Free Republic

Mitt Romney campaign representatives will meet with The Washington Post today to seek a formal retraction of its June 21 report that Bain Capital invested in firms that specialized in outsourcing American jobs, POLITICO has learned. The representatives will meet with executive editor Marcus Brauchli and other senior Post staff at 2 p.m. today at the Post's offices in Washington. The group intends to argue that the Post's allegations against Bain Capital and the firms in question are either incomplete or inaccurate, sources familiar with the meeting say. Specifically, the group will argue that the Post misinterpreted the SEC filings...

Now that Mitt Romney has secured the GOP nomination, he is obviously free to be himself. His masquerade as a conservative is over as he has returned to many of the moderate to liberal stances he held as Governor of the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. He has also returned to being the polite politician who treats his Democratic opponents with respect. Mitt Romney only gets nasty against other Republicans. In the GOP primary, the Governor eviscerated his opponents with high priced, non-stop, hard hitting attacks. He is not employing the same tactics in his general election showdown against President Obama,...

OVERHEARD: Sen. John McCain (R) adding some fuel to the fire of constant veepstakes buzz surrounding one of his colleagues. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was giving a group of interns a tour of the Capitol on Thursday when McCain breezed by. The senior senator from Arizona quipped to Portman’s young crew, “Now you can say you interned for Vice President Portman.” Portman is said to be on Mitt Romney’s shortlist of potential running mates.

Remember when Romney turned away Stimulus funds because they were wasteful and infringed on the Tenth Amendment? Remember when Romney led the fight against Obamacare with his bold op-eds, inviting scorn and being called a liar for daring to mention the unavoidable rationing of services ("Death Panels") ? Remember when Romney led the GOP to an astonishing victory in the 2010 mid-terms? Remember when Romney inspired thousands across the nation to sleep outside book stores in hopes of meeting him? Remember when Romney Flew to Arizona to stand by the embattled Governor Brewer as she was targeted by the Administration...

Mitt Romney may be attempting a shift to the center on immigration, but word has yet to trickle down to the hardcore nativists of the Arizona Republican Party. As the GOP presidential hopeful was in Florida yesterday trying to woo the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials with his softer, gentler, made-for-the-general-election immigration stance, a civil war of sorts erupted in local Republican ranks over statements made by conservative-blogger-turned-state-GOP-spokesman Shane Wikfors during a recent appearance on Channel 12's Sunday Square Off. Here's what I wrote in my column this week regarding Wikfors' comments: One moment of Republican clarity...

This past week, we tried a new grassroots strategy to take on Mitt Romney. And it worked, better than we could have ever dreamed! Right now, President Obama is sinking in the polls, and the race looks very tough. But the more people know about Mitt Romney's economic plans—tax breaks for millionaires, layoffs and cutbacks for the rest of us—the less support he gets. That's why we're launching a huge program to make sure that swing voters realize that Romney isn't just some rich guy who happens to be running for office—he's running to raid America for the 1%. Our...

Mitt Romney will address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) today, and will no doubt continue his evasions regarding the president’s unconstitutional DREAM decree, which grants amnesty to perhaps 1.4 million illegal immigrants without permission from Congress.One thing that Romney, and the GOP more generally, should consider is what’s next. If the president gets away with this usurpation of legislative authority, what other immigration measures might we expect? After all, Friday’s amnesty decree didn’t happen in a vacuum — it was the result of the administration’s getting away with a whole series of earlier, less...

An article by Michael O'Brien on MSNBC's First Read this morning quotes an "informal" advisor to Mitt Romney's campaign as saying that the presidential candidate is not likely to choose a woman as his running mate because Sarah Palin "poisoned the well" for women, with the possible exception of New Hampshire freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

Mitt Romney will beat President Obama in this fall's election, most likely by a substantial margin. There. I said it. I may have a plate full of hat in my future, but I doubt it. Pundits will give you the usual reasons for a Romney victory, but it all boils down to two things: first, Romney took the time to build an organization and second, and most important, he wants to win. Tea Party patriots and constitutional conservatives would be smart to learn a lesson from this. While many conservatives were swooning over the latest firebrand candidate to carry their...

Something about that Old Guard and that establishment. There’s a schedule to keep and a list of rules to follow. Apparently, Sarah Palin shredded her copy and it’s starting to rub the media the wrong way. Despite saying dozens of times over the last year that she would eventually back the GOP nominee in her #1 mission to replace Barack Obama, apparently the media expects more. An article written by The Hill yesterday notices: “Palin Doesn’t Mention Romney In Address To Conservative Bloggers”. The Daily Caller reiterates: “Sarah Palin Hasn’t Formally Endorsed Romney Yet” while they also concede that she...

On Monday, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said that he was “dejected” after Mitt Romney’s avoided taking a strong stand on President Barack Obama’s directive enacting portions of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. “It goes back to what my mother taught me, ‘a man must stand for something, or else he’ll fall for anything,’” said West. Romney appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday where he was asked repeatedly if he would repeal President Obama’s directive. Romney avoided taking a firm position on the matter during the interview, but indicated that he supports the underlying...

While our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney has criticized Obama's cynical, politically-timed power grab, he has yet to say whether or not he would repeal President Obama's executive decision to no longer enforce our laws with respect to somewhere around one million Mexican illegals. Instead, first thing this morning, the Romney campaign went right back to talking about Obama's failed economy: A number of my fellow conservatives, many of whom I admire, are hitting Romney for not taking a stand on this, but what exactly is Romney supposed to do? This entire story is, quite obviously, a coordinated trap set up...

Red Mass Group has learned that the Allocation Committee of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee has informed seventeen delegates and alternates that they are not qualified to go to the convention in Tampa. The reason given is failure to return the proper, signed, affidavit by the given deadline. Allocation Committee Chairman, Ed McGrath, told Red Mass Group in an emailed statement that, "no one who was elected as a delegate and who has followed the rules has been disqualified so far." The Massachusetts Republican State Committee held congressional district caucuses on Saturday April 28, 2012 to elect 27 delegates and...

In a revolt against Romney, at least 40 more national convention delegates asked to join 123 previous plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Republican National Committee, and their attorney said hundreds more may soon follow suit. The first 123 delegates, all from the 9th Circuit, sued the RNC, its Chairman Rince Priebus, and every state party chairman in the 9th Circuit in Federal Court on Monday, demanding the right to vote for the candidate of their choice on every ballot at the Republican National Convention, including the first. The delegates claim the party violated federal law by forcing them to...

Romney should not enter into this argument on Obama's terms, i.e., argue against amnesty or the dream act, but only to say, "the President has no authority to make this kind of unilateral decision... instead, this is something American society, through our elected officials, must hammer out". He needs to focus his argument on the idea, that for Obama, words have no meaning. He should show Obama's words from last year where the President said he had to follow the law and that he was powerless to make the kinds of changes he just made this last week. Then extend...

BRUNSWICK, Ohio (AP) — Mitt Romney is refusing to say that he would overturn President Barack Obama's new policy allowing some young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. The Republican presidential candidate tells CBS” ”Face the Nation” that if he’s president, Obama’s executive order “would be overtaken by events … by virtue of my putting in place a long-term solution.” Romney was asked three times in the interview if he would overturn Obama’s order, but he didn’t directly answer the question. Instead, he said would work to pass a law to help those young people who were “brought...

The federal lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in California demands the delegates be freed to "vote their conscience" for presidential nominee at the party's August national convention in Tampa, Fla., rather than being "bound" to vote for a certain candidate, as many state party bylaws require, based on the primary elections and other delegate selection procedures. Courthouse News Service reports at least another 40 additional national convention delegates have asked to join the lawsuit which would bring the total to 160 Delegates. Yet striking down party rules that bind candidates to vote in accordance with the primary...

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor, but he fumbled an important opportunity. The problem with the president’s amnesty decree is not that it “makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution because an executive order is, of course, just a short-term matter — it can be reversed by subsequent presidents.” The problem is that it’s u-n-c-o-n-s-t-i-t-u-t-i-o-n-a-l. You would expect Allen West and Steve King to be forceful in denouncing this usurpation, but even Amnesty John McCain and Rick “you don’t have a heart” Perry were strong. Heck, Lindsey Graham — Lindsey Graham — denounced the move as “possibly...

Mitt Romney plans to shed the government’s stake in General Motors if he wins the presidency, even if it means taking a loss, the presumptive GOP nominee told the Detroit News.

Conservatives at the core of the Republican Party are coalescing behind likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney faster than expected... "I'm going (to support him) because it's my responsibility and, frankly, almost anything is going to be better than Obama," said Steve Troxel, chairman of the Lynchburg Republican Party in swing-state Virginia. "The emerging consensus among conservatives is that the Republican House will lead the conservative charge and Romney will be in the White House to sign bills, rather than advance his own agenda," said Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak, who supported Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the primary. "Conservatives don't...