Free Republic

Just before the Christmas break the Boston Globe published a lengthy postmortem on Mitt Romney’s massive failure as a presidential candidate. Between this, and the constant hand-wringing by Geniuses of the GOP™, I think we have beaten this dead horse to a pulp, but there was one thing that came out of this article that has me as angry as I have ever been over a politician. Before we get to that, let’s step back in time to 2008. Like 2012, the Republican Party didn’t exactly put forth an all-star field of candidates for voters to choose from. In the...

In 2008, Barack Obama utilized demographic shifts, his campaign's unprecedented financial resources, and his unique political profile to expand dramatically the electoral map for a Democratic presidential nominee, carrying formerly deep-red states like North Carolina, Indiana and Virginia. Four years later, Mitt Romney may have reason to believe that he can make competitive a state or two thought to be safely in the Democratic column. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ While Romney strategists declined to comment on their electoral tactics, advisers close to the campaign are privately skeptical that they can afford to mount anything more than a token effort in the Northeast --...

Half of all Americans now express unfavorable views of Mitt Romney, a new high for the GOP presidential hopeful in Washington Post-ABC News polling. The deteriorating public impressions of the former Massachusetts governor foreshadow a significant obstacle for him as he tries to shift the focus of his campaign toward a potential match-up against President Obama. Romney’s negative numbers have jumped around this election cycle, but the overall pattern is similar to his trajectory four years ago: As he became better known, his unfavorables shot up far more rapidly than his positive numbers. Negative impressions are up eight percentage points...

MATHEMATICALLY MR. ROMNEY CANNOT CLAIM THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE OUTRIGHT (Vanity) After March 13, after Alabama and Miss., Romney gets total of 391 bound delegates and he needs 1,144 for nomination. So he still needs 1,144 – 391 = 753 bound delegates. About 100 bound delegates of Florida and Arizona that Romney “won” will be challenged and will be re-allocated proportionally by CD or will be unbound, so his number will be reduced even further. In the remaining elections, I consider the following states which traditionally more conservative and growing weary of Romney’s electability, the bound delegates probably will be allocated...

.....Everywhere Romney goes, he gets the strong support of the manipulators of the political apparatus--the elected politicians, the party committee officials, the staffers who hope their bosses will stay in office, the pollsters, the paid political consultants and Republican-leaning pundits who want to keep their sources. Like Obama, these Republican politicos look down on Santorum as the embarrassing, ne'er-do-well sibling who doesn't know when it's time to leave. They find his surge of support by the dumb party faithful as an annoyance. In the same way, the party operatives see Newt Gingrich, the one-time Speaker of the U.S. House of...

Forget Michigan. If Rick Santorum really wants to hand Mitt Romney his head he ought to challenge him in Massachusetts. It is here, not in Michigan, where Romney, governor for four years, made his political bones, first by running unsuccessfully against the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, and then defeating Democrat Shannon O'Brien for governor in 2002. It is also here where thousands of people -- to their total surprise -- woke up the other day to find that Romney ran the state as a "severely conservative" governor for four years. Who knew? That was before he declined to run for...

(TheDailyCaller.com) Rick Santorum is smoking Mitt Romney in a Rasmussen poll of Ohio Republican voters released on Thursday. Santorum gets 42 percent in the swing state, a crucial one in the general election, while Romney sits 18 points behind at 24 percent. Newt Gingrich is in third at 13 percent and Ron Paul is at 10 percent.

If you are a Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum supporter, be concerned, be very concerned about the prospects of a brokered convention. While it’s still too early to see where the delegate math will fall once all the voting concludes in June, some things are beginning to take form. For one, the Gingrich team has finally come to the realization that they need Rick Santorum to stay in the race after all. This is because they are NOT confident that were Santorum to drop out, that Gingrich would receive an absolute majority of Santorum’s earned soft delegates. Hence, you see...

Mitt Romney didn't just lose. He lost to Muhammad, Jugdish, Sidney, and Clayton—the archetypal losers from Animal House. The story of Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado is the stunning weakness of Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum's impressive victory in the nonbinding Missouri "beauty contest" began an ugly night for Romney. Mitt, who garnered 29 percent in Missouri in 2008, limped in with 25 percent—fewer than half the votes Santorum earned (55 percent). Then came Minnesota, where Romney lost again. Big time. He won the state four years ago—earning 41 percent, But Tuesday night, he won only 17 percent, for a stunning third-place...

On October 1, 2010, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney described the genius of the American idea and lauded its results. “No nation has done more to lift people out of poverty than this nation,” he said in remarks at Benedetto’s, an Italian restaurant in Tampa, Florida. “Our free enterprise system has lifted billions out of poverty.” Romney spoke at a “Reclaiming America Rally” for Marco Rubio, then a candidate for the Senate. It was one of three events Romney did that day with Rubio. The two men chatted in the kitchen before their remarks to a crowd that spilled into...

In Florida, Romney Takes Aim At Resurgent Gingrich By Philip Rucker and Amy Gardner January 22 ORMOND BEACH, Fla. — Mitt Romney unleashed his harshest personal attack of the campaign on Newt Gingrich here Sunday, saying “it was proven that he was a failed leader” as the former governor pivoted sharply to regain his footing in the wake of Gingrich’s stunning resurgence over the weekend. As the dramatically altered presidential campaign moved to Florida, Republican leaders braced for a long and potentially bitter nominating contest. After upending the campaign in South Carolina with a commanding victory, Gingrich moved quickly to...

This much is obvious: South Carolina has proven to be a disaster for Mitt Romney. The size of his defeat by Newt Gingrich -- a 12%+ landslide in a four-way race --- is virtually a repudiation of his candidacy in a state that has prided itself on picking the eventual nominee for 32 years. And we suspect Romney will have several more nights of heartburn, much like this one, as the nomination unfolds. Snip Gingrich's win brings to a halt any prospect Romney had for ending this contest with a win in Florida on Jan. 31. What Gingrich now needs...

Mr. Romney's campaign said he would still compete in Iowa's caucuses, now slated February, 2012. But the former Massachusetts governor's absence from the Aug. 13 straw poll will likely diminish his chances, some Iowa officials say, while raising the odds that whoever wins the poll will be best positioned to claim the status as Mr. Romney's top rival for the nomination. According to 2008 election-day surveys, 60% of Iowa caucus-goers called themsevles evangelical or born-again Christians. In the New Hampshire primary, the figure was 23%. In the general election that year, about a quarter of voters in both parties were...