Free Republic

17% of registered voters in the state of Florida say they will change who they will vote for in the election for President as a result of Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as Vice President, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted statewide for WFLA-TV in Tampa. Of those who will change their vote, 57% say they are more likely to vote for Romney, 42% say they are less likely to vote for Romney. The state of Florida is one of the most important swing-states in the country. Florida’s 29 electoral votes are critical to Romney. Reaction to the Ryan...

Governor Mitt Romney’s selection of Representative Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate is revealing on a couple of levels. First, it shows that Governor Romney has a keen eye for talent (which probably explains his success as a CEO). Representative Ryan has become an intellectual leader, perhaps the intellectual leader, of the House GOP, and that didn’t just happen by accident. He worked at it for years, taking countless political risks along the way. To get where he is today, he studied the issues hard, and thought through the policies. He taught himself how to be an effective communicator...

The campaign of presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney got a bit more good news on Wednesday with the release of a new survey showing his support among younger voters surpassing 40 percent for the first time. Pollster John Zogby of JZ Analytics told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that Romney received 41 percent in his weekend poll of 1,117 likely voters, and that he is the only GOP candidate among the pool of Republicans who vied for the nomination to score so high in the 18-29 demographic. That's key, says Zogby, because in 2008 then-candidate Barack Obama lured most of...

Romney enters the TOTUS-free zoneI’m not sure what to make of this: Mitt Romney’s notes for a speech at Palacio De Los Jugos in Miami, Florida. I mean, Romney writes his own notes! By hand!  In a notebook? Who does that any more? OMG!!  Paul Ryan’s handwritten notes for speech in Waukesha Not Paul Ryan too!? ...Wow! Imagine speaking eloquently with just a few notes. The last time someone did that, Jimmy went down for the count. Remember? “They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full...

Star Wars fans still grip their chairs when Luke and the rebel fighters hurtle down the Death Star trenches amidst deathly fire from the Empire’s incoming. As ships are vaporized and Vader hones in on them, Red Five exhorts everyone to: Stay on Target. Stay on Target. Dear Romney-Ryan Campaign, you must learn from Red Five. The “Target” of any good campaign is The Plan. Every moment of campaign communication should focus on a unique message, “Here are the problems and this is our plan.” Everything else is empty space. Yesterday Vice President Joe Biden somehow acquired, in place of...

For the first time since he began running for president, Republican Mitt Romney has the support of over 40 percent of America's youth vote, a troubling sign for President Obama who built his 2008 victory with the overwhelming support of younger, idealistic voters. Pollster John Zogby of JZ Analytics told Secrets Tuesday that Romney received 41 percent in his weekend poll of 1,117 likely voters, for the first time crossing the 40 percent mark. What's more, he said that Romney is the only Republican of those who competed in the primaries to score so high among 18-29 year olds. is...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 47% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns the vote from 43%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided. Romney’s lead is a bit larger when leaners are included. In Ohio, the candidates are tied at 45% each. Ohio remains one of 12 states with 156 Electoral Voters that are either Toss-Ups or Leaners in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections.

For the first time since he began running for president, Republican Mitt Romney has the support of over 40 percent of America's youth vote, a troubling sign for President Obama who built his 2008 victory with the overwhelming support of younger, idealistic voters. Pollster John Zogby of JZ Analytics told Secrets Tuesday that Romney received 41 percent in his weekend poll of 1,117 likely voters, for the first time crossing the 40 percent mark. What's more, he said that Romney is the only Republican of those who competed in the primaries to score so high among 18-29 year olds. "This...

This is something I have mulled over a long time. I touched on it in a comment on Country Thinker's post yesterday, but I would like to elaborate just a bit.I know Mitt Romney has many detractors. Many conservatives and libertarians question his conservative credentials, myself included. I questioned them in 2007 and I questioned them during the GOP primary. I still have reservations about how conservative he would be as President of the United States. I contend there are other things to consider, besides his fiscal conservatism. There are many people who are going to refuse to vote for...

The Wimp Factory: Dems mass-produce wussy nominees by Daniel Clark For the second time in its mercifully soon-to-end existence, Newsweek has published a cover story suggesting that a presidential nominee should be concerned about “The Wimp Factor.” The first of these was a 1987 piece on George H.W. Bush. Perhaps in an effort to bring back its glory days, the publication has recently done a similar story on Bush’s fellow Republican, Mitt Romney. It’s not that these men have never said or done anything wimpy. Bush the First had his “kinder, gentler” drivel, for example, and Romney pronounces “entrepreneur” too...

