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Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would have won the presidency if the white and black turnout rates had stayed at their 2004 levels, according to a new analysis of 2012 election. “The battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same,” according to The Associated Press’s summary of research by William Frey, an expert at the Brookings Institution. Overall turnout declined from 62 percent in 2008 to 58 percent in 2012, Frey reported. The drop-off reduced the overall turnout by...

The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stands Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who...

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate. -snip- The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for Congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections.

Team Romney acted fast to sever its staff’s access to campaign funds Tuesday after the Republican candidate’s crushing defeat by President Obama. NBC News reported that campaign aides taking cabs home late on Election Night found that their campaign-issued credit cards had already been cut off.

Via The Undefeated on Facebook, I discovered an article by Daria DiGiovanni about Bill O’Reilly’s coverage of what he called “bad blood” between Governor Palin and Mitt Romney. He used such a description to segue into his version of why the Governor has not been invited, at least not yet, to speak at the Republican National Convention in Tampa next month. It’s clear he doesn’t think such an invitation is forthcoming, either, because, according to him, at this stage of the game, “she’d have to sleep in a tent.” Bill, of course, hardly ever lets people talk, which is, first...

She is the Tea Party diva who lit up the 2008 Presidential campaign. But four years later Mitt Romney is facing one of the most vexing questions of his campaign: what to do with Sarah Palin? In an increasingly uncomfortable stand-off, he has not invited her to next month’s Republican national convention whilst she has failed to give him her full backing. Palin has also not appeared with the Romney on the campaign trail and prefers to use her Facebook page to bash Barack Obama. The result is that the Republican presidential candidate is left without the endorsement of a...

"The only thing weaker than the economy is Mitt Romney's electoral skills." Such was actually said on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday by Rana Foroohar, Time magazine's assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business (video follows with transcript and commentary): Time Mag Editor: 'The Only Thing Weaker Than the Economy Is Romney's Electoral Skills' BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST: Let me-- let me go to Rana because you-- you wrote something very interesting the other day. You said that since 1967 when consumer confidence is as low as it is right now the incumbent is always defeated. Does that mean...

Sarah Palin boldly, clearly and sharply articulated the stakes in the 2012 election on Saturday when she addressed a "Patriots in the Park" Tea Party event. The event took place in Michigan and was sponsored by the Michigan branch of Americans for Prosperity and the Willow Run Tea Party Caucus. “2012 is a race between the party of big government and the party of big freedom,” Palin said, contrasting the Republican party's vision with that of President Barack Obama's. In reference to Obama and his policies, Palin said there was something “wrong with someone” who would want to fundamentally transform...

[T]he Romney campaign has not asked Palin to speak at the convention nor contacted her about even attending the party’s marquee event in Tampa. Queries to the Romney camp about any possible Palin role at the convention meet with a stony silence. Palin does not seem surprised. “What can I say?” she responded in an email from Alaska, when asked by Newsweek about the convention, just before heading to Michigan to deliver an Obama-thumping speech. “I’m sure I’m not the only one accepting consequences for calling out both sides of the aisle for spending too much money, putting us on...

Romney’s Palin Problem: Where’s Her Convention Invite? Jul 16, 2012 1:00 AM EDT Mitt still hasn’t invited Sarah to the GOP’s nomination assembly in Tampa, and the Tea Party is livid. Peter J. Boyer on how the snub could sabotage Romney’s tenuous ties to the grassroots—and why Palin is keeping the week open, just in case.

Bentley said that Romney’s refusal to release more returns has created a “distraction” that Democrats were successfully exploiting. “I just believe in total transparency,” Bentley told ABC News at the National Governors Association conference. “In fact, I was asked today that question — do you think that Governor Romney should release his tax returns? And I said I do. I said, I release my tax returns. I may be the only public official in Alabama that does, but I release mine every year and I just believe that people should release their tax returns. And if you get them out...

