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Earlier this morning, Romney came out strong against the upcoming visit of former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s upcoming visit to lecture at Harvard. He's taken a strong stand on this one. The Press Release is here. ROMNEY DENOUNCES KHATAMI VISIT TO HARVARD Declines to provide escort, or offer state support for trip Governor Mitt Romney today ordered all Massachusetts state government agencies to decline support, if asked, for former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s September 10 visit to the Boston area, where he is scheduled to speak at Harvard University. “State taxpayers should not be providing special treatment to an individual...

Cross Posted at Iowans for Romney: Disclaimer: THis is a Pro-Romney Piece and I run a pro-Romney blogsite. I am not paid for my efforts. What I've created below is in response to a commonly recurring attack on Romney: that he can't be trusted to appoint good conservative/constructionist judges because of his record of judicial appointees as Massachusetts Governor, specifically regarding gay-activist judges. The issue came up in a discussion thread to an article I posted on Free Republic (Over 135 comments so far, and some heated debate). One comment (#123), by JohnnyZ summed up the most common attack: Romney's...

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10274 Things are looking up for Mitt Romney. Not only has the outgoing Massachusetts governor been getting reasonably favorable press from usually hostile places but, courtesy of George Allen's Macaca moment, his position in the 2008 Republican presidential field suddenly looks more secure -- the most viable candidate to the right of front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Romney appears to sense the opportunity . . . (READ ON at the link above)

Romney in the Dock: Or Are Traditional Christians in the Dock? Mitt Romney is nearly a picture perfect Republican candidate for President. With a long family Republican heritage, he is a popular and successful governor and that is the job that has been the best stepping-stone to the Presidency in my lifetime. He is a traditional conservative from New England with Michigan roots who would put several Blue States in play for the Republicans. He is close enough to Bush to comfort Republicans, but distant enough as a governor to allow him to be critical of specific policies in the...

Politicians all talk about “fiscal responsibility,” but few put that principle into action — particularly when faced with a call for a politically attractive program. Governor Mitt Romney (R., Mass.) deserves applause for doing just that by vetoing a bill last week that promised to provide universal preschool to Bay State toddlers. Massachusetts is the latest state to consider expanding government-provided education to the juice-box set. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D.) is trying to fulfill his campaign promise to give all parents the option of enrolling their children for a year of school before kindergarten. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich supports...

BOSTON --Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed a bill Friday that would have moved Massachusetts closer to universal pre-kindergarten, saying the program could end up costing taxpayers as much as $1 billion a year. The bill would have created a statewide pre-kindergarten program defined as "voluntary, universally accessible early education and care programs and services for preschool-aged children." Romney said the state should instead wait to see the results of a smaller $4.6 million pre-kindergarten test program before embarking on the more ambitious statewide initiative. "Before we create an expensive new burden on Massachusetts taxpayers, one that could lead to future tax...

First a disclaimer . . . I run a pro-Romney blogsite but do not get paid for it. I am a physician who blogs in my spare time and consider myself simply a vocal grassroots Romney supporter. ********************* Now on to the news at hand: This Examiner article has some interesting "insider information" for the 2008 GOP presidential race. To quote the start of the article: "Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Virginia Sen. George Allen are strong candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, although each has serious challenges to overcome. That’s the view of Grover Norquist, president of...

See my original commentary at "my Iowans for Romney blog entry" ******* Boston Herald columnist, Virginia Buckingham, recently wrote a peice titled "Mitt unduly tarred with Mel’s brush". It represents a semi-apology to Romney, and, if not that, at least a well-reasoned defense of his use of the term. It’s a coincidence that Gov. Mitt Romney is taking heat for what some see as a racial slur in the same news cycle as Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant. But it would be a real shame if there was no distinction made by the guardians against discrimination between Romney’s common reference and...

So, is anyone else baffled by the fact that John McCain is listed as the "strong frontrunner" among GOP 2008 presidential hopefuls? The political pundits all have him as the head honcho (usually followed by Romney and Allen) as evidenced here, here, here, here) and in the most recent National Journal 2008 Republican Insiders Poll. This was not always so . . . just a few months ago to a year ago Allen was leading in that Insiders Poll (actually, you can look at the figures and find that Romney has been gaining the most, percentage-wise, of any candidate.) However,...