Of course conservatives are upset by the decision to choose reliable Leftists of all sexes to moderate the upcoming debates. But we should not be upset. For one thing, there is not much to choose from. The members of the press range from the Left to those who still pine for Uncle Joe Stalin.. It’s probably better to have a moderator whose ideological bent is obvious (like Cathy Crowly telling us that by choosing Paul Ryan Mitt Romney had a death wish). Why? The one thing that the nominating battle demonstrated is that the media is hated worse than narcs...

LAKEWOOD, Colo.— A capacity crowd of over 2,000 packed a high-school gym here Tuesday for vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan’s first appearance in the swing state, the room dotted with toddler-toting moms and senior citizens. Introduced by a Lakewood High School senior and Romney volunteer just weeks too young to vote for him— the crowd replied loudly, “Awwww.”— Ryan touted his connection to the Rocky Mountain state, saying he had been planning to be in Colorado this week anyway, “for family vacation.” “I’ve been climbing 14ers for 20 years in this great state,” he said— a reference to Colorado’s...

Mitt Romney used a tough new campaign speech to personally blast the Obama campaign on Tuesday, saying comments earlier in the day from Vice President Biden are "what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like." "Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago," Romney said while campaigning in Ohio. Romney was responding to Biden's suggestion that the GOP ticket's economic policies would “put y’all back in chains." The vice president made the remark while campaigning in Virginia, during a discussion of Wall Street regulation. "They’ve said it. Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at...

Enthusiasm, to the tune of $100,000+ per hour: Andrea Saul@andreamsaul In 72 hours, @MittRomney & @PaulRyanVP raised $7.4 million online with over 101,000 donations 14 Aug 12 Reply Retweet Favorite It’s a testament to the phenomenal excitement that greeted Palin’s selection in 2008 that Team McCain raised $8.8 million in just 48 hours after she was named VP. As for Ryan, Ed noted on Sunday that Team Mitt collected $3.5 million on 41,000 donations during the first day after he was introduced, which tells us two things. One: As you might expect, the bigger donations from more ardent Ryan fans...

As I think about the election in November, I can’t help but think about Matt Ridley and his outstanding book “The Rational Optimist – How Prosperity Evolves”. In it he chronicles the evolution of human society and demonstrates a perfect understanding of why nations fail: “Empires, indeed governments generally, tend to be good things at first and bad things the longer they last. First they improve society’s ability to flourish by providing central services and removing impediments to trade and specialization”. But then “governments gradually employ more and more ambitious elites who capture a greater and greater share of the...

VAN SUSTEREN, FOX News: People think of him as hawkish on the budget, on expenses, but he voted for TARP. He voted for the auto bailout, voted for two stimulus in '08, voted against the '09 -- February '09 President Obama stimulus. How does -- I mean, how does he explain those, or I mean, how does -- politically, how does he sell that? BOEHNER: I mean, I think that he's a practical conservative. He's got a very conservative voting record, but he's not a knuckle-dragger, all right? He understood that TARP, while none of us wanted to do it,...

Burck Smith, CEO and Founder of StraighterLine, recently likened higher education to the U.S. Postal Service, which faces private competition and changing methods of communication as a result of new technology. However, in the case of higher education, government subsidies and accreditation requirements provide barriers help established universities maintain their old business models even in the face of innovations such as online courses. “The postal service, I think, gives us a good example outside of academics to look at a subsidized business model that’s uh whose business model is really past […] past the time or whose market conditions have...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will deliver a powerful rebuke of President Obama’s campaign this evening. His remarks come after Vice President Joe Biden told supporters “They’re going to put y’all back in chains” — speaking about Republicans. The Obama campaign later said the president did not have a problem with Biden’s statement. Following are the excerpts from Romney’s speech: “For the first time, most Americans believe that our best days are behind us. This is an election in which we should be talking about the path ahead, but you don’t hear any answers coming from President Obama’s re-election campaign....

David Axelrod, President Obama’s top strategist, believes that the reaction to Vice President Joe Biden’s comment that Romney will “put y’all back in chains” if he is elected. “Enough phony outrage from Team Mitt, while they pour millions into ads that blatantly, brazenly lie about POTUS record on welfare to work,” Axelrod tweeted. Biden, recalling that Romney wants to “unchain Wall Street,” predicted that such a policy would “put y’all back in chains” during an event in Danville, Va., which has a 48 percent African-American population. The Romney campaign condemned the comment. “After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled...

“I have nightmares about the electoral college coming down to 266-266, with Iowa to decide it,” said longtime Iowa Democratic operative Jerry Crawford. “It’s not as far-fetched as it might sound.” Added Dave Roederer, who ran the George W. Bush operation in Iowa: “This is an unprecedented five-city tour. I doubt he’s here for the mountains.” Iowa has long been a place of practical and symbolic importance to Obama. It was in Iowa where Obama delivered perhaps the most important/best speech of his 2008 candidacy (at the 2007 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner) and it was in Iowa where the idea of Obama...