There are a lot of people who have been saying a lot of things about the way elections are run in the United States ever since the Supreme Court opened up new avenues of campaign spending in the Citizens United case. This wasn't always the case. Back in 2008 nary a word was heard when Barack Obama announced he would be the first general election candidate to refuse public funding for his presidential campaign, a good government safeguard in place since Watergate. If that were not bad enough, none of the so-called campaign watchdog groups showed any interest in the...

Raise your hand if you're surprised by this.  Dishonorable people behave dishonorably (click through for video):   Ed Schultz, MSNBC: "Now the Romney campaign wants President Obama to apologize for Stephanie Cutter's remarks, you heard earlier, we played on that conference call about Mitt Romney either being a liar or a potential felon. Will there be an apology?" Ben LaBolt, Obama campaign press secretary: "There won't be. You know, Mitt Romney has been telling voters, since he ran for office in Massachusetts, that he left Bain in 1999. And the Boston Globe reported today that that wasn't true. Actually, that's...

Mitt Romney will hold interviews today with ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News and CNN that will run this evening, sources tell POLITICO. The network interviews, which will be taped later this afternoon, will air during the nightly news casts. Jon Karl will interview Romney for ABC; Peter Alexander for NBC; and Jan Crawford for CBS. Jim Acosta will interview Romney for CNN. Romney's tenure at Bain Capital, which was called into question again yesterday, and his vice presidential pick will almost certainly be topics of discussion.

Rick Santorum will appear Saturday at an event for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, according to a Romney campaign official. The event, a campaign office opening outside of Pittsburgh, marks the first time Santorum will officially campaign for his former Republican primary foe...

WILSON, Wyo. – Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Republican fundraisers Thursday night that Mitt Romney is the "only" man who can make the right decisions in unexpected foreign policy crises. The presumptive 2012 Republican presidential nominee called Cheney a "great American leader" -- and didn't mention former President George W. Bush in a 20-minute speech to a country club reception. Cheney said serving under four presidents taught him that a surprising international crisis is inevitable. "When I think about the kind of individual I want in the Oval Office in that moment of crisis, who has to make those...

There's not a ton of news coming out of Mitt Romney's interview tour on Bain Capital this evening. In an interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl, the Republican presidential candidate made this comment that would seem to deflate the latest Condi-for-VP boomlet: KARL: I want to ask you about a report that popped up about Condoleezza Rice being near the top of your list of potential running mates. I know you’re not talking about the vice presidential search process but just tell me this: you said earlier that your running mate will be pro-life. Do you still stand by that. ROMNEY:...

In the battle for political cash, President Obama is finding himself in an unaccustomed place during the final months of the 2012 campaign: he is losing. Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee easily outraised the formidable Obama money machine for the second month in a row. A nonstop schedule of high-dollar events around the country brought in $106 million during June to Mr. Obama’s $71 million, giving him and his party four times the cash on hand that it had just three months ago.

In a sign that Mitt Romney's campaign team plans to adjust following growing criticism from fellow Republicans, CBS News has learned that Romney campaign senior adviser Kevin Madden will soon be taking on a larger and more visible role within the campaign. Sources tell CBS News that Madden will be spending more time on the road with Romney and is likely to become a more public presence as a TV spokesperson for the candidate. He will hit the road with Romney next week, following Romney's New Hampshire vacation. This move to make Madden a more public face of the campaign...

Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert with long ties to Mitt Romney, will become a more frequent and visible spokesman for the presidential campaign, a source close to the decision said on Friday. The increased responsibilities for Mr. Madden came in the wake of criticism from nervous Republicans about Mr. Romney’s campaign team. The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial that the campaign “looks confused in addition to being politically dumb.”

