Free Republic

It’s hard to be honest in politics. Perhaps that has been Gov. Mitt Romney’s real problem all along. Romney’s candor came out in a recent conference call that was reported by the New York Times in which he said that President Obama offered free “gifts” to both illegal aliens and American citizens. Romney’s observation about rewarding illegal aliens with citizenship and giving free benefits to people exploiting the system is not the same as criticizing minorities—but for decades the Left has manipulatively used racism, sexism and discrimination to intimidate the Republican Party into cowering into the aimless, weak institution that...

... Obama is having Mitt Romney over for lunch on Thursday and their meeting is already generating a lot of buzz. Here are five theories about the White House’s motives.... 1. Obama is extending a common courtesy... 2. Obama will offer Romney a Cabinet job... 3. Obama will enlist Romney in the fiscal cliff debate... 4. Obama wants Romney’s advice on business issues... 5. Obama wants closure on the 2012 presidential election, or something else?....

Inside sources close to Rick Santorum are saying the former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 GOP contender is already organizing for a run in 2016. On the other side of the aisle, investor Warren Buffett is already touting his choice to succeed President Obama in the White House. A leading evangelical leader who is close to Santorum and asked not to be identified, told The Christian Post on Wednesday that Santorum is "organizing and making all the necessary preparations" for another run in the 2016 Republican primary. "Rick's getting ready organized and is not going to be behind the eight-ball when...

Romney Dings Obama for 'Gifts' to Minority Voters By Devin Dwyer | ABC OTUS News – 2 hrs 21 mins ago President Obama today heaped praise on his defeated rival, GOP nominee Mitt Romney, saying the former governor's record and ideas "could be very helpful" in shaping policy over the next four years "My hope is, before the end of the year… that we have a chance to sit down and talk," Obama told reporters in his first post-election press conference. But even as Obama extended something of an olive branch - which some skeptics saw as disingenuous - Romney...

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana fiercely shot back at Mitt Romney’s claim Wednesday that President Barack Obama outmatched the 2012 Republican presidential nominee by offering "gifts" to African-Americans, Hispanics and young voters. “I absolutely reject that notion,” Jindal, who was a surrogate for Romney’s campaign, said at the Republican Governors Association conference in Las Vegas. “I think that's absolutely wrong.” “I don't think that represents where we are as a party and where we're going as a party,” he continued. “That has got to be one of the most fundamental takeaways from this election.” Romney made the comments on...

A handful of prominent Republicans criticized Mitt Romney for his disparaging remarks about President Barack Obama’s “gifts” to core constituencies, saying that it was the wrong message to send voters as the party tries to rebuild itself after a bruising defeat. “I don’t think it’s helpful,” Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad told POLITICO at the Republican Governors Association conference on Thursday. “I guess my feeling is that we need to turn the page, and we need to focus on the future and not make excuses for the past.”

In this election the Republican Party ran two wholly inoffensive blue state Republicans on a platform of jobs at a time when the economy was everyone’s chief concern and the incumbent had absolutely failed to fix the economy. And they lost. The Monday — or Wednesday — morning quarterbacks will have a fine time debating what Mitt Romney should have done differently. The red Republicans will say that he should have been more aggressive and should have hit Obama on Benghazi. The blue Republicans will blame a lack of outreach to Latinos. Some will blame Sandy, others will blame Christie...

Knock me over with a feather.. I can't believe it!

I can't believe what I'm seeing.. To think of 4 more years of this, only not needing to be reelected again.. He deserves what he is facing, but they don't care..

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says Rick Santorum’s double-digit loss in the Illinois primary shows he is not the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney — and he can’t defeat President Barack Obama..... “Governor Romney had a pretty good day — I think he took a step towards clearly proving he was the front-runner. Senator Santorum didn’t have a particularly good day,” Gingrich said. “This is the third time now he has tried an industrial Midwestern . . . state and not succeeded. And I think that the conservatives have to think through the right strategy if they hope to stop Romney....

Rick Santorum’s ballot problems keep getting worse. The candidate failed to appear on the ballot in Virginia on Super Tuesday, losing his chance to win 46 delegates. He also may have lost his chance at more than a quarter of the delegates in Ohio, after he failed to qualify full slates of delegates in a few congressional districts. In the coming month, Santorum will face similar problems in Washington, D.C. and Illinois. His failure to qualify in the nation’s capital hints at organizational challenges.

One of the reasons to be skeptical that Rick Santorum could win the Republican nomination is that we now have a pretty good idea of how the vote will play out from state to state — and the coalition that he is building seems short of a majority. It is not that Mr. Santorum’s delegate deficit is mathematically insurmountable. But he’s behind, and he is very unlikely to win states like New Jersey and California that either have a lot of delegates or use winner-take-all rules to award them. That might not leave enough fertile opportunities for him to gain...

As a card-carrying member of the media elite, it’s hard for me to say something nice about Newt Gingrich. But here it is: He doesn’t wear blue jeans in public. [SNIP of SNARK due to excerpt limit] For many Republican primary voters, the only thing worse than a regular elite is an intellectual elite or a media elite or especially a liberal intellectual media elite. [SNIP] More to the point, does the fact that a guy reads books and deals in ideas disqualify him? For many Americans, it does. Anti-intellectualism has been a consistent theme throughout American history. The political...