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A Request of Personal Privilege: We Are In A Huge Constitutional Crisis. Could We Layoff The Romney-Bashing For A While? We are in a huge Constitutional and practical crisis in our country. Obama and the DC Dems are trying to ram Government Socialized medicine through by any way they can, legal or otherwise. They are doing so for one reason. If they make 51% of the voters dependent on the government, they will be in power forever. This is what they want. I know Mitt Romney’s positions anger many here, but he will not run for any office foe the...

DeMint Not Sold On Romney As 2012 Approaches Sen. Jim DeMint told CNN Monday that he isn’t sure if he would endorse Mitt Romney for president if he decided to run. Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) - Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, was one of Mitt Romney's top backers during the 2008 presidential campaign – a key endorsement that helped the former Massachusetts governor boost his profile among conservatives. But if Romney decides to run for president again in 2012, a prospect that seems likely, he might have to do so without DeMint's support. DeMint told CNN Monday he isn't sure...

Republican leader Mitt Romney said Monday the GOP nominee in the 2012 presidential election will have to bring together divided factions of the party. "Whoever becomes the nominee of our party needs to be, as Ronald Reagan was, a big-top Republican welcoming conservatives of all types in our party," he said during an interview with The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show.

I watched the Mitt Romney interview on Fox News Watch with Chris Wallace this morning. I actually watched twice, I was stunned. What a debacle! Apparently, this was his opening gambit in his 2012 Presidential campaign, since he has written a book. Wallace, by far the most skilled of the talking head interviewers, pressed Romney on his two primary claims: that Obama has spent his first year apologizing for being an American, and that his health care plan is awful. Romney was unable to delineate any major differences between the plan he developed in Massachusetts and Obama’s, except that the...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suggested Sunday that his decision on whether to run again for president may hinge on the outcome of the November midterm elections. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suggested Sunday that his decision on whether to run again for president may hinge on the outcome of the November midterm elections. Romney, who was beat out for the GOP presidential nomination by Sen. John McCain in 2008, told "Fox News Sunday" that he's not making any calls quite yet. He said that he will wait at least until the end of the year, after the voters have...

Washington » Former -- and potentially future -- presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn't weighing in on where the Republicans should hold their next national convention. Romney told The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday that he believes all three cities vying for the 2012 gathering -- Salt Lake City, Tampa and Phoenix -- are "terrific" cities but that he's not going to give a preference. "I remember what an extraordinary host Salt Lake was for the 2002 Winter Games," Romney said, "but one thing I will stay a mile away from is any discussion of which city should be the host...

The title of Mitt Romney's new book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," is a not-so-subtle jab at the visits President Obama made overseas when he first took office, derided by the Right as the "American Apology Tour." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has published a new book, "No Apology: the Case for American... Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has published a new book, "No Apology: the Case for American Greatness," which sets the stage for a second presidential run in 2012. He is shown here as he addresses a forum of the Foreign Policy Initiative at the W...

1. Mitt Romney: Romney gave a command performance at CPAC -- delivering a solid speech aimed at establishing himself as the de facto leader of the party and offering a detailed critique of the Obama Administration and its policies. And, his decision to put Matt Rhoades, communications director of his 2008 presidential bid, in charge of his Free and Strong America PAC was a savvy move that won him kudos among party insiders. Romney appears far more at ease in this race than he did in 2008; he knows who he is and what he can (and can't) do --...

<p>In the category of it’s never too early to start looking, a new poll found Mitt Romney is the early favorite in Texas for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.</p> <p>The survey by Public Policy Polling of North Carolina found Romney leading with 32 percent support, followed by Mike Huckabee at 29 percent and 23 percent for Sarah Palin.</p>

Jay Leno made news when he announced that Sarah Palin will be among his high-profile guests when he returns to The Tonight Show next week (aka "The Jaysurrection"). Now David Letterman's lineup for next week pits Mitt Romney against Sarah Palin on Tuesday night -- and the ratings may well provide clues on which probable GOP presidential contender may be most popular. The week's lineup for Letterman's Late Show are: MONDAY, Bill Murray; TUESDAY, Mitt Romney; WEDNESDAY, Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Brokaw; THURSDAY, Tom Hanks; and FRIDAY, Matt Damon. Leno's first week of guests are: MONDAY, Jamie Foxx, Olympic Gold...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Romney kicks off a 19-state book tour observers say could be an effort to garner support for a 2012 presidential run. The three-month tour to promote his book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," includes speeches and appearances in early-primary states as the one-time 2008 Republican presidential hopeful wages what some see as the most methodical campaign of any GOP presidential wannabe for the 2012 party nod, USA Today reported Monday. The tour begins next week. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington during the weekend, Romney polled...

USA Today - headline and link only http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-02-21-romney_N.htm

And so it begins: CPAC embraces the new Mitt Romney http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33161.html South Carolina mulls 2012: Romney? Palin? Huck? http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/South-Carolina-mulls-2012_-Romney_-Palin_-Huck_-84732787.html Romney now biggest threat to Obama head to head http://hotair.com/archives/2010/02/18/ppp-poll-romney-now-biggest-threat-to-obama-head-to-head/ These are just a few examples from the last two days. You'll also notice the (once again) packed straw poll at CPAC, and a sudden surge in Freepers attacking Sarah Palin at every turn. It seems the push is already at full force. Mitt Romney is the guy to beat, like it or not (remember that McCain enjoyed -5% support at FR during the campaign), and the GOP is circling the...

When Mitt Romney, candidate for president, came to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2007, he was a fresh-faced over-eager student of Republican politics: He won cheers for a newfound social conservatism, and won a straw poll amid charges he’d packed the hall. Romney ended his candidacy in an emotional speech to CPAC the next year, and in 2009 he used the forum to open a critique of President Barack Obama that he spent the next year refining. The new Romney, received Thursday as the favorite son at the gathering of conservative activists, is a more constant, seasoned, and comfortable...

Described as ‘Mardi Gras for the Right’, CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) opened this morning at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C. Excited GOP power players, power player makers, and everyday citizens concerned about the abuse of political power are streaming through the doors. The three-day conference will be filled with speeches, exhibits, forums, panel discussions, book signings, networking, hospitality suites, banquets, and entertainment. Among official bloggers attending is our own Nate Gunderson. He will be posting blog updates and sending live tweets. We’ve already received several tweets today from Nate, including one received this morning: “Governor Romney...

The Republican presidential nominee, an Arizona senator, was a maverick, which was part of his charm. He spoke and acted impulsively, which was part of his problem. Voters thought his entertaining dimensions might be incompatible with presidential responsibilities. For example, he selected a running mate most Americans had never heard of and who had negligible experience pertinent to the presidency. This was 1964. Barry Goldwater, whose seat John McCain occupies, chose to run with Bill Miller, a congressman from Lockport, N.Y., near Buffalo. Miller, Goldwater cheerfully explained, annoyed Lyndon Johnson. After the Goldwater-Miller ticket lost 44 states, Miller retired to...

Her obsession with the politics of grievance puts her at odds with Ronald Reagan. From the day she turned heads at the 2008 Republican Convention—becoming at once an object of fevered controversy—one truth about Sarah Palin stood clear: She was fortunate in her antagonists. Those in the media, especially, would stoke a mighty sympathy backlash on her behalf. That resentment would feed nicely into the candidate's role as a voice for the aggrieved: those regular citizens under the heel of the "elites"—that immense, tentacled power whose depredations she has been describing to audiences since her star turn on the McCain...

I'm sorry, Mitt might be good in business dealings and might make a good cabinet member in a Conservative administration but to say that The Stimulus Plan was good and needed is outrageous for anyone outside of the White House, even some in Congress probably don't believe it work....David Bernstein of The Boston Phoenix who reviewed Mitt Romney's book might have a bad excerpt of it, but he read the book and if it's true, i give Mitt credit for being honest but he is not what the people of the U.S need at this time a man who is...

Just from the perspective of blogworthy content, I’m thrilled. A Huck vs. Palin race would be fascinating, but having Mitt in the mix all but guarantees a “centrist elites vs. populist conservatives” storyline for the nomination. Can’t. Wait. One of the first big moves of 2012 — “Mitt Romney Names Matt Rhoades PAC Executive Director: BOSTON — Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC announced today that Matt Rhoades, who has held senior positions on major presidential campaigns and at the Republican National Committee, will serve as the PAC’s executive director. … ‘He’s been a friend and an adviser for...

Is Mitt Romney getting all the pieces together for another run at the White House? What seems to many as a forgone conclusion may soon become a reality, with the announcement of Matt Rhoades as executive director for Romney's Free and Strong America PAC. According to an article in Politico, Rhoades, who has served on other presidential campaigns and at the Republican National Committee was communications director for Romney's 2008 run. With the upcoming release and tour for Romney's new book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney's 2012 intentions may be one of the worst kept secrets in...

In his new book, Mitt makes himself over as a muscular defender of America. Few things are more predictable than a GOP presidential candidate posturing as a he-man protector of America, and depicting his Democratic counterpart as an effete, appeasing girlie-man on the dangerous world stage. Mitt Romney — who himself has no personal military or foreign-policy experience of any kind — may not seem well-suited to the Republican role, but hey, if draft-dodgers like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could use the formula against a genuine war hero, anything is possible. Romney, presumably warming up for 2012, flexes...

Here is a video report assessing who might run in 2012 for the GOP Nomination for President. The report has analyst Teddy Davis saying Mitt Romney is "the big gun" because he has money and name recognition, and the GOP has a history of choosing "second-time candidates." Romney has been campaigning for other Republicans around the country and built a lot of good will. Davis says "Romney is considered the front-runner. Sarah Palin is the big question mark, as to whether she will run or not. The downside for Palin that Davis pointed out is that "3 out of 5...

At turns charming about his New York mayoral stint then chippy toward President Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani delivered a red-meat speech on leadership to a receptive Utah audience Wednesday before a direct question made him pause. "Could there be a Romney-Giuliani ticket in 2012?" Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, asked the failed 2008 presidential candidate. Giuliani waited for the anxious laughter to fade, then framed a toothy grin. "There could be anything in 2012, who knows?" he told a crowd of nearly 1,000 at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. "Things change in American politics almost instantly."

The past week has been marked by the meteoric rise of Sen. elect Scott Brown, who just a few short weeks ago - as a friend recently put it to me - was the “third most famous person in his family.” How swiftly fortunes can change. Today, Brown is the undisputed darling of the Republican Party. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, Brown’s innate appeal is hard to deny. Perhaps it’s easiest to say that, at least from appearances, he has all the characteristics that made Sarah Palin a star in the GOP and none of her...

As The Wall Street Journal points out in an opinion this morning, this is a good day not only for Scott Brown, the new senator from Massachusetts, but for Mitt Romney as well. Glenn Beck doesn’t trust Brown, he says. But with Brown toting friends like the popular former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, John McCain and Romney around on his bus, it might not be such a good day for Glenn Beck. The WSJ’s Kim Strassel pointed out that Romney’s closest aides flooded to Mr. Brown, bringing with them the savvy of his national operation. “From a perch atop...

His supporters say the book will show Romney is more thoughtful than Sarah Palin. BY KENNETH T. WALSH Friends of Mitt Romney say his upcoming book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, is a lengthy and detailed explanation of his philosophy and should be a fitting prelude to a 2012 presidential campaign if Romney decides to run. The book, which comes out March 2, seems designed to position Romney as a thoughtful conservative who has ruminated carefully about the major issues of the day, ranging from the global economy to national security. Romney supporters say it will serve as...

Really, there's precious little fairness in the world. People tend to be slaves to emotion, and prejudices often reign supreme, even (in fact, especially) in those who rail against prejudice. This is why we'll see millions of Americans reflexively dismiss a politician simply because of the letter following his name. It is why people will often oppose a position they would otherwise support simply because it's being advocated by someone they dislike. Ah, that troublesome human nature. This brings us to Sarah Palin, the Wasilla woman often billed as the best hope of the GOP. She certainly isn't one of...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said Tuesday that he'll decide whether to run for president in 2012 sometime after this fall's midterm elections. Romney, a 2008 Republican candidate for president and rumored 2012 contender, told Fox News in an interview to air Wednesday that he and his wife would give thought to a second presidential bid in a few years. "It's always a possibility, and you keep the options open, but, you concentrate on the task ahead, for me that's trying to get some good people elected in 2010," said Romney during a "Fox and Friends" appearance. "And, I...

Over past 7 months, Mitt Romney’s favor among Republicans has fallen off a cliff. Monthly surveys by Public Policy Polling shows that Romney’s level of support has fallen to just 48% among Republican voters from a high of 67% in May of this year. Romney polled in the 60s on the first three polls but has not reached that threshold since and now for the first time he's below 50% with the party base. I don't have any theories to explain Romney's popularity slide with Republican voters but it certainly bodes ominous for his 2012 nomination prospects if he can't...

Link only, per FR copyright rules

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will make two stops in Iowa in March as part of his nationwide book tour, following visits by fellow 2012 GOP hopefuls Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty. Romney’s second book, “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,” is due out March 2, and the promotional tour will take the former GOP presidential candidate to 18 states. Romney will visit first in the nation Iowa on March 29, signing books at the Des Moines Central Library and making a speech at Iowa State University, located in Ames.

