Free Republic

(snip) Other Republican leaders such as Ron Kaufman, the longtime confidant to President George H.W. Bush, believe 2012 could be a banner year for the state GOP. He pointed to Brown’s upcoming reelection campaign, last November’s gains by Republican state representatives, and the possibility of having former governor Mitt Romney on the presidential ticket. "For us, it’s about getting the message out," said Kaufman, who added that GOP candidates would focus on the economy and their opposition’s record next year. "If you look at the last three speakers of the House in Massachusetts, they’ve all been indicted for one problem...

An early look at potential 2012 match-ups indicates that the election is likely shaping up as a referendum on President Obama. That’s typical when an incumbent runs for reelection. The numbers show that Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee essentially run even with Obama at this point. Romney is nominally up two points, 44% to 42%, while Huckabee is tied with the president at 43% apiece. Three other well-known potential candidates, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul trail the president. Palin is down by 11 points, 49% to 38%, Gingrich by eight, 47% to 39%, and Paul by nine, 44%...

An array of Republican heavyweights who backed Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential bid are not yet committed to - and in some cases, downright skeptical of - the former Massachusetts governor’s all-but-certain 2012 campaign. In each of the traditional early states, top Romney supporters from the last campaign tell POLITICO that they’re hesitant to get behind the nearest thing the GOP has to a frontrunner. His difficulties are particularly acute in Iowa and South Carolina, where his former enthusiasts say they have not heard from him, believe he may be intent on downplaying the states in his second White House run...

SALT LAKE CITY — There are new hints that former Utah Olympic leader Mitt Romney is gearing up to announce another run for president. Politico reported Thursday that Romney aides are telling other Republicans that he expects to launch his campaign in April. The online news source noted Romney has already taken "another methodical step toward his 2012 run" by stepping down from the Marriott hotel chain board of directors — again. The last time Romney left was before he ran successfully for governor of Massachusetts following the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He rejoined the board in...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said Sunday he thinks Mitt Romney is the party's leading potential presidential candidate for 2012. "He's got his problems, but so does everybody else," Mr. Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Q: When it comes to a government overhaul of health care, what is the difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney? A: Obama was against an individual insurance mandate before he was for it. Romney was for the mandate before he was against it. Actually, that's not precisely accurate. The real difference is that Obama acknowledges reversing his position, while Romney seems to be trying to have it both ways.

Here is video of Tea Party Express President – Amy Kremer – telling CBN’s David Brody that Gov. Mitt Romney is “absolutely not” acceptable as a Presidential candidate in 2012. She made the statement after Brody asked her if the Tea Party Movement could accept Romney in spite of his role in signing “RomneyCare” into law in the state of Massachusetts. Kremer’s response: “Absolutely not. . . . The days of people being able to do one thing in their state – in front of a microphone and then going to Washington and doing something else – I mean the...

Mitt Romney is shaking hands, kissing babies, making endorsements, and dropping money in every state in the nation in a way that suggests he’s in it for the long haul to 2012. Unfortunately, I’m not feeling Romney’s chances for the GOP presidential nomination. He’s a workhorse in a party addicted to, if not Thoroughbreds, at least some well-spruced Clydesdales. Romney is, as Politico notes, “an establishment kind of guy in an insurgent kind of party.” He’s putting in the work, but he’s not getting either the name recognition of a Newt Gingrich or the camera recognition of Sarah Palin. In...

It’s time honored tradition to attempt to gauge the political landscape and prognosticate who our next elected leaders will. But now, you can gamble money on it. According to data provided to TFoP by bodog.com released its 2012 odds for the Republican presidential nominees. Coming out on top, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is an early favorite at 3/1 (+300), along with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 4/1 (+400). However, one of the bigger eye-catching surprises seems to be how high Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is on the list, giving him the third best odds at 6/1 (+600). Rounding...

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama Republican governor candidate Robert Bentley has turned down an offered endorsement from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, expected to be a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Romney on Thursday endorsed a list of 24 Alabama Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, state treasurer Kay Ivey in her race for lieutenant governor and Birmingham lawyer Luther Strange, who is running for attorney general. The Birmingham News reported that Bentley turned down the endorsement. A spokeswoman for Bentley, Rebekah Mason, said Friday that Bentley wanted to concentrate on the race for governor and did...

A Greenwich Village resident was socked with an eye-popping 25 percent increase in health premiums -- and his insurance company is slapping part of the blame on President Obama's health-care overhaul that took effect yesterday. Doug Gowland's monthly bill will jump $140 -- from $565 to $705 -- under the hike, according to a letter he received from insurer EmblemHealth. And the annual cost for the self-insured 62-year-old man's mostly bare-bones plan will increase $1,680 -- from $6,780 to $8,460. In the notice, EmblemHealth told Gowland, who is healthy, "The proposed rate increase includes two components: a basic increase on...

Beware of Senate bill 3767, the so-called Food Safety Accountability Act. This dangerous legislation, if passed, would criminalize nutritional supplement manufacturers who tell the truth about their products or link to published scientific studies describing the biological benefits of their products. Based on language in the bill, health proponents who sell supplements could be criminalized and convicted to ten years in prison. The Life Extension Foundation recently published an important warning piece about this, complete with some call to action items for which we need your help. Here's what was written by William Faloon and published at LEF (http://www.lef.org/featured-article...). I...

Former Gov. Mitt Romney is down-sizing his stake in Massachusetts. He sold his Belmont mansion and bought a townhouse in a condo development. And now he more often resides in his $12 million mansion in La Jolla, Calif., or his $10 million house on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Ever since Romney won just 51 percent in the Massachusetts GOP presidential primary, he has seemed less enamored with this state. And as a GOP presidential candidate for 2012, he apparently wants to distance himself from so-called RomneyCare, the Massachusetts health insurance program that became a model for so-called ObamaCare, the...

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney, having met last weekend in New Hampshire with the staff of his 2008 presidential campaign, is preparing to embark on an aggressive schedule that will take him to more than 25 states in what is seen as a prelude to another possible White House bid. The two-month itinerary will launch a cycle of politicking for Republican midterm election candidates that will make Romney one of the nation’s most visible politicians in a year when he is not on the ballot.

Come out, stay out and help out! Book a reservation at a participating hotel as part of our OUT in DC package, and we'll donate a portion of every booking to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization dedicated to eliminating discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Where else but Marriott can a good time also do well for others? Our package includes: • Overnight accommodations • Destination DC's Pride in DC: Official GLBT Travelers Guide to Washington, DC • Breakfast for two adults and kids 12 years old and under eat free • Five...

An openly homosexual federal judge in California ignored a warning from the state's own Supreme Court about the coming chaos of polygamy and incest if same-sex "marriages" are established to enjoin enforcement of the state's constitutional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman only – and now he is being targeted by an impeachment campaign. Judge Vaughn Walker, who openly has lived a homosexual lifestyle, yesterday issued an order that the state could not enforce its own constitutional requirement that marriage is between members of the opposite sex only. The ruling from Walker said, "race and...

Let's look at how the gay-marriage thing in California has unfolded so far: The state’s Supreme Court in 2008, on a one-vote margin, decides to redefine marriage to dump one key parameter that had always and everywhere in human history been part of marriage: that it be between complementary sexes, not identical ones. Within months, the voters of the state overrule the court, amending their constitution to say that, no, you can’t redefine basic social institutions against the will of the people. The losers sue the state. And Wednesday, a federal judge – a judge, as in one – overrules...

Same-Sex Marriage: A federal judge decides marriage is a constitutional right and overturns California's Proposition 8 forbidding such unions. The issue is headed to a Supreme Court that Elena Kagan will be sitting on. The imperial judiciary has struck again, with Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker striking down California's Proposition 8, passed in November 2008 with 52% of the vote, on the grounds that the voter-approved law was a violation of gay couples' civil rights. Walker's ruling follows a Massachusetts federal judge's ruling last month that the state's married gay couples, also established by judicial fiat, were being wrongly...

Judge Walker’s fervent ideological bias in favor of same-sex marriage has been clear from the outset of the anti-Prop 8 case, and more recent reports that he is gay and has a same-sex partner have merely added some possible explanatory detail. As law professor...Gerard Bradley explains in this essay, the very manner in which Walker wrote his opinion reveals his bias: "We can now look at Judge Walker’s opinion and ask: is this the handiwork of an impartial and open mind on the subject of same-sex marriage? Or does the opinion rather resemble an ad hoc rationale for conclusions reached...

Journalism: Funny how practically no one knew that Judge Vaughn Walker was openly homosexual before his seismic ruling Wednesday. Why was such an obvious predisposition worth so little media attention? All federal judges must swear they "will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me ... so help me God." But can a judge given the opportunity to knock down a law that declared homosexual marriages invalid be impartial when he himself is openly homosexual? That question should have been part of the public discourse over the high-profile trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco...