crisis? Romney tells George Stephanopoulos in an interview today that he finds the allegations “serious� and particularly disturbing,� although Romney declines to answer whether they are disqualifying if true. All he says in that regard is that Cain has to address the allegations directly: Mitt Romney today for the first time characterized sexual harassment allegations facing fellow GOP candidate Herman Cain as “particularly disturbing.”“These are serious allegations, George,” said Romney in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos that aired on ABC News and Yahoo. ”And they’re...

Former Massachusetts Governor, and GOP presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney has found himself on the defensive regarding his health care reform law in the Bay State. Most of the criticism has focused on the fact that the Massachusetts reform, like President Obama’s reform, included an individual mandate, requiring that all citizens purchase health insurance or pay a fine. But, for Catholics and other pro-life voters, Romneycare holds a different problem. It explicitly provided government funding of abortion. The Massachusetts health care reform established a government funded program, Commonwealth Care, that includes coverage of abortion. Commonwealth Care was made available for free...

In a new web site, in a controversial ad that was launched and then quickly pulled from sight, and in Tuesday’s now infamous debate touching episode, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is handling rival Rick Perry as if the Texas governor’s poll numbers were not at a paltry single-digit. With mounting evidence, he is, in short, treating Perry like Perry has Herman Cain’s numbers. [snip] If Romney can fatally weaken Perry now, it would allow him to dominate in the early primaries. Strategically, a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses would be followed by an anticipated victory in the New...

This YouTube shows the episode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c37VcgHUFVk Romney gets very frustrated and reaches out and grabs Perry on national TV. This willingness on his part to engage in physical contact during a verbal disagreement is really troubling. Shortly afterwards he begins to belittle Perry, he begins to lecture, he whines about the rules, he gets very red-faced, and he totally loses his cool. I'm sure I don't want this man with his finger on the button. He can't seem to handle stress. He obviously got physical. It's a matter of record.

Notwithstanding the fact that not a single ballot has been cast in any of the Republican primaries, there seems to be a concerted effort by the liberal media to bestow the GOP nomination upon former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. According to the Detroit Free Press, "Mitt Romney's steady-as-she-goes campaign for the presidential nomination is beginning to look inevitable." The Washington Post tells us that Romney "is suddenly attracting new support from major donors and elected officials… as people across the GOP grow more accepting of the presidential contender as the party's standard-bearer." Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times declares,...

[snip] “What’s remarkable is how comfortable he is in the debate format,’’ said Donna Sytek, a former House speaker from Salem, N.H., who supports Romney. She sees a much more confident candidate than the one felled in 2008 after a fitful, error-marred campaign that marked him as a political shapeshifter. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke with audience members after a GOP debate in New Hampshire last week. “He was very different from the candidate in the last campaign,’’ Griffin said. “I got the sense this was not the typical Mitt Romney of the past who wanted to please everybody...

Herman Cain took a swipe at Mitt Romney's health care record Friday, telling radio host Michael Smerconish that the on-and-off GOP frontrunner isn't a "staunch conservative." Here's how Cain responded when Smerconish asked if he would agree with Rush Limbaugh that Romney's not a "true conservative": I don’t think he’s a staunch conservative because he’s changed his position on too many things over the years. The other thing is, if you just look at Romneycare in Massachusetts, no matter how much he tries to pretend that it was supposed to be good for Massachusetts, a conservative would never have signed...

<p>Our purpose and goal on FR is to restore, defend, preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity!!</p> <p>The goal of the domestic enemy (the left), i.e., the statist liberals, Marxists and progressives is just the opposite.</p>

Those words were spoken today by Georgette Mosbacher, RNC Finance Co-Chair and huge GOP fundraiser, after Chris Christie’s announcement. The “we” is all the big bundlers, fundraisers, and money folks who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the field to be set — and that quote represents the coalescing around Mitt Romney that is expected to happen rather quickly now. Mosbacher went on to say: “I think tomorrow, we’ll be contacting one another and probably put something together with Romney… And I would say that the race is now Romney and Obama. Quite frankly, the enthusiasm wasn’t there...

The Republican Party is poised to repeat a mistake it made in 2008 – nominating a presidential candidate who cannot beat Barack Obama. His name is Mitt Romney. I know. I know. The polls show Obama weak. His policies are failing. Even Democrats are talking openly about an intra-party challenge at this late date. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney cannot beat Obama any more than John McCain could. I should know. I wrote the 2008 book "None of the Above: Why 2008 Is the Year To Cast the Ultimate Protest Vote" because the choice facing American voters were so poor. If Mitt...

Are you sick and tired yet of hearing about Mitt Romney being the "most electable" candidate? I am. Lately, via the media and our own RNC elites, we have been fed this constant drivel about the electability of Mitt Romney. The same tired story goes that, because Romney was the centrist Republican governor of a blue state, he has the widest voter appeal, and thus the best chance to win in a general election. This is a bad joke. Now, I'm no beltway "expert." However, I've had the opportunity to work on campaigns ranging from U.S. Senate down to City...

In the recent Presidential debate, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said America’s voters did not need to “settle” for the moderate candidate. Amen to that. And gun owners do NOT want candidates who talk out of both sides of their mouths. As the Gun Owners of America’s Board of Directors looks at the Republican candidates running to unseat radical anti-gun President Obama, we see several who have strong pro-gun backgrounds. Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman all have solid pro-gun records and deserve a hard look from pro-gunners. At least one frontrunner candidate stands in contrast with a decidedly mixed record on...