After studying Mitt Romney’s experience with Homeland Security (HS), I would argue that Romney’s Homeland Security experience and credentials exceed those of any other 2008 presidential hopeful—republican or democrat (rivaled only by the “wild-card” candidate, Rudy Giuliani). His experience is not limited to sitting on committees and being briefed on these issues. He is often the one called upon TO DO the briefing to key committees due to his “on the ground” experience with devising and implementing large-scale security plans. Much of this stems from his great success in leading Salt Lake to a safe and successful Olympic Games in...

Cross posted at Iowans for RomneyMany people wonder about Mitt Romney's stance or experience with the "hot-button" issue of illegal immigraton As an intro, below is Gov. Romney's experience with Massachusetts "English Immersion " Program which 68% of voters supported to end "Biligual Education" in the state schools: bostonherald.com, 7-16-03 “Watered Down English Immersion Law Incurs Governor's Wrath” BOSTON, MA - After the Massachusetts legislature carved out exemptions to a voter-approved English-immersion law for immigrants, Governor Mitt Romney called their action an act of "unfathomable arrogance" and vowed to oust legislators who backed the move. An overwhelming 68% percent of...

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-2/114986446884230.xm l&coll=6 The above article regarding Newt's recent visit to Michigan has the following quote: "As for likely conservative standard bearers, Gingrich named Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as a candidate who might keep him out of the race. " Any idea what this is talking about? Would Romney pressure Newt not to run? Would Newt think that Romney is too strong to beat? I think from the context of the article that Romney is the most in line with Gingrich's ideas and would be the best mouthpeice for Newt's ideas/platform. Any thoughts? When I posted this on RedState (http://jjfuller72.redstate.com/story/2006/6/9/154855/8618) there...

http://nationaljournal.com/njcover.htm# The above link is the National Journal's most recent cover story called "The Mass-ter Plan" and it is probably the most informative, balanced, and well thought-out detailing of the recent landmark Massachusetts Healthcare Initiative (AKA "RomneyCare") I have seen from a major media source. There are also several links within the text that give more details of the plan and detractor opinions as well. I highly encourage it as a good read. Some highlight quotes: Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and management at Harvard, predicted that the new law would give a significant political boost to Romney...

Mitt Romney (current Mass. Governor and current top-teir 2008 pres. candidated) was on PBS this past Monday doing an interview with the Charlie Rose Show. Link here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4362623183954478320&q=romney to watch the streaming video (The interview starts about 3.5 min in and goes for about 25+ minutes . . . commercial free!) They hit many major topics including, Iraq, religion/Mormonism, "RomneyCare", global warming, gay marriage, abortion, Ann Romney, and balancing the budget in Massachusetts. Romney was convincing and spot on with all of his answers. Especially memorable was his convincing explanation of why abortion should be a "states rights" issue while...

Governor Mitt Romney has sent this letter to every member of the Senate encouraging them to Vote "Yes" on this landmark peice of legislation--the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA). A few excerpts are below: "Americans are tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement, and we all wish to avoid hurtful disregard of the feelings of others. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage. Attaching the word marriage to the association of same-sex individuals mistakenly presumes that marriage is principally a...

Governor Mitt Romney proposed a new bill in accordance with his "personal responsibility principle" that would require non-custodial parents with financial means to pay for their childrens' health insurance . This "personal responsibility principle" is the idea that every person needs to take seriously the responsibilities that are theirs and not find ways to escape from them. This could be an issue on which he will campaign in 2008 seeking similar federal law if elected (current federal law only requires non-custodial parents to cover their children if they have a fitting insurance plan through their employer . . . but...

Below are two pieces I composed a couple of weeks ago about Massachussett's Governor Mitt Romney's plan requiring all state residents to obtain health insurance. I've been following some of the recent discussions about Romney here at Free Republic and there are inevitably comments made about how Romney got "socialized medicine" passed in MA. People who make these comments either don't like ROmney (maybe they really like another '08 candidate and see Mitt as a threat) or don't know what they are talking about. The plan is nothing like socialized medicine. People who keep claiming that it is are uninformed...

Teenage cult favorite (and already "cult classic"?) film Napoleon Dynamite (2004) was one of the most quotable movies in the last decade (you've probably heard plenty of teenagers throwing around: "Lucky!" or "Gosh!" quite a bit more in the last couple of years). And, as an aside, thoughtful parents should like a film like this too . . . when was the last time that a popular teenager movie contained ZERO swear words and no sexual content? When I first watched Napoleon Dynamite I never dreamed that it would be the deciding factor in Mitt acheiving the presidency. But...