Free Republic

Some influential conservative thinkers have concluded that Mitt Romney’s struggle to ignite voter enthusiasm reflects a more serious problem for Republicans in setting unrealistic expectations for their presidential nominee. Calling their alliance Project Liberty, the newly formed group says the former Massachusetts governor cannot beat President Obama unless tea party members and the GOP’s activists — including conservatives on the Republican National Committee — adjust their mindset about insisting on a fully formed, ideologically reliable candidate as their standard-bearer.... Project Liberty backers have concluded that Mr. Romney will not win the White House on the basis of something he is...

April 6, 2012 For Immediate Release Contact: Matt Beynon - 703.307.8633 SANTORUM CAMPAIGN STATEMENT ON BELLA SANTORUM Verona, PA - The Rick Santorum for President campaign has issued the following statement on the health of Isabella Santorum. Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: "Rick and his wife Karen have taken their daughter Bella to the hospital. The family requests prayers and privacy as Bella works her way to recovery."

An effort to shake up the GOP primary race is underway in the Longhorn State. The outcome could set the course for a brokered convention by keeping front-runner Mitt Romney from securing enough delegates to win the presidential nomination outright. David Bellow, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, told The Daily Caller that he believes there is enough support among committee members to call an emergency SREC meeting to vote to change Texas’ primary from a proportional system to winner-take-all delegate state. According to Bellow, the effort has support from the necessary 15 SREC members to petition and...

(CBS News) -- Rick Santorum and his wife Karen's three-year-old daughter Bella is back in the hospital, according to a Friday email from his campaign. The release did not detail how serious Bella's condition was, but the child had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18 that claims the lives of most children within a year of birth. "Rick and his wife Karen have taken their daughter Bella to the hospital. The family requests prayers and privacy as Bella works her way to recovery," said a statement from communications director Hogan Gidley. Bella Santorum was last hospitalized in January with...

This is interesting. There’s a lot of issues as to how this will be handled at the convention by the RNC as they explain below, but their numbers certainly look better than the media’s counts. I’m sure they will be analyzed quite at bit in the coming days: The Media’s Delegate Math is Wrong There are a couple of fundamental flaws with the delegate counts that the media keeps that reveals that this race is much closer than they report: 1)      Florida, Arizona, and quite possibly Puerto Rico will be proportional rather than Winner Take All.  They broke RNC rules...

Richard Viguerie, a veteran conservative activist and top Santorum supporter, tells National Review Online that Santorum is “reengineering” his presidential campaign. “You can’t repeat the same behavior and expect different results,” he says. “We’ve got to do things different. We’ve got to reengineer the campaign. We’ve got to add things, take things out, and make changes. Everyone recognizes that, from the candidate on down.” Earlier today, Viguerie, along with a group of movement leaders, met with Santorum at an office in northern Virginia. For over an hour, they discussed ways to revive his bid. “We came up with a number...

(CNN) – Rick Santorum participated in two meetings with conservative leaders on Thursday which focused on his candidacy, but not on whether rival Newt Gingrich should end his, sources with knowledge of the meetings told CNN. "There was some frustration about the fact that Gingrich wasn't in Wisconsin, and if his vote had gone to Santorum then Santorum would have won, but I would not in any way say that meeting focused on getting Gingrich out," one participant said. This source and others spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because of the non-public nature of the meeting.

Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney's highest-profile endorsement, has a message for other GOP presidential (less)hopefuls: pack it in, boys. The primary's over. Ouch. As Tina Korbe reported over on Hot Air, the Florida Senator came out strongly for Romney's chances against Barack Obama, illustrating the kind of tenacity desired of a vice presidential nominee. “I actually think we’re going to have a very good nominee. I think Mitt Romney’s going to be the next president of the United States. And by their own admission, the folks running against Mitt Romney have admitted that they cannot win the primary, that the only...

Rick Santorum, trying to keep his presidential hopes alive despite increasingly long odds, is looking for the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass from Texas Republicans. Santorum has noted in recent days that some Texas party activists are waging an uphill battle to change the rules of the May 29 primary so that whoever wins would get all 152 delegates up for grabs in the contest. The activists, led by Santorum supporters, say they have enough support to force an emergency meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee, though major hurdles loom beyond that. The Republican National Committee would...

Texas Republicans are calling for an Emergency Texas GOP meeting to go to winner take all. Texas is tired of being overlooked and not having a voice in Presidential Races. This might keep Romney from getting 1144 delegates and force a Brokered Convention!

Rick Santorum's campaign has placed its hopes squarely on the Pennsylvania primary on April 24, after a near shutout in terms of delegates in Tuesday night's primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. While winning the Pennsylvania primary may be critical for the momentum of Santorum's presidential campaign, a win in his home state won't necessarily do anything to help him garner more delegates. Delegates chosen in the Keystone State's primary are not bound to support any candidate, said Valerie Caras, communications director for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania. Potential delegate candidates can try to inform voters that they intend...

Rick Santorum has now punted April and is saying that we need to wait until May for him to rack up significant totals of delegates. Fat chance. After DC, Maryland, and Wisconsin, Romney has about 640 delegates. He will probably win New York (95 delegates), Del (17), Ct (28), and RI (19) raising his total to about 770. He’ll lose Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri but he’ll get his share raising his total to 800 delegates). He could, and probably will, win Pennsylvania giving him 870. (Santorum doesn’t have delegates in each part of his home state). Then comes May, Rick’s...

In the latest Quinnipiac University poll, Rick Santorum still had a comfortable six-point lead over Mitt Romney in his home state of Pennsylvania. A new Public Policy Polling survey, though, shows Mitt Romney with a five-point lead over the former Pennsylvania senator.

After losing three more primaries this week, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum would have to win three-quarters of the remaining delegates to capture the 1,144 needed to win the GOP nomination. Front-runner Mitt Romney needs to lure slightly more than half of that. On Wednesday, the pleading got louder for Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who campaigns in the Bay Area on Thursday, to quit the race before they do any more damage to Romney in his quest for a November matchup against President Obama. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee who supports...

Two days after losing three more primaries, Rick Santorum appears to be in trouble in his home state: Mitt Romney’s taken the lead in PPP’s newest poll of Rick Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania. Romney has 42% to 37% for Santorum with Ron Paul at 9% and Newt Gingrich at 6%. The numbers represent a dramatic turnaround from when PPP polled the state a month ago. Romney’s gained 17 points, going from 25% to 42%. Meanwhile Santorum’s dropped 6 points from 43% to 37%, for an overall swing of 23 points in the last four weeks.

KEEP FIGHTING NEWT!That’s the message from the GOP.  Only 26% want to crown Mitt and call it a day.  Only 32% of Republican voters think it should only be Romney and Rick.  And 42% respond to the Romney/Rick show with “none of the above.”There are a couple of reasons for this in my opinion.  First, it is clear that many of us find RINO Romney simply the wrong rival to wrest control from the Cloward-Piven in Chief.  It turns out even the GOP INSIDERS may agree as Joe Scarborough spills in this morning spew: (h/t LegalInsurrection.com)Continued at: http://www.politijim.com/2012/04/two-thirds-of-gop-want-newt-to-continue.html

James Carville chose these colorful words to describe Rick Santorum after Mitt Romney swept three Republican primaries Tuesday: “He was like a chicken with his head chopped off. The chicken is dead. The only person that don’t know it is the chicken.” The Democratic strategist, not known to mince his words, said in a late-night interview with CNN that Santorum “can flop around all he wants to [but] they’re not going to nominate him.”

The possibility of a loss in his home state of Pennsylvania might force Rick Santorum to drop out of the Republican primary sooner than he’d planned, say GOP strategists. Santorum is notoriously strong-willed, and those close to him say that party elders will not be able to convince him to exit the race if he thinks he has a shot at the Republican nomination. But one of Santorum’s close friends told The Hill that while the former Pennsylvania senator remains confident about winning his home state and using that to build May momentum, if that confidence falters, he might exit...

Today's politics schedule looks like a snoozer. But wait! There's more! The primaries in Maryland (37) and the District of Columbia (19) look largely safely in Mitt Romney's delegate column, adding to his existing 568. Wisconsin too (42), although Rick Santorum has campaigned hard there. Since Iowa, where Santorum campaigned for a year to win the caucuses by two dozen votes, Romney has ruled the Midwest. He plans an election night event in Wisconsin, usually a strong sign that internal polls indicate a likely win. But even if the Pennsylvanian pulled off a Badger upset, he'd still have less than...

Fox News & CNN are projecting Romney wins MD in their banners. Santorum wasn't on the DC ballot. Wisconsin polls close at 8pm CDT/9pm EDT.