Free Republic

Mitt Romney’s transformation into a cheesy grits- and catfish-loving, ya’ll-uttering good ol’ boy in the face of tight contests in Mississippi and Alabama today is being panned by critics — skeptical Southern party officials and pundits. “If you’re going to pander, at least pander well, and this isn’t pandering well,” said Stephen Gordon, a Republican consultant based in Birmingham, Ala. The former Bay State governor is a Yankee, Gordon said, and will always face skepticism no matter how many catfish filets he raves about. “People in the Deep South have a bit of a natural distrust for Northerners, especially folks...

Instead of appealing to voters to vote for him based upon x,y and z, he panders for votes by trying to increase his opponents negatives (as in FL) above his own by massively outspending them on negative ads. This approach has led to his negatives skyrocketing and his positives declining among independents and moderates. Fivethirtyeight and others have been monitoring this, and it isn't pretty. With each battle won (temporarily in Iowa and now Florida), he is headed to surpassing Obama's negatives or having lower positives (some show he already has) and he will ultimately lose against Obama if he...

Santorum's so-called surge is all but gone. Huntsman is catching up.

My choice for President is Mitt Romney. I just shuddered at that statement. But there it is. There is the reality that 13 debates, months of bickering and intrigue, and countless discussions with conservative brethren have brought me. It is kind of a sad reality. Is this the best conservatives could do? So here has been my calculation for who I would support, from the beginning. First, the candidate must be electable and able to defeat Barack Obama, both electorally and intellectually. Second, they must broaden the base of the Republican Party, both on the conservative and moderate sides. Third,...

An Ohio Republican Party official sent over results from the party's presidential straw poll in a proving-ground swing state, which showed Mitt Romney the clear winner. Romney, who made the Ames Straw Poll his Holy Grail in 2007 but is bypassing Ames, Florida's Presidency V and all other such contests this cycle, won handily with 25 percent. Tim Pawlenty, who is fighting his own war for Ames, scored second place, with 16 percent. But Pawlenty was bunched with the third- and fourth-place finishers, Michele Bachmann (15 percent) candidate Rick Perry (14 percent). Perry is especially noteworthy, since he has yet...

Potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, looking to bolster his foreign policy credentials, is on a Mideast swing that included a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday. Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney met the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus. Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 only to lose to John McCain. He has shown multiple signs of planning to seek his party's nomination again for the right to oppose Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012. Romney could be among as many as a dozen Republicans seeking the...