(snip) Unlike McKeon and Shuster, Cantor endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2008 presidential primary. Cantor's PAC transferred $5,000 to Romney's PAC in January -- about five months before the two Republicans participated in a forum for the National Council for New America in May. The report also indicated that Cantor's campaign committee also received $5,000 from Romney's PAC in May -- a donation that Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom chalked up to mutual admiration between the two.(snip)

After laying low during Palinpalooza, the former governor is back atop the GOP pack for 2012. Mark McKinnon's year-end rundown of who's hot (Rick Perry) and who's not (Mike Huckabee). The way things are going, maybe we should go ahead and hold the 2012 elections after all—instead of just reappointing Obama president by acclamation. As we head into 2010, it seems increasingly likely that the 2012 presidential contest will at least be competitive. President Obama’s favorable ratings are now consistently below 50 percent; no candidate has been elected president with a favorable of 47 percent or lower and the Rasmussen...

SALT LAKE CITY - Over the course of two weeks, Utah Republicans had the chance to see the two most talked-about potential presidential candidates in their party. Mitt Romney attended an event for ADX security systems and Sarah Palin visited to sign her bestselling book. The Utahpolicy.com, Fox 13 Insider Poll finds that Mitt Romney is taken far more seriously as a potential presidential candidate. 53.5 percent of Republicans say they expect Romney to be the Republican party candidate to face Barack Obama. 31.3 percent of Democrats think Romney will be the candidate. Only 4.7 percent of Republicans and 6.3...

This is a surprising result from Public Policy Polling, the occasionally partisan group which nonetheless called the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races accurately. Mitt Romney’s favorable rating among Republican voters has fallen to 48 percent–a plurality, but a weak one. And the trend lines are even more interesting. Since April, when PPP started asking the question, Sarah Palin’s favorable number has moved from 76 percent to 75 percent; Mike Huckabee’s has moved from 67 percent to 65 percent. Romney, alone, has seen a statistically significant drop from 60 percent down to 48. The results are so strange that PPP’s...

Can Sarah Palin make a political comeback? Not everyone's convinced. With Palin mania set to sweep the nation anew tied to the release of her memoir, key voices in the Republican establishment are voicing skepticism about the former Alaska governor's ability to rebuild her national standing. On ABCNews.com's "Top Line" today, Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who now heads the grassroots antigovernment group FreedomWorks, expressed praise for Palin as a "self-made woman" with a proven ability to draw crowds. But Armey said she hasn't shown a commitment to doing the hard work of rehabilitating an image that took...

Does this woman, Sarah Palin, ever tell the truth? No. Sadly, those who’ve anointed her their Obamessiah on the Right are in such teen puppy love they can’t face facts. She’s been compared to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” but as this makes clear, it’s far more like “Mrs. Palin Brings Washington Cronyism and Back Room Deals to Alaska.”

Mitt Romney is heading to Reagan country. The former Massachusetts governor is scheduled to speak this Friday to the Young America's Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California. Romney is expected to be the dinner banquet speaker for the foundation's West Coast Leadership Conference, which consists of young conservatives from 44 colleges and universities across 12 states. "Young people provide much of the energy in the conservative movement, and if we are going to be successful as a party we need to harness that energy and put it work on behalf of the principles we all...

(snip) Although some in the party believe that it should be tilting right in whom to support in future elections, he said, "I will be by and large supporting conservative Republicans" but would not rule out backing some moderates, referencing former President Reagan. "He was the one who coined the term 'the big tent.' He also said that you don't build something by subtraction. So we welcome people who agree with us on most issues. Some will be very conservative on some issues. Some will be less so on others. We welcome you into the party." (snip) "We have a...

Whether or not anyone prefers to acknowledge it, Mitt Romney is already the default, de facto Republican presidential nominee in 2012 – and, too, he is already the clear loser. Health care, singularly, will guarantee Barack Obama a second term – even if he never actually achieves meaningful “reform,” or even if he manages reform but it ends up becoming a festering, hemorrhaging mess … like anything the government runs. Sure, the health care issue appears to be a political landmine for Obama right now, but he just can’t lose for winning, and there’s no area in which that rings...

In the early stages of the undeclared race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney is the frontrunner. The former governor of Massachusetts has the best-developed national network of supporters of any of the potential candidates. He is the one doing the most party-building across the country; of his potential rivals, only Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty comes close. He is the one to whom other Republicans are most likely to turn for answers on economic policy, and on many issues he is the only one giving them. When the auto companies came to Washington only Romney had a plan (“Detroit...

Mitt Romney, the early favorite of many for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, is making nice with his rivals from the last race. The former Massachusetts governor, who was the source of much consternation among his opponents during the GOP presidential primaries last year, has made strides to repair those relationships in recent days. The latest example came Saturday in Romney’s speech to the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in Michigan, in which Romney will praise former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s (R) effort to clean up New York and suggest Detroit could use a similar program. “Detroit needs to...

For weeks now, I've been pointing out with some regularity that while Sarah Palin is surging toward 1,000,000 fans on FaceBook--the second highest total for any American political figure behind only Obama--Mitt Romney has been stuck at about 70,000 for months. Depending on the news cycle and what she's up to, Palin gains between 1,000 and 10,000 fans per day and hasn't spent a dime to do it. Well, I guess this disparity has finally gotten under old Mitt Romney's skin because he's decided to do something about it. What something, you ask? The same thing he always does to...

At the 2009 Value Voters Summit this past week, Mitt Romney directly addressed President Barack Obama’s incomprehensible and fatally flawed decision, unprecedented in the American political tradition, to tax future generations. In an administration quickly marked for its wistful look to the past, Obama’s decision brought to mind 15th-century Russia. Is that why they call them czars? "Putting such a spirit-crushing, back-breaking debt burden on our children is unworthy of our national character," Romney said. "That is why I believe that this spending and borrowing is not just economically irresponsible, it is morally wrong." It poisoned this most auspicious and...

A day after former Baptist minister and likely presidential rival Mike Huckabee offered a withering critique of Mitt Romney's record, the former Massachusetts governor made his pitch to the same group of religious conservatives. Romney appealed to attendees at the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Saturday, using a speech that drew heavily from his address to social conservatives at the same hotel earlier this year. "Putting such a spirit-crushing, back-breaking debt burden on our children is unworthy of our national character," he said. "That is why I believe that this spending and borrowing is not just economically irresponsible, it...

All of you former Right Up Front readers know of my undying affection and unyielding loyalty to Mitt Romney. Indeed, he is my first choice for the nomination in 2012. Now it looks like the Stormin' Mormon may be testing the waters for an encore run at the GOP knod. Politico's Jonathan Martin has the details. After a few stops in some early primary states and lavish fundraiser at a "trendy" Washington eatery, there are many reasons for any former Romney fan to be hopeful. And who better to go up against a now-obviously undisciplined current White House resident than...

While he remains publicly coy about the possibility of another White House bid, Mitt Romney has a calendar that tells a very different story. From returning to a key early primary state to delivering an address before a social conservative conference and reuniting with members of his campaign-in-waiting, Romney is scheduled to spend a good deal of his September in a fashion befitting a man very much interested in running for president. snip............................ On Saturday, Sept. 19, Romney will speak at the Values Voters Summit, an annual conference in the capital, put on by the Family Research Council, that frequently...

BOSTON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Republican former U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is quietly raising millions of dollars as he prepares for the 2012 campaign, analysts say. Observers say that since he lost the GOP presidential primaries last year, the former Massachusetts governor has shown his usual competitiveness and discipline in keeping his presidential aspirations in play, The Boston Globe reported Sunday. "He lost a tough race," New Hampshire state Sen. Jeb Bradley, a Republican former member of the U.S. House, told the newspaper. "After that, Mitt could have done anything he wanted with his life: back to the non-profit...

Just before Thanksgiving last year, a group of former aides to Mitt Romney convened at his salmon-colored Belmont home, many of them gathering for the first time since Romney had disbanded his presidential campaign some nine months before. Romney had invited them for a post-mortem of the election weeks earlier, the type of dispassionate assessment that the Harvard Business School alumnus so enjoyed. But over cookies, they found few of the metrics for success that Romney prized -- Republicans had been decisively thumped at all levels -- and his attention shifted from 2008 to the future.

Dumb yet fascinating. Obama’s birth certificate won’t be an issue in the primaries (let’s hope) so how the big three rank is unimportant — unless Birtherism is actually a proxy for other political dynamics, in which case this becomes an interesting little data point. But if it’s a proxy, what’s it a proxy for? Level of education? Regional identification? Something else? My hunch is that the further right you go, the more Birther-y you get, not because you’re any more credulous on the merits of the birth-certificate argument but because the more adamant your opposition to Obama’s agenda, the more...