Free Republic

Sahil Kapur has a good piece up at TNR about the Tea Party’s plans to go after Mitt Romney because he’s not the “rock-solid fiscal conservative” they want. According to Kapur, FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led Tea Party organization, is threatening to “uneash part of its $25 million treasure trove in an attempt to sink his candidacy.” Meanwhile, Joe Miller, the Tea Party candidate who took on Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and lost last November, has his own political action committee dedicated to going after Mitt Romney where it matters most: New Hampshire. Last November, the Tea Party swept into state...

Doubling down on RomneyCare, confirming that he believes in climate change, now this. Say this for him: At least he’s not a total pander machine this time around. He just … seems to be in the grip of a political death wish. I can’t even explain this in terms of him wanting to stick by a position he espoused in the past in order to signal to voters that he’s “authentic” and won’t bend on his principles easily. His position, ostensibly, is that he’s pro-life. This makes him look like he’s inching back towards his pro-choice past. Is he in...

Mitt Romney did a good job at Monday night’s Republican presidential debate. But not that good. The former Massachusetts governor used his previous presidential campaign experience to come across as polished and presidential in the debate. It helped that his opponents refused to go after him, preferring instead to play nice and criticize President Obama. It’s a lot easier to win a contest when the other side isn’t playing too hard. But Romney apparently let his good night go to his head. Like a smart candidate, Romney stayed in New Hampshire and did some retail campaigning on Tuesday. In the...

"Um, let me tell you in my view it is not a good idea to go into a contract like was organized by the Republican party in Washington laying out a whole series of things which the party said these are the things we are gonna do. I think that's a mistake. I think instead that if you wanna get something done in Washington you don't end up picking teams with Republicans on one side snd Democrats on the other entering into a contract and saying ok were all gonna do this and if course then that works then the...

Yesterday's column on Tim Pawlenty's feebleness in criticizing Mitt Romney's version of ObamaCare prompted several readers to write with the suggestion that Pawlenty is pursuing the vice presidential nomination. We doubt it. We've met with Pawlenty twice in recent months, and he has a well-considered (if, thus far, not so well-implemented) plan to win the presidential nomination. Further, if he was sucking up to the former Massachusetts governor Monday night with a Romney-Pawlenty ticket in mind, that would represent a one-day change in strategy, since it was only Sunday morning when Pawlenty referred to "ObamneyCare." Furthermore, if Pawlenty were angling...

Romney, Bachmann, Cain Lead The Pack Among GOP Primary Voters Thursday, June 16, 2011 Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney continues to lead the race for the Republican nomination, but Michele Bachmann has surged into second place following her Monday night entry into the campaign. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters, taken following the candidates’ Monday night debate, shows Romney earning 33% support, with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a surprise second at 19%. Georgia businessman Herman Cain is in third place with 10% of the vote. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich picks up nine percent...

A porn star said on Wednesday that embattled Representative Anthony Weiner asked her to lie about their e-mail relationship in the hope that an Internet sex scandal surrounding him would die down. Ginger Lee, who is also a stripper, said her exchanges with the Democratic lawmaker from New York began with political discussions of abortion rights and healthcare but Weiner kept trying to sexualize the conversation. She said she never reciprocated his lewd messages. Weiner denied for more than a week that he sent a close-up photo of himself in boxer briefs to a woman in Seattle on May 28,...

I remember when I put a McCain sticker on the car and the sign went up in the yard. It was October of 08. It took of course him picking Sarah as his VP spot. (I remember just before that the buzz was Joe Lieberman was going to be the one). Now as I write Romney is in the lead of our pack. He of course is not the conservative favorite. Right not he has three strikes against him and they are big. Romneycare which was the model of Obamacare. Ethanol which is just the same old crony ways. And...

For any other candidate, raining on a presidential announcement parade would be seen as sabotage. Not former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The 2012 presidential candidate told CNN’s Piers Morgan Monday that he wasn’t offended when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire on the same day he was set to formally announce his intention to seek the 2012 GOP nomination for president. In fact, though Romney shared his plans one week in advance and Palin insisted on keeping the destination of her top-secret bus tour under wraps until the day before her New...

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change. "I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors." The former Massachusetts governor fielded questions on topics ranging from the debt ceiling to abortion on his first official day of campaigning for 2012...

In case you missed the lead story yesterday, likely because you were following the Weiner Saga, Mitt Romney is running for President. Though he had a hard time defeating Huckabee last timeand whom he seems to have an ongoing feud with, Romney seems to be thinking that all the major issues that plauged his last candidacy have evaporated and the only real issue the Conservative Republican base has with him is RomneyCare. This could not be further from the truth. The list of Romney's problems is a long one, so buckle up. **YOUTUBE VIDEOS AFTER THE JUMP**

I’m not saying every tea partier is against Mitt Romney, but many prominent Tea Party groups are saying no to Romney for President. FreedomWorks, an influential Washington-based group working within the Tea Party movement, say they do not support Mitt Romney for President, because of his moderate record as governor. The group’s communications director said, it’s because “Romney has a record and we don’t really like it that much.” Brendan Steinhauser, the group’s liaison to smaller, grassroots organizations said, Romney is, “inauthentic.” They also have some beef with RomneyCare. Also, the Tea Party organization’s president and CEO Matt Kibbe was...

The fact is that Mitt Romney is an unprincipled chameleon with ZERO core beliefs... a synthetic, calculated opportunism has taken their place. Meanwhile, most of what he actually has said and done betrays a Big-Government social liberal. Other fun facts regarding this 'conservative' fraud'spast actions, positions, and failures: refused to endorse the 1994 GOP "Contract with America" distanced himself from the Reagan legacy: "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush" lost GOP House seats in both Massachusetts elections of his tenure, 2004/2006 (leaving Republicans with the least # of seats there since the Civil War)   strongly supported gay rights...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — President Romney. How does that sound? Better than President Gingrich, President Pawlenty or even President Palin? You betcha. Why? Because for all his flip-flopping and lack of charisma, Mitt Romney is a serious person — an “adult” in today’s political parlance — with a real track record of accomplishment. This week, Romney actually showed what any serious Republican hopeful in the 2012 presidential election campaign needs to show: the beginnings of a backbone. It looks like Romney may have flipped his last flop on what is supposed to be the bane of his existence, the statewide health-care...

TUESDAY UPDATE: TWEAKING MITT. With Mitt Romney set to formally announce his presidential candidacy on Thursday in Stratham, the state Democratic Party is ramping up its attacks on the former Massachusetts governor. Later today, the party will announce the availability of “Two Sides of Mitt Romney” t-shirts on its web site. The front of the shirt says: “Mitt Romney: pro-health care reform; pro-individual mandate; pro-Recovery Act; pro-immigration reform; pro-cap and trade; pro-gay rights.” On the back of the shirt, the same issues are listed but with an “anti-” prefix before each one. The party lists several news reports from this...

Mitt Romney's speech to supporters in Des Moines Friday was cut short by a fire drill thanks to a bag of burning microwave popcorn. The former Massachusetts governor and soon-to-be official 2012 presidential candidate was fielding questions about his commitment to the first-in-the-nation state at Des Moines' State Historical Society of Iowa building when a fire drill forced him to cut his appearance short. "Discretion is the better part of valor," Romney said, urging people to head outside as the alarm sounded in the background. "I wasn't trying to get out of tough questions, I promise," he said later.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pulled in an eye-popping $10.3 million during a national fundraising effort Monday that he described as the kick-off to his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. The event was staged at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and the site was no accident: Nevada is key to Romney's early primary state strategy. Nearly 800 participants dialed for dollars all day and hauled in nearly $4 million more than when his campaign staged a similar event four years earlier. Romney has been scarce on the campaign trail in recent months as he's focused heavily on...

Mitt Romney wants his money to show his might. The all-but-declared Republican presidential contender, who has kept his head low for much of the year as he collected cash, raised $10.25 million in a single day Monday after bringing together his network of wealthy donors to dial for dollars in a city with no shortage of them. It's a hefty one-day total that Romney's team hopes will show his strength in the emerging GOP field. Romney's phone bank fundraiser at the Las Vegas Convention Center, much like one during his first attempt at the Republican nomination, was the centerpiece of...

Romney haul from National Call Day in Vegas: $10.25 million

With the announcement by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee that he will not be seeking the nomination for president of the United States on the Republican ticket, the presumption is that the frontrunner is now former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. But Romney has some very serious baggage in mounting a successful campaign against incumbent Barack Hussein Obama. He implemented a health care plan in Massachusetts which he said at the time would be the model upon which a national plan could be based. And the architects of ObamaCare have said that indeed, their bill was modeled in part after RomneyCare....