Free Republic

**SNIP** Far less attention will get paid to the vital, somewhat shadowy, process of protecting Romney from choosing someone who cannot withstand the white-hot scrutiny of a presidential campaign. A longtime Republican insider who’s been a central figure in vetting numerous VP candidates has just written an eye-opening description in the Wall Street Journal of the process Romney is likely to follow. “They will be asked for their agreement to join him on the GOP ticket if chosen, and in the meantime, to submit to a most intrusive and far-reaching vetting by lawyers and advisors working for the campaign,” writes...

If you were trying to come up with the atrocious candidate imaginable to go toe-to-toe with Barack Obama in 2012, you couldn't do much worse than Mitt Romney. He was an unpopular, moderate Governor who has lost 2 out of the 3 major elections he's run in and whose signature issue, Romneycare, was an enormous failure. Moreover, he's so uninspiring that he makes Bob Dole look like Ronald Reagan and that's before you consider that his incessant flip-flopping that makes it impossible to really know where he stands on any issue. Romney's candidacy also runs counter to almost every political...

All I'm hearing from those-who-like-to-tell-us-how-to-vote (MSM/GOP establishment/Ann Coulter) this week is how Romney is "feeling confident" while Rick Santorum is soaring  (an unsinspiring politician Romney/Obama would love to face), yet Reaganite warrior Newt Gingrich (of whom they are both terrified) is now 'demoralized', with 'little chance of winning', etc... and all this derived from a vote count representing of just 4% of Iowa's tiny, rural population.  Yes, MSM/Left know perfectly well that this is the flakiest GOP primary electorate in history -and Santorum not even 10% as brutally-vetted/slandered as Bachmann, Cain, and Gingrich have been: might be good to consider at this point why some...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is shrugging off reports that the vote count from Iowa’s caucuses might be wrong, saying the errors appear not to change the fact that he and Mitt Romney were nearly tied. Santorum tells Fox News that a party official says the two cases in which errors were reported in the count from Tuesday night nearly cancel each other out. A Ron Paul supporter told Des Moines TV station KCCI that the posted count from his precinct in Appanoose County gave Romney more votes than he actually received. The GOP chairman...

Marion, Iowa -- Laura Ross walked out of a roaring, 500-person Mitt Romney rally at an asphalt plant Monday evening and into the 26-degree chill with an idea of whom she will support in today's Iowa caucuses. "I really love Rick Perry," said Ross, who lives just outside nearby Cedar Falls. "But I will probably go with Romney. I think. He's got the best chance of beating Obama." Even on the final day of campaigning before the caucuses, Iowa Republicans still have a conflicted relationship with Romney, the Republican they've known longer in an up-close-and-personal way than any candidate other...

And we all know what strike one is. If anyone besides Romney actually shows up to tomorrow night’s GOP debate in Nevada, I sure wouldn’t mind if someone would ask him why as Governor of Massachusetts he bragged about implementing stringent, economy-stifling regulations on CO2 emissions. On the advice of Obama’s crackpot science czar John Holdren, no less. I’d really love to hear the explanation. Via Hot Air and Moonbattery, here is an excerpt from a 2005 memo from Romney’s office: Governor Mitt Romney today announced that Massachusetts will take another major step in meeting its commitment to protecting air...

Mitt Romney’s campaign team knows that his Mormon faith scared off Republican voters the last time he ran for president. But they believe a lot has changed in the last four years. For starters, Romney is now much better known. The former Massachusetts governor campaigned hard in the 2008 primaries – even addressing his Mormonism head-on in a major speech — and has stayed in the public eye since, popping up on late-night talk shows and on cable news channels. Romney’s Mormonism, the thinking goes, is less exotic than it was four years ago because the candidate is more familiar....

Part 2 in a developing series of in-depth analysis by Dr. Jeff Fuller (See part 1 here) It’s often revealing to turn conventional wisdom on its head and see what’s really hidden underneath. You’ve all heard it, I’m sure, that RomneyCare is Mitt’s doom, an albatross around his neck, his biggest weakness as a potential candidate. In Part 1 of this series I detailed not only how grave some people feel this issue is for Romney’s chances, but also pointed out that Obama and his team of key operatives (Axelrod, Gibbs, and Daley) are all praising RomneyCare as ObamaCare’s predecessor...