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign on Monday rejected a Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act, repudiating a contention made in last week’s Supreme Court decision that the law’s requirement that individuals carry medical coverage amounts to a tax. The Romney team’s refusal to invoke the word “tax” with regard to the individual mandate puts the candidate at odds with others in his party at a moment when Republicans are attempting to capi­tal­ize on the Supreme Court’s decision, which deemed President Obama’s health-care law constitutional. Some Republican-led states are trying to thwart the legislation’s effort to cover the poor. In an...

Santorum, however, noted that Romney has vowed to repeal Obama's health care law. He said voting for Romney over Obama is a "clear choice for me."

<p>Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the power to do just about anything it desires provided it's called a tax. It's hard not to notice that the Progressive march toward totalitarianism in America has a decidedly bipartisan feel. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the high court's majority opinion, is an appointee of "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush.</p>

Today is the day. SCOTUSblog live at 8:45 AM.

Remember when Romney turned away Stimulus funds because they were wasteful and infringed on the Tenth Amendment? Remember when Romney led the fight against Obamacare with his bold op-eds, inviting scorn and being called a liar for daring to mention the unavoidable rationing of services ("Death Panels") ? Remember when Romney led the GOP to an astonishing victory in the 2010 mid-terms? Remember when Romney inspired thousands across the nation to sleep outside book stores in hopes of meeting him? Remember when Romney Flew to Arizona to stand by the embattled Governor Brewer as she was targeted by the Administration...

In an appearance on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Tuesday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity that the reason why she didn’t endorse presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney during a Las Vegas speech this weekend was because she couldn’t. The Daily Caller had pointed out on Tuesday that former Palin did not even mention Romney in her speech. But, Palin told Hannity, that doesn’t mean that the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee isn’t supporting the former Massachusetts governor. “There was a reason I did not mention Gov. Romney in my speech at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation event and...

I will not vote for Marco Rubio as Vice President if Mitt Romney selects him to run on his ticket.  He is NOT constitutionally eligible to be President or Vice President, and I would be a damn hypocrite in holding my ire and giving him my vote after working as hard as possible to educate people on Barack Obama’s ineligibility.Call me a Birther, call me a Tea Party hick, call me an “extremist� or racist, I could give a flying forgery.  I just don’t care anymore.  I’m not going to be like one of those liberals who complain about...

An article by Michael O'Brien on MSNBC's First Read this morning quotes an "informal" advisor to Mitt Romney's campaign as saying that the presidential candidate is not likely to choose a woman as his running mate because Sarah Palin "poisoned the well" for women, with the possible exception of New Hampshire freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

Mitt Romney will beat President Obama in this fall's election, most likely by a substantial margin. There. I said it. I may have a plate full of hat in my future, but I doubt it. Pundits will give you the usual reasons for a Romney victory, but it all boils down to two things: first, Romney took the time to build an organization and second, and most important, he wants to win. Tea Party patriots and constitutional conservatives would be smart to learn a lesson from this. While many conservatives were swooning over the latest firebrand candidate to carry their...

Red Mass Group has learned that the Allocation Committee of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee has informed seventeen delegates and alternates that they are not qualified to go to the convention in Tampa. The reason given is failure to return the proper, signed, affidavit by the given deadline. Allocation Committee Chairman, Ed McGrath, told Red Mass Group in an emailed statement that, "no one who was elected as a delegate and who has followed the rules has been disqualified so far." The Massachusetts Republican State Committee held congressional district caucuses on Saturday April 28, 2012 to elect 27 delegates and...

The federal lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in California demands the delegates be freed to "vote their conscience" for presidential nominee at the party's August national convention in Tampa, Fla., rather than being "bound" to vote for a certain candidate, as many state party bylaws require, based on the primary elections and other delegate selection procedures. Courthouse News Service reports at least another 40 additional national convention delegates have asked to join the lawsuit which would bring the total to 160 Delegates. Yet striking down party rules that bind candidates to vote in accordance with the primary...

Over 120 delegates to the Republican National Convention have joined a lawsuit against the GOP arguing they have been illegally coerced into choosing Mitt Romney for the party’s presidential nominee and demanding they be “unbound” to vote for another candidate instead.The federal lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in California by mostly supporters of Ron Paul, demands the delegates be freed to “vote their conscience” for presidential nominee at the party’s August national convention in Tampa, Fla., rather than being “bound” to vote for a certain candidate, as many state party bylaws require, based on the primary elections...

Scott Ryan's very eloquent video on Karl Rovian Rinos, Tea Party candidates and tax reform: Karl Rovian Elites, Tax Reform and The Tea Party And The Mark Levin Show he wanted people to hear on The Bushes and Karl Rove: Mark Levin-06/07/12

President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney may be dead even in the polls, but some pundits insist the president will prevail on Election Day because 2012 is the new 2004. The story line is President George W. Bush had roughly the same numbers at this point in 2004 that Mr. Obama has today. Mr. Bush went on to win a narrow victory by building a massive ground game that focused on the GOP's base and by relentlessly attacking his opponent, Sen. John Kerry. Mr. Obama is executing the same strategy. What worked for Mr. Bush, the theory goes, will...

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has now secured at least 88 of the 155 delegates at stake in the Texas Primary, bringing his secured delegate total to 1174, 30 more than necessary to win the majority of the delegated needed for the GOP nomination. With 4% of Texas precincts now reporting, Romney has consistently maintained or increased a 60 point lead over his nearest competitor, Congressman Ron Paul. In the contested race for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, David Dewhurst is holding a 48% to 31% lead over his nearest rival Ted Cruz in a nine person contest.

Each are Reaganest, in how they speak.

Mitt Romney’s campaign manager rejected efforts to use President Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in ads attacking the president, as reportedly planned by a “super PAC” working toward electing Mr. Romney in November. “Unlike the Obama campaign, Gov. Romney is running a campaign based on jobs and the economy, and we encourage everyone else to do the same,” the campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, said in a statement on Thursday morning. “President Obama’s team said they would ‘kill Romney,’ and, just last week, David Axelrod referred to individuals opposing the president as ‘contract killers.’ It’s clear President Obama’s team...

Levin is livid over the fact that Romney repudiated anything to do with bringing up Rev. Wright in this campaign even though in the primaries he went full throttle against Newt Gingrich, even with false attack ads:

In their never-ending crusade to destroy traditional conservatives, we expect the corrupt media to lie. It's what they do and what they've done for decades. What we don’t expect, though, is to have our presumptive nominee fuel those lies and allow those lies to affect his crucially important vice presidential pick. This is why this morning's report in the left-wing Politico is so troubling: [emphasis added] Mitt Romney and his top aides are building a strategy, partly by design and partly because of circumstance, around what they consider John McCain’s disastrously run campaign in 2008. The strategy: whatever McCain did,...

Bully story a black eye for Mitt Romney "Straight-laced and squeaky clean Mitt Romney must show he’s not the teen bully critics now say he was, if he hopes to limit the damage from a published report on his prep school days that paints him as a cruel and possibly homophobic prankster who once pinned a vulnerable schoolmate down and cut his bleached-blond locks .... Republican consultant John Feehery called the Washington Post report “troubling” for Romney’s presidential bid.... “For independents, it’s a troubling story. ... They don’t like bullies, and anti-bullying has become a issue on the national stage,”...

There may be a good reason voters can’t get a good bead on Mitt Romney. And it may be because the real Romney has a troubled, sadistic history. High School classmates of Romney recall an incident that’s disturbing to its core. Romney, then a popular senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School in Michigan, disapproved of classmate John Lauber’s long, blond locks, which Romney allegedly took as a clue that Lauber was a homosexual. So Romney assembled a posse of bullies and held the boy down and brutally chopped off his hair. “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look...

The GOP attacks on Palin.   After the Inauguration of Obama, the first time that the manhood of the GOP was called into question was the Stimulus package.  Rick Santelli was so upset with it that he issued his now famous diatribe calling for something like a national tea party.  A long simmering emotion within conservative ranks now had a name. Meanwhile, back in Alaska, Sarah Palin's return to work involved dealing with these stimulus package issues, and she did what she felt that she must.  She took those which were appropriate, but turned away those that weren't.  This was...

On Tuesday night, as he celebrates expected victories in Pennsylvania, New York, and other states, Mitt Romney plans to accept the title of presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Certainly the overwhelming majority of party insiders, along with the rest of the political world, already views Romney as the GOP choice; Tuesday will be just more confirmation. So given those circumstances, why are some prominent Republicans in Delaware, which also votes Tuesday, throwing their support, at this late date, to Newt Gingrich? In recent days Gingrich has announced the endorsements of Terry Spence, a former Speaker of the Delaware House; Jerry...

Mitt Romney was not his first choice for president, but conservative political activist Scott Magill has come to accept that Romney is now his only choice. So Magill is looking for reasons to get jazzed about the candidate he once dismissed. His list so far: Romney is a Republican who would sign into law legislation passed by a GOP-led House. Romney has started to hit the right talking points. If elected, Romney would have to listen to the conservative base - or risk its wrath at reelection time. Also, and perhaps most important, Romney is not Barack Obama. The conservative...

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Saturday that his cash-strapped campaign machine will march forward into North Carolina next week -- despite reports that stops in that state and elsewhere had been placed on indefinite hold, according to a report by Fox News. Filed federal reports indicated that the Gingrich campaign had $4.3 million in debt and has $1.22 million cash on hand. The campaign raised $1.6 million in March but spent $2.01 million, Fox News reported. Other public records revealed that Gingrich started the month of March with $1.55 million in debt and only $1.54 million in cash reserves....

For those of you who did not get or see the memo from Vince Haley, Mitt still has some major problems. Here is the Haley Memo, in relevant part: [H]ere is the crucial news about why --- with 17 states to go -- the Romney forces are worried, worried that the frontrunner's weakness is surfacing again in the Republican primaries. Here are two crucial news items causing Romneyites to worry. -- Despite much pressure from Romney forces, Colorado Republicans last weekend at their Denver convention surprised political observers by electing - and by a large margin -- more uncommitted than...

LANCASTER, Pa. - Two of the Republican candidates for president are in Pennsylvania a week ahead of the state's primary election. Mitt Romney, the GOP's all-but-certain presidential nominee, and Newt Gingrich, are scheduled to speak at the Republican Committee of Lancaster County’s spring event in Lancaster on Tuesday evening. Rick Santorum, who suspended his campaign last week, has canceled his appearance. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania U.S. senator, hasn't hinted whether he'll eventually endorse Romney, but said he'll say soon how he'll continue to press for conservatism in politics.

Mitt Romney caught in a Bill Clinton truth-telling moment. More proof of the constant lying of Mitt Romney

. . . . . What sort of justice to the Supreme Court will Mitt Romney nominate - a Souter or a Thomas? A Miers or an Alito? A Kennedy or a Scalia? His record as governor of Massachusetts gives no cause for optimism. Mr. Romney nominated 36 judges while governor, just nine of whom were Republicans. What he says of this record today is that the Massachusetts Governor's Council had to confirm the nominees, and the members of the council were all Democrats. So his answer was to nominate persons palatable to Democrats. But this all-Democratic Governor's Council is...

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Five different political contests are being conducted right now. Only two are evident to the naked eye. The first of the visible contests pits Mitt Romney against Rick Santorum for the Republican presidential nomination. The results here in Maryland and in Wisconsin this week tell us who has a commanding lead there. The second visible contest pits Romney against President Barack Obama. That one began this month with their twin addresses to the convention of editors in Washington. Obama has a 4-point lead, according to a Gallup poll conducted last week for USA Today. Now to...