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Mitt Romney, whose campaign is preparing a multi-million dollar wave of negative advertising to persuade voters that Rick Santorum should not be president, says he is open to the possibility of choosing Santorum to be his running mate should Romney win the Republican nomination. Romney appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and was asked, "You and Rick Santorum, we haven't seen you go head-to-head yet…In the big picture, could you see a scenario where you two team up?" "Oh, I think it's always possible to have people come together in our party, whether it's Rick and I, or others in...

How disastrous was Specter prevailing over Toomey in 2004? In April 2009, Specter switched parties giving the Democrats a 60th vote in the Senate when Al Franken was declared the winner in Minnesota and sworn in after court challenges in July 2009. Specter put that vote to good use casting the 60th vote for cloture on Obamacare in late December 2009. Having enabled Obamacare to proceed to a full vote, Specter cast the 50th vote for Obamacare (guaranteeing passage because Biden could cast a tie breaker): They’re nothing if not prompt. Voting has begun on HR 3590, the Senate’s health...

At least it was cordial. But the 150 or so "movement conservatives" gathered at Paul Pressler's this weekend (1/13-14) were a fractured lot. Maybe 10% were for Perry. Almost all of them were against Romney. Well, sort of. Caveat below. There was an official Romney guy there who explained that "You'll either work with us now or work with us later, but you'll all have to get on Mitt's train, because we have the money and the organization, so there's no stopping us." This did not go over well. It just made everyone more determined than ever to do whatever...

After his embarrassing result in Iowa, Rick Perry seemed to get the message the polls have been sending him for months: Republican voters just aren’t that into him. On caucus night, said he’d go back to Texas and figure out what comes next. But within hours, Perry was sprinting into South Carolina, to make at least one more stand. Given that the TPM Poll Average shows Perry pulling just 4.8% support in the state, a clear question arises: What on earth is he thinking? The answer is, team Perry really thinks they can make it happen in South Carolina. The...

Romney! ObamaCare = RomneyCare = CommieCare. NO Romney! NO WAY!! STOP ROMNEY NOW!!! This is getting serious folks. We *must* stop this guy. We can't let Mitt (or Newt) get the nomination. Along with being way too liberal, Mitt is almost as corrupt as Newt. Romney and his campaign have paid off just about every politician in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. That is how he operates. His campaign shares their campaign contributions by passing some of them along to the campaign funds of politicians they want to influence -- and there are many greedy hands stuck out...

I’m rather tired of all the people who don’t like Romney trying to claim Rick Santorum is not a big government conservative, or not a pro-life statist. I would support him before I would support Romney too, but I have no intention of giving up ideological and intellectual consistency in the name of beating Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it. He is a big government conservative. Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion...

Rick Santorum’s second-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses means he’s now a leading alternative to Mitt Romney — and a prime attack target for the front-runner. A former Pennsylvania U.S. senator, Santorum, 53, campaigned across Iowa in a Ram pickup truck arguing he is the most consistent candidate on such issues as ending abortions and curbing government waste. It’s a message that caught fire in the final days of a fluid primary and propelled him into the front tier of candidates. He finished just eight votes behind the well-funded and better-organized former Massachusetts governor, and also bested Ron Paul,...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) won’t be returning to Congress on Friday to vote against a $1 trillion spending package that preserves funding for President Obama’s healthcare reform law, her office told The Hill. The presidential candidate is campaigning in Iowa on Friday, according to her campaign schedule. The omnibus is expected to sail through Congress after both parties signed off on it Thursday night. Still, Bachmann has made opposition to the healthcare law a focal point of her campaign and has taken to calling the two front-runners for the GOP nomination “Newt Romney” because of their past support for an...

Rep. Michele Bachmann on Saturday stood by her claim that Newt Gingrich supports "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, digging up a letter the former House speaker signed nearly eight years ago to combat claims that she was misrepresenting his plan. Gingrich, after saying at a Republican presidential primary debate that the U.S. should afford some illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status, has clarified that he only wants to open that door for some illegal immigrants who have been in the country 25 years or more. Bachmann, in an interview with Fox News, cited a 2004 letter Gingrich co-authored expressing support...

