Free Republic

Speaking om FOX News, citing Romney's business and political experience, Pawlenty, the first major candidate to drop out of the 2012 GOP race, endorsed Romney.

While the presidential horserace will consume much of the political media’s attention over the next year, muted Running Mate Match Game speculation is already underway. One figure that generates a disproportionate amount of discussion on this front is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Despite a series of public demurrals, Rubio-for-VP buzz is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. In Rubio, Republicans have a gifted politician, a very effective communicator, and someone who has earned near-universal admiration among conservatives. He also hails from a critical swing state, and could almost single-handedly put a coveted and growing demographic into play, virtually overnight. Rubio...

The conventional wisdom among the political punditry is that 2012 Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney will be hamstrung by the health-insurance plan he helped craft as governor of Massachusetts, which included a mandate to purchase insurance. That may not be true. In conservative circles, the health-insurance mandate has become shorthand for government overreach. But while each GOP presidential hopeful has disavowed it on the campaign trial, in recent days two of Romney’s top competitors — former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who hasn’t declared his candidacy, and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, whose Iowa barnstorming tour is well underway — have faced...

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) delivered a speech Friday night in St. Charles, Mo., and gave many the impression they were watching a presidential candidate test the waters.

(snip) Romney, who ran, in part in 2008 on his ability to forge consensus on health care in the Bay State, has generally avoided engaging Pawlenty on the issue. But, when asked about Pawlenty's repeated jabs at his boss, Romney spokesman Eric Fehnrstrom offered a subtle pushback on the idea that the Massachusetts plan is a recipe for health care disaster. "There's a reason why states and national health care reformers are copying the Massachusetts health care law, and that's because it works," said Fehrnstrom. "Mitt Romney is the only governor in history to get insurance coverage to nearly all...