Free Republic

Mitt Romney: The Man Behind The Perma-Smile Mega-Rich, Mormon, Chilly and Ruthless – Mitt Romney may emerge as the Republicans' candidate to take on Barack Obama, but he has a good few obstacles to get over first Ed Pilkington 'Well, it's just great to be here!" Mitt Romney says as he bounds on to the stage at a campaign stop in January, just one of hundreds he has made in his epic journey – he hopes – to the White House. It is the first of three rallies he will be packing into a single day, this one held in...

"The main reason the Republican establishment overwhelmingly favors Mitt Romney over Newt Gingrich is that Romney stands a better chance of beating Barack Obama," says Jonathan Chait at New York. So it's a problem for Romney that "as the campaign goes on, this seems to be growing less true." A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that negative views of Romney have "spiked" over the past two weeks, from a net +4 favorability rating (39 positive/34 negative) to a -18 rating (31 positive/49 negative) — very similar to Gingrich's -22 rating (29/51). The shift is most notabe among independents, who...