ATLANTA (AP) — Herman Cain is learning the hard way what it means to face the glare of the national spotlight. After captivating Republicans hungry for an alternative to 2012 GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, Cain has made a series of stumbles that have left some questioning whether he's ready for the White House.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has supplanted other hopefuls as the strongest opponent to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released early Wednesday. Romney leads Bachmann, 25 percent to 14 percent. They are followed by two potential candidates who have not yet declared whether they will run: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (12 percent) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (10 percent). Romney's share of the vote is exactly identical to the previous Quinnipiac poll, in early June. But Bachmann has jumped eight points -- from six percent...

WASHINGTON - Representative Michele Bachmann has rapidly gained ground in a new poll of New Hampshire voters, tapping her popularity with Tea Party activists and potentially causing problems for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor, who has long dominated polls in the Granite State, had his lead cut to single-digits in a new survey done by Public Policy Polling. Although polls taken six months before voters head to the polls can be unreliable, they can also provide a window into a volatile Republican electorate. Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, would get 18 percent of the vote, according to the...

Rep. Michele Bachmann, stressing her Iowa roots and appealing directly to Tea Party voters, came out swinging Monday as she formally launched her campaign for president. Buoyed by a strong showing in several recent polls, the Minnesota congresswoman cast her campaign as the voice for "constitutional conservatives" looking for a government that lives within its means while giving the private sector the room to grow. She launched a broadside against President Obama for racking up too much debt while stimulating too little job growth and vowed to make him a "one-term president." "We cannot afford four more years of Barack...

Your candidate is getting the predictable Palin-treatment, but of course, you have so pissed off Palin supporters, you deal with it. After all, you are a serious campaign consultant. Michele Bachmann’s Holy War, at Rolling Stone, has this image accompanying the article, which says pretty much all you need to know: Your candidate is getting the predictable Palin-treatment, but of course, you have so pissed off Palin supporters, you deal with it. After all, you are a serious campaign consultant. Michele Bachmann’s Holy War, at Rolling Stone, has this image accompanying the article, which says pretty much all you need...

As NewsBusters has been reporting since Monday's Republican presidential debate, MSNBC's Chris Matthews is suddenly a big fan of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.). On Saturday's "Fox News Watch," syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said, "Chris Matthews praises her, which is sort of like getting a civil rights affirmation from David Duke" (video follows with transcript and commentary): JON SCOTT, HOST: That's new Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann striking a cord at a Republican debate earlier this week. Cal, she got some pretty good reviews from the mainstream press, and yet many of those same members of the press were trying to...

Bachmann vs. Palin feud hits Twitter By Matt Lewis A few weeks ago, I pointed out that a prominent Sarah Palin blogger had turned on Michele Bachmann. On Fox News Sunday this week, Palin pointed out that she, unlike Bachmann, had executive experience (though added that Bachmann had strengths, too). The feud was taken to a new level, however, when Bachmann’s new “celebrity” campaign manager, Ed Rollins referred to Palin as “not serious.” This was too much for Palin supporter and talk radio host, Tammy Bruce who took to her Twitter feed. Bruce, who also appears in the new film...

Herman Cain’s scrappy campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is making an impression. From Public Policy Polling of North Carolina: Mitt Romney has the lead in PPP’s first Iowa poll since Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump exited the race, but with six different candidates polling in double digits it’s clear this thing is wide open. Romney polls at 21%. Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are tied for second at 15%. Newt Gingrich is 4th with 12%, Michele Bachmann 5th with 11%, Tim Pawlenty 6th with 10%, Ron Paul 7th with 8%, and Jon Huntsman 8th with 0% (only one respondent...

After Barack Obama, America's first African American president, is America now prepared to vote its first black president into office? This week, the Republicans' best shot for a presidential win, staunch conservative Herman Cain, takes to the campaign trail. After an impressive showing in the first debate amongst GOP hopefuls, Cain, rather than Romney or Gingrich, could be the one to beat in 2012 -- a true black man. To clarify, being black in America is not about the color of one's skin or the curl of one's natural hair, though part of it. It is about a shared history...

The man behind Donald Trump's possible 2012 presidential campaign is a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Not only that, but Michael Cohen, an executive at the Trump Organization who doubles as Trump's chief political advisor, once volunteered for 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and worked for a Democratic member of Congress. But since Obama's election in 2008, he said he has grown disappointed with the president, so much so that he now describes himself as "offended" by the administration's agenda. America, Cohen said, has become a "third-world nation," echoing words that have become a familiar refrain...