Free Republic

Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney listed a half-dozen Republican candidates he said could qualify as mainstream conservatives his party could live with in a general election — and said he didn’t think Donald J. Trump was one of those. Mr. Romney, a two-time candidate who was the party’s standard-bearer in 2012, ticked off New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and businesswoman Carly Fiorina as viable options. -snip- Mr. Romney did not mention retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who along with Mr....

GOP Worried Romney's War Chest Helps Obama, Bachmann By Elspeth Reeve Updated: July 8, 2011 | 8:38 a.m. Mitt Romney crushed his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in the money-raising race, bringing in $18.5 million in the second quarter--more than quadrupling the haul of the second place guy among candidates who don't believe our currency is counterfeit. But it still wasn't good enough for some in the GOP, report Politico's Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, arguing that the "clear winner" of Republican fundraising was Barack Obama. American Conservative Union chief Al Cardenas told Politico he worries that the Republican...

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Thursday backtracked on a central theme of his presidential campaign: that President Obama has made a struggling U.S. economy even worse. "I didn't say that things are worse," Romney said at a press conference in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Unless you have been involved in an airplane crash in the mountains and have had no food for days –– and some would argue even then –– cannibalism is a bad option. So why has it become such a popular pastime for the Republican Party? The candidates who are admitting they might run against President Barack Obama in 2012 have almost no chance at competing with him –– much less making him a one-term president. If the Republicans are serious about beating Obama, they need a conservative who can exist closer to the middle of the political spectrum. Ron Paul...