Free Republic

WASHINGTON — New Hampshire Tea Party movement activist Andrew Hemingway is not lacking in contact with likely presidential candidates. He’s talked hockey with Tim Pawlenty. He sat down with former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum at the Concord Country Club. And plans are in the works for Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to appear before a group of Hemingway’s fellow conservatives. the notable exception among the field of would-be GOP presidential contenders? Mitt Romney. “Romney for the most part is inaccessible,’’ said Hemingway, a Bristol resident who is chairman of the state’s Republican Liberty Caucus. “Pawlenty, I could call him right now...

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is also a presumptive candidate for President in the 2012 election, which was a topic of conversation on The Tonight Show last night. Host Jay Leno opened the light, if not somewhat boring interview with questions about a potential White House bid, to which Romney replied, “If you ever see me sign up for a gig on Fox News, it’ll be a clear indication that I’ve decided to run for president,” adding “that’s not in the cards anytime soon, thanks.” It was a gentle yet pointed dig at the cable news channel who includes on...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman received high-profile support in appearances in Escondido and Fullerton Saturday, with former Gov. Pete Wilson and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney stumping for her. In Fullerton, Whitman appeared in the courtyard of the mission-style Villa Del Sol complex where she made her candidacy official in September. Like that event, several hundred people stood under the baking sun to listen to the candidate. Wilson preceded Romney and called Whitman a threat to public employee unions, warning, "They have a very good reason to be scared to death of Meg Whitman." Whitman has pledged to cut state...

Sometime around the time Barack Obama won the White House, I started wondering who would inherit the Republican Party. I have to admit I felt a little schadenfreude when George and Dick drove the GOP off a cliff, but I also named this space “Common Ground” for a reason. We need to focus on what unites us more than the things that divide us. Here’s some common ground: We need two functioning political parties to continue to meet the challenges of our times. Unlike Karl Rove, I don’t want one party to run the country. Hammering out public policy through...

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is ruling out a presidential run in 2012 and spurning Tea Partiers by throwing his support - for now, anyway - behind former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney over conservative darling Sarah Palin. “Absolutely 2012, I’m ruling that out,” Brown said yesterday on NBC’s “Today” show. Brown said former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified for the presidency, but said he’s sticking with Romney - while keeping his options open.

Alternate headline: “Obama hands devastating new attack ad to Romney opponents on a silver platter.” If you don’t have time to watch this now, no worries: You’ll be seeing the part about Mitt in eight thousand different GOP primary spots starting early next year. So brutal is it — think what kind of beating Charlie Crist is taking over the photo of him hugging Obama, then multiply by a thousand — that I’m tempted to believe The One set out to mention Romney with that idea in mind. If he can take out a potentially dangerous Republican nominee early in...

America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation — rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better. He calls his accomplishment “historic” — in this he is correct, although not for the reason he intends. Rather, it is an historic usurpation of the legislative process — he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in...

(SALT LAKE CITY) – