Free Republic

Whenever anyone mentions the 2012 election, inevitably the name of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney becomes a topic of conversation. And when it comes to polling data, Romney is often seen as a front-runner, forecasted to be stronger than the current occupant of the Oval Office, Barack Obama. Increasingly, many of those in the Republican Party think Mitt is the GOP’s “go-to” guy in the next election. I guess you’ll just have to pardon me for failing to drink the Kool-Aid regarding the former governor. I just think it’s about time somebody stated the truth about Gov. Romney. Mitt Romney...

As I type this, I am watching former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on “The Wendy Williams Show” talking about his impending talk show on Fox and am reminded, not for the first time, that quite a few presidential candidates function as if they never expected or even wanted to be president in the first place. They ran to gain a media platform. But few have done so as brazenly as Huckabee, who typically ended his homespun stump homilies with pedestrian pluckings of his bass guitar. Huckabee’s ultimate role in the 2008 race was to assist in the splintering of evangelicals...

Sarah Palin cranked up her 2012 presidential campaign another notch today, with the release of a campaign video aimed directly at women. The basic math is simple. If she gets half of the female primary voters and caucus attenders to support her, then she standing starts at roughly 25% of the total vote. Throw in a third of the male vote and she's at roughly 40%. Forty percent wins the Iowa caucuses, handily. Which then sets up New Hampshire as the place where the not-Sarah candidate emerges. In all likelihood, that will be former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who finished...

*** NOTE! UPDATED WITH REFERENCED CLIPS *** Glenn Beck is warning us to grab EVERYTHING we can off the internet because they are about to shut it down. They are about to shut down talk radio through regs, and even Fox News is in danger. He urged everyone to immediately connect with your local 9-12/tea party groups, your churches, your neighbors, etc. He urged us to let our local police and military know we stand with them, let them know who we are. Tell your pastors, rabbis, priests to read the sermons that led to the American Revolution. Read them....

Word from inside the Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign team is that Romney will abandon his 2008 strategy of seeking to win over social conservatives—evangelical or born-again Christians—for whom his Mormonism is a major deterrent. In 2008, the Romney campaign had hoped the candidate’s clean-cut, family-man profile would be enough to win over socially conservative Christians, many of whom harbor deep misgivings about Mormonism fed in large part by a thirty-year campaign of “spiritual warfare” against Mormonism begun in the 1980s at Fuller Theological Seminary under the auspices of its anti-“cult” ministries. Romney’s 2008 candidacy was consistently shadowed not only...

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney and his strategists expected his Mormon faith to fade as an issue for fundamentalist Christians during his first presidential campaign. This time around, should he choose to run again, they have doubts. ...But even as the national Republican establishment warms to Romney as never before, the former candidate and his closest aides now believe a group of voters will always be off-limits because of his religion. SNIP In Iowa, three-fifths of caucus-goers considered themselves “born-again or evangelical Christian,’’ according to a survey, taken for a media consortium as voters entered the caucuses. SNIP More than one-third...

The elections of Nikki Haley, who is poised to become the first female/first Indian governor of South Carolina and Tim Scott, poised to become the second black Republican congressman to serve in Congress (and who won against a segregationist's son, Paul Thurmond) were momentous and historical for all the obvious reasons... That being said, I do not expect the lamestream media to give these stories as much coverage as they deserve mainly because their "conservatives want segregation back" mantra is quite frankly the only age-old tactic liberals have to rely on for any hope of keeping their shackles on the...

Mitt did an op-ed on the disaster in the Gulf and chides O in the USA Today article on lack of leadership, but where has Mitt been as far as coming out and telling it like it is? only after everybody else criticized Obama!!....I see He copy's pretty much what Sarah Palin already said in her facebook! http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-06-10-column10_ST_N.htm

Who’s Fred Malek and why should you care? Think of him as sort of the Beltway-insider equivalent of John Ziegler. Like Ziegs, he’s a Sarahcuda defender par excellence, and like Ziegs, he doesn’t think she’s angling for a serious shot at the presidency. From a WaPo profile last year describing him as “the authority on Palin”:

Conservative superstar Sarah Palin opened the door yesterday to joining forces with Mitt Romney for a 2012 White House run - a hot ticket that has some Republicans licking their chops at the prospect of unseating President Obama. “Sounds pretty good,” Palin declared at yesterday’s Tea Party Express rally on the Common when asked about pairing up with the former Bay State governor - giving the idea a big thumbs-up as she left the stage after her headline speech. Last night, as Palin stopped for cannoli at Mike’s Pastry in the North End, she said she was “serious” about the...

Conservative superstar Sarah Palin opened the door today to joining forces with Mitt Romney for a 2012 White House run - a hot ticket that has some Republicans licking their chops at the prospect of unseating President Obama. “Sounds pretty good,” Palin declared at today’s Tea Party Express rally on the Common when asked about pairing up with the former Bay State governor - giving the idea a big thumbs-up as she left the stage after her headline speech. Earlier tonight, as Palin stopped for cannoli at Mike’s Pastry in the North End, she said she was “serious” about the...

Here is video of Bill O'Reilly interviewing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney last night, where he pressed him hard on what he called the "fiscal disaster" of RomneyCare. Romney said it is essentially costing what they expected it to cost. He also claimed the plan takes people who had no health care and gives them a chance to purchase private, market-based health care. Romney argued that RomneyCare differs from ObamaCare in that it is a state-based solution rather than a Federal Program! He finally admitted that his plan in Massachusetts has NOT brought health care costs down, and he said...

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney would be the top pick of Republicans meeting here, to square off against US President Barack Obama, if the party primary were held now, officials said Saturday. Romney edged out Texas Congressman Ron Paul by only one vote -- 439-438 -- to win a nine-candidate race of Republican candidates, according to results of Saturday's test vote at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Paul and Romney campaigned unsuccessfully for their party's presidential nomination in 2008. It was won, however, by Arizona Senator John McCain, who eventually lost to Democrat Obama. The...

Mitt Romney: 439 votes Ron Paul: 438 votes Sarah Palin: 330 votes Newt Gingrich: 321

Here are the facts of Election 2012, as it stands now: Two major Republican candidates are engaged in the serious travel, staff hiring, contact building and general planning that are required to make a credible run for President. That pair is Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who ran in 2008 and is — and will be for the foreseeable future — the party's front runner, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who was considered for the 2008 veep slot by John McCain. Romney has the stronger hand but some real problems. He retains almost all the strengths he brought to...

Looking at Public Policy Polling's results, it would appear that way. PPP has surveyed GOP primary voters in 10 states since mid-February, each has found Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee to be the favored candidate. Sarah Palin placed second in six states, but did not finish first in any of them. According to PPP's latest round of polls, Mike Huckabee leads in both Alabama (with 41%, over Palin's 27% and Romney's 20%) and Missouri (with 32%, over Palin's 28% and Romney's 22%). PPP has not surveyed Republicans in Iowa or New Hampshire--the two most critical primary states--and some of the...

MITT ROMNEY’S latest position on the Massachusetts health care reform law is, finally, an honest one. “Overall, ours is a model that works,’’ the former Bay State governor and would-be presidential candidate said in Iowa.

In the days immediately before and after passage of the landmark health care reform bill, Mitt Romney responded so forcefully as to suggest his own political fate is tied to the new law. It may well be. Just as health care, or “Obamacare,” as it is derided on the right, hangs over this year’s midterm elections, it is already casting a shadow on the 2012 presidential contest — and its GOP front-runner. What was once thought to be an asset for Romney, his passage as Massachusetts governor of a health care mandate for the state’s residents, now poses a potentially...

Alternate headline: “Obama hands devastating new attack ad to Romney opponents on a silver platter.” If you don’t have time to watch this now, no worries: You’ll be seeing the part about Mitt in eight thousand different GOP primary spots starting early next year. So brutal is it — think what kind of beating Charlie Crist is taking over the photo of him hugging Obama, then multiply by a thousand — that I’m tempted to believe The One set out to mention Romney with that idea in mind. If he can take out a potentially dangerous Republican nominee early in...

From his Free and Strong America PAC this morning: Today, Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC announced a new donation program, dubbed “Prescription for Repeal,” to support conservative candidates who will repeal the worst aspects of Obamacare and restore commonsense principles to health care. The first wave of endorsements goes to three conservative leaders in key Ohio Congressional Districts. The PAC will send each of the endorsed candidates a primary election contribution of $2,500. They are: