Free Republic

After Gingrich Newt scored a surprise blow-out victory in South Carolina last week, the former Massachusetts governor not only unleashed a political broadside of epic proportions. "It not about winning here anymore," one Romney staffer told BuzzFeed. "It's about destroying Gingrich — and it's working." After two standout debate performances that put him up 9 points in recent polls, Romney is keeping the pressure on Gingrich, looking to score a blow-out victory of his own here. To that end, Romney has rolled out a team of surrogates in the Sunshine State to take the fight to Gingrich in person: from...

Facing the unthinkable here just seven days ago — a second loss in a row to Newt Gingrich — Mitt Romney’s campaign team hatched a two-part plan to win in Florida: make Newt mad and Mitt meaner. -snip- A team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich, much of it finding its way to the influential Drudge Report, which often serves as a guide for conservative talk radio and television assignment editors and to which Mr. Rhoades has close ties. The...

Not too many months ago, likely voters trusted Republicans over Democrats on all ten top issues. It was probably too much to expect those heady days to continue, and I suspect that the GOP presidential primary season has damaged the party’s standing. That is unfortunate: if the Republican candidates had devoted their energies to non-stop attacks on President Obama, the result would have been positive. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and the bashing of fellow Republicans that we have seen over the last couple of months has no doubt damaged the party’s brand.

MIAMI — Facing the unthinkable here just seven days ago — a second loss in a row to Newt Gingrich — Mitt Romney’s campaign team hatched a two-part plan to win in Florida: make Newt mad and Mitt meaner. [snip] If Mr. Romney does win here on Tuesday, it will have been through a blistering and unrelenting series of attacks. His campaign has pressed everything at its disposal into service to eviscerate Mr. Gingrich, painting him as an erratic, unreliable Washington insider in mailings and television advertisements, at two critical debates here (where his team made sure Mr. Romney had...

The Romney campaign sends along a statement by Bob Dole pasted below. Relations between Dole — an establishment figure in the party — and Gingrich were well known to be tense during the 1990s. Here it is: I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a...

Jon Huntsman has halted his campaign for president, leaving Romney the only serious choice on foreign policy.

Trolling a bit admittedly, but it appears that even if Romney secures the nomination, he is destined to lose due to good, old-fashioned religious bigotry.

There's been a fair amount of chatter/concern that the importance of Florida's Republican primary could be dramatically diluted if the RNC further penalizes the state for its early primary by allocating its delegates proportionally, rather than winner-take-all. After all, divvying up 50 delegates four or five ways would make the state a lot smaller prize for the winner. On a conference call with reporters today, however, RNC officials all but dismissed the prospects for Florida losing its winner-take-all status. As it is the state's number of delegates will be slashed from 99 to 50, and there is no mechanism to...

US election 2012: Mitt Romney On Course For Historic Double Victory Mitt Romney could strike a decisive early blow in the contest to pick the Republican party’s presidential nominee by becoming the first candidate ever to win both the first two states to vote, opinion polls suggest. By Jon Swaine 01 Jan 2012 The former Massachusetts governor leads the party field both in Iowa, where tomorrow’s caucuses will give the candidates their first test, and in New Hampshire, where voters go to the polls next Tuesday. If successful, Mr Romney would become the first Republican challenger in the modern primary...

My choice for President is Mitt Romney. I just shuddered at that statement. But there it is. There is the reality that 13 debates, months of bickering and intrigue, and countless discussions with conservative brethren have brought me. It is kind of a sad reality. Is this the best conservatives could do? So here has been my calculation for who I would support, from the beginning. First, the candidate must be electable and able to defeat Barack Obama, both electorally and intellectually. Second, they must broaden the base of the Republican Party, both on the conservative and moderate sides. Third,...

Time to close ranks behind Romney. He will beat Obama.

Unto the manor born, as they say: Romney’s speech was billed by his advisers as his closing argument before the GOP nomination fight kicks off in earnest with the Iowa caucuses on January 3. But you would be forgiven for thinking it sounded more like the opening salvo in a general election. Romney drew no explicit or, really, implicit contrasts with any of his Republican rivals, training his fire exclusively on the Democrat in the Oval Office. His focus reflected a strategy from which his campaign has rarely deviated all year long. But it was also born of a confidence...

LANCASTER, N.H. – Mitt Romney today said that the $40 many Americans would lose if the payroll tax holiday isn’t extended would make a “very substantial difference” to those who would be without it. “It’ll be the difference between having a meal that includes meat or just Hamburger Helper,” said Romney in an interview with ABC News’ John Berman aboard his new campaign bus in northern New Hampshire. “It could be the difference between being able to take your family to McDonald’s at the end of the week. It means the difference between being able to go to a movie...

NEWT HELPED FORMULATE CHRISTMAS December 21, 2011Every few years, heinous Democratic policies -- abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, Hillarycare, Obamacare, to name a few -- compel previously uninvolved Americans to leap into politics. This is great, except for two things: (1) We have to get heinous Democratic policies first; and (2) newcomers have short memories, sometimes no memories at all. The second point is the only possible explanation for why some conservatives seem to view Newt Gingrich as the anti-Establishment outsider who will shake up Washington. Newly active right-wingers would do well to spend a little more time quietly...

Coulter just finished a segment with Hannity's fill in host. She is convinced Newt, "with two affairs", is unelectable and "shouldn't be elected." Is Newt unelectable?

<p>Did Palin just call Newt and Mitt RINOs? It sure sounds like it.</p>

Conservative pundits turn down Newt By: Alexander Burns December 9, 2011 10:42 AM EST The conservative opinion elite has reached a consensus on Newt Gingrich: He’s not the one they’ve been waiting for. In the days since Gingrich leaped to the forefront of the Republican presidential race, the nation’s most prominent right-leaning commentators — many of whom have spent the last year pining for alternatives to Mitt Romney — have rendered a swift and caustic judgment on their party’s latest out-of-right-field challenger. In columns dripping with disdain, they’ve argued that Gingrich isn’t just undesirable as an opponent for Romney —...

RINO. Three words: liberal progressive RINO. Add a fourth, fifth, sixth, etc: unprincipled, untrustworthy, flip-flopper, aisle-crossing, fraud, liar, political whore. And a few more: abortionist, gay rights panderer, gun-grabber, global warming advocate, big government mandate lover, socialist healthcare pusher, constitution trampling, liberal judge appointing, TARP loving, bailout loving, stimulus pushing Keynesian statist. That my friends, is no definition of conservative or of conservatism. Not even close. In fact it's the exact opposite. Free Republic is and will remain an exclusive pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-constitution, pro-small government, pro-capitalism, pro-defense, pro-borders, grassroots patriotic conservative site, regardless of party politics. I support...

Mitt Romney refused to criticize his Massachusetts health-care program tonight, saying he would prefer to lose the primary rather than renounce it. “I’m standing by what I did in Massachusetts,” Romney said on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier. “I’m not trying to dust it aside. I’m absolutely firm that it was the right thing for our state. I’ll defend that and I understand it has political implications. And if it keeps me from winning a primary, so be it. But that happens to be the truth.” “It’s by far, the biggest challenge I have in the primary...

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney met with former President George H.W. Bush Thursday, but Romney aides say no endorsement is coming. The former Massachusetts governor ventured onto the turf of a rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to meet with Bush and his wife, Barbara, in the living room of their Houston home. Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said Romney and the nation's 41st president are friends, but added that the visit doesn't mean Bush will endorse Romney. Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said the meeting was a courtesy visit, noting that Bush has met with other GOP presidential hopefuls, including Jon Huntsman.

A new poll shows that if Republicans want to nominate the candidate most likely to beat President Obama in 2012, they should pick Mitt Romney—at least if the election were held tomorrow.

Sarah Palin offered some unsolicited advice last night to Mitt Romney, the red-headed stepchild of GOP presidential frontrunners, encouraging him to more openly embrace the fiscal and social conservative side of the Republican party, and to develop a more robust relationship with the Tea Party movement. This morning on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, host Martha MacCallum asked Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson and liberal “embed” Alan Colmes to discuss Romney’s strategy in engaging the powerful Tea Party contingent, which Carlson put in remarkably stark terms. After openly questioning why Romney hasn’t made more of an effort in including an energized...

People have been asking me all week if conservatives will stick with Herman Cain, but I think he's got a bigger problem than the conservative vote. A lot more women than conservatives vote, and the women I've talked to are finished with him. There's a new CBS poll which says that 38 percent of female Republican primary voters are "less likely to back him" now that more accusers have come forward. Among all registered voters, CBS reports that Cain has lost support among women since last month—from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. My sense is that 15...

After Rick Perry's abysmal debate and Herman Cain's transparently false sexual harassment defense, it's more clear than ever that Romney's the one. Six weeks ago, I wrote that in the GOP race for the presidential nomination, Mitt Romney's the one — mostly because the other candidates have proved to be implausible or utterly inconceivable. And after Wednesday's Michigan debate, we now know with even more certainty who the Republican nominee will be. His name is not Rick Perry, whose potential comeback imploded in an excruciating, alternately comical and pathetic 50 seconds that left an indelible impression of someone out of...

Mark Levin flagged this on Twitter with this observation: “I think it can be said that Karl Rove has jumped the shark. In fact, the shark bit him on the ass. Good-bye Karl.” Maybe Karl Rove should have consulted with his Fox News colleague Greta van Susteren about Allred’s credibility in allegations involving political candidates. It’s hard to imagine that the appearance of Gloria Allred, of all people, will help Sharon Bialek seem more credible: (VIDEO AT LINK) “Credibility matters here, and Gloria Allred — while she is a Democrat and a liberal Democrat and openly so — nonetheless, has...

Republican presidential candidates, largely silent until today on the sexual harassment allegations plauging rival Herman Cain, are beginning to speak out. Frontrunner Mitt Romney labeled them “particularly disturbing,” while Rick Santorum branded them “unfortunate” and “a distraction.” Speaking with ABC News from Chicago for a series a year from Election Day 2012, Romney told interviewer George Stephanopoulos: “These are serious allegations.” He added: “They’re going to have to be addressed seriously. I don’t have any counsel for Herman Cain or for his campaign; they have to take their own counsel on this.” Romney, a lawyer as well as a former...

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney says allegations that rival Herman Cain groped a former employee are "particularly disturbing" and must be addressed. Romney told ABC News/ Yahoo! on Tuesday that he will not judge whether Sharon Bialek's claims against Cain are true. He declined to say whether they are disqualifying. ... Romney .. "These are serious allegations and they're going to have to be addressed."

Relatively few prominent Republican women have spoken out, so far, about the sexual harassment charges facing Herman Cain. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski started to change that today, telling CNN that she's "concerned" about the growing list of complaints about Cain's behavior: Murkowski made clear she was moved by the public account of Sharon Bialek, a single mother from Chicago ... "It takes incredible courage for an individual to come forward as this latest, as this one woman has," the third-term Alaskan said. "So it does cause me to wonder exactly what is out there. I am concerned." ...

Mitt Romney’s problem with the Republican Party is not just that he previously held liberal positions on a wide-ranging array of issues. That can be explained away, at least a bit, as pandering necessary to win votes in a Democratic state. The deeper problem is that Romney was promising behind closed doors to act as essentially a sleeper agent within the Republican Party, adopting liberal stances, rising to national prominence, and thereby legitimizing them and transforming the Party from within. Today’s Washington Post has more detail: "Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his...

Responding to his insurgent campaign’s first crisis, Herman Cain was upbeat and defiant. “To quote my chief of staff and all the people around this country, ‘Let Herman be Herman,’ ” he said Monday. “And Herman is gonna stay Herman.” I was afraid of that. Cain’s policy positions range from the ignorant to the unworkable to the just plain goofy – and yet he is running first or second in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination. He trumpets his utter lack of government experience as a selling point and boasts of not knowing foreign leaders’ names. If through some...

The lawyer for a woman who settled a sexual harassment complaint against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain in the late 1990s says that Cain may have violated the confidentiality terms of the agreement by commenting on its specifics over the past 24 hours. "Herman Cain and others have already disclosed that there was a confidential settlement," says Joel P. Bennett, a Washington-based attorney specializing in employment law, who also represented the woman when she negotiated her settlement. (snip) "I don't know if she'll ever go public," he said Tuesday. (snip) Without having the agreement in hand, Bennett says he doesn't...

In an email to POLITICO this afternoon, Robinson admitted that the site routinely blocks Romney supporters from posting -- and offered no apologies for the practice: Free Republic is a pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-small government, pro-constitution, pro-liberty site. Governor Romney is none of the above. His record is that of an abortionist, gay rights pushing, gun grabbing, global warming advocating, big government, mandate loving, constitution trampling, flip-flopping liberal progressive with no core values. That and the fact that he is the chief architect and advocate for ObamaCare disqualifies him for any consideration whatsoever on Free Republic as a potential nominee...

The top campaign contributors behind President George W. Bush's vaunted political network are slowly coming off the sidelines, and many are lining up behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Poll: Romney may have the most to gain from Cain scandal Will Rahn October 31-2011 If the sexual harassment allegations against former pizza mogul Herman Cain turn out to be credible — or simply refuse to fade away — polling suggests that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney stands the most to gain, the Washington Post reports. While it’s too early to say what if any damage the allegations reported by Politico on Sunday will do to Cain’s campaign, they have the potential to shake up the race. Cain has been polling in first or second place for more than a...

(snip) Graham said it is crucial for the U.S. to continue to support Israel, and said the president has "thrown Israel under the bus" by talking about settlements and pre-1967 borders. "It is our best friend in the Middle East," Graham said. He did praise the president for sending military advisers into Uganda.Graham said he is hoping to hear more on foreign policy from the Republican presidential candidates. "Rick Santorum is speaking like Ronald Reagan better than anybody else on peace and strength," Graham said. "Ronald Reagan confronted the challenges of his time. He did not isolate America." Graham declined...

BOSTON — On the Republican campaign trail, the health care debate has focused on the mandatory coverage that Mitt Romney signed into law as governor in 2006. But back in Massachusetts the conversation has moved on, and lawmakers are now confronting the problem that Mr. Romney left unaddressed: the state’s spiraling health care costs. After three years of study, the state’s legislative leaders appear close to producing bills that would make Massachusetts the first state — again — to radically revamp the way doctors, hospitals and other health providers are paid. Although important details remain to be negotiated, the legislative...

The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party sprang up in spontaneous rebellion to big government's big spending, big taxing ways. TARP, the bailouts, the PORKULUS package and ObamaCare lit the fuse. TEA partiers support the constitution's limited government restrictions. TEA partiers are non-partisan, i.e., we oppose the big government, big spending, big taxing moves of both the major political parties. This is an open rebellion against business as usual big spending, overreaching government! We demand a return to constitutionally limited government!! The socialist/progressive Democrat party is our natural enemy and they understand that and attack us accordingly. The big government RINO...

<p>Our purpose and goal on FR is to restore, defend, preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity!!</p> <p>The goal of the domestic enemy (the left), i.e., the statist liberals, Marxists and progressives is just the opposite.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney's early success in the Republican presidential race is challenging the tea party's clout. Will it continue to pull the GOP sharply right? Will it slowly fade? Or merge with mainstream Republican elements in a nod to pragmatism, something it's hardly known for? On the surface, Romney's strength seems at odds with the tea party's fiery success in ousting Republicans seen as compromisers, and in making the House GOP caucus more ideological, even when its leaders plead for flexibility. Romney defends the government's 2008 bank bailouts, plus the mandated health insurance he initiated as Massachusetts governor....

After watching the GOP presidential debate the other night, it was hard to avoid this conclusion: Mitt Romney looks more and more like the GOP presidential nominee. He's the best debater. He's got his issues and his rejoinders down pat. He brushes away his opponents like lint on his lapel. And all with such ease. That said, there's a teensy problem he just can't seem to beat: Conservatives don't like him. Or trust him. Or really want him to be the GOP nominee. Sure, you say, Republicans never like their nominees, and they still manage to vote for them. There...

In 2008, John McCain's campaign team discussed whether they should let Sarah Palin be sworn in as vice-president if they were to win the election, according to campaign staffer Nicolle Wallace. "There certainly were discussions -- not for long because of the arc the campaign took -- but certainly there were discussions about whether, if they were to win, it would be appropriate for her to be sworn in," Wallace tells Time's Claire Suddath. In her new novel, It's Classified, Wallace has a character -- a mentally ill female vice-president -- which she says is based on her experience working...

This column is about hypocrisy. As a libertarian, I support marriage equality for gays and abortion rights although I admit I have struggled mightily with the latter and my views have changed after the birth of my grandchildren. I have always been and remain a Second Amendment man. Mitt Romney once agreed with me. When running for the US Senate in 1994, Romney supported abortion on demand, gay marriage and gun control. That same year he attacked President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush saying "I don't want to take us back to that, to Reagan-Bush." Now suddenly Mitt...

According to the survey, which was released Monday, 28 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support Perry as their party's presidential nominee, with Romney at 21 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is at ten percent, with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who's making his third bid for the White House, former Godfather's Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, all at seven percent. The poll indicates that Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is at four percent, with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at three...

Interesting segment, not because Coulter’s advancing any new criticisms of Palin but because she’s willing to acknowledge openly the political risk on the right in criticizing her in the first place. According to Coulter, conservatives refuse to challenge Palin publicly because they don’t want to deal with the hate mail from her supporters. That’s part of it, I’m sure — by now, all columnists and bloggers know what awaits after criticizing Palin or, say, Ron Paul — but I suspect the better part is that there’s simply no faster ticket to RINOville among some grassroots conservatives than uttering a discouraging...

Will the Lone Star state turn blue in 2012? It isn’t likely — unless Gov. Rick Perry jumps in the ring and clinches the Republican nomination, a new poll from the Public Policy Polling group found. In the poll’s match-ups, President Barack Obama loses Texas to every notable Republican except Perry and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. If the ballot came down to Perry and Obama, 47 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for Obama. Forty-five percent said they would cast a ballot for Perry. The most elected Republican in the poll? Mitt Romney. The poll found that...

A few weeks ago, the race for the Republican presidential nomination was a jumble of candidates, none of whom seemed to be winning the party's hearts or minds: Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich. For a moment, some GOP voters even pinned their hopes on pizza magnate Herman Cain, mostly because he didn't sound — or look — like the others. But now, if you talk with Republican political professionals, the GOP race has suddenly settled into a contest among only two or three potential nominees. There's Romney, still the front-runner, stolidly running a cautious and conventional campaign. There's Michele...

Karl Rove’s Money Machine Goes Live With $20 Million Anti-Obama Campaign (VIDEO) Evan McMorris-Santoro June 24, 2011 The real starting gun of the 2012 presidential race may be sounding Monday, and it's coming in the form of massive attack ad campaign aimed squarely at President Obama's economic record. Crossroads GPS, anonymous-money collecting arm of the Citzens United-inspired political machine founded by Karl Rove and other Republican heavyweights, is going live with a $20 million television ad campaign targeting the president 497 days before voters head to the polls in November 2012. The ads will start appearing on Monday, and will...

After all Sarah Palin did last year to contribute to the GOP's historical 2010 win, and all that she has gone through to shine the light on true conservative values, I am amazed how some of those on the right still disparage her. Jeff Kuhner of the Washington Times, and a fill-in host for Michael Savage, echoed leftist reporters like Susan Milligan of U.S. News and Bill Keller of the New York Times. Mrs. Palin (should she run) may be able to win the GOP nomination. The presidency, however, is a bridge too far. The media will eviscerate her. Outside...

A new breed of GOP governors are pragmatic technocrats rather than partisan ideologues.Jon Huntsman will almost certainly not get the Republican nomination for president in 2012. It is not likely he will even be in the race past the Florida primary, tentatively set for January 31, 2012. He has little support among the Republican base, and outside of a very small subset of establishment types, no discernible support among any GOP voters.But what makes his candidacy interesting is the attention being paid to it by the national media despite his near zero name recognition with Republican voters. One might be...

The Republican nomination for president is completely up for grabs, but there's a lot of agreement on who the vice presidential pick should be: Marco Rubio, the freshman senator from Florida. My contacts in the Mitt Romney camp are boasting: "Doesn't a Romney-Rubio ticket sound great?" One senior Romney advisor told me: "We think that could be a dream ticket." Operatives from the pack of other wannabes are thinking ahead to the same Rubio marriage with their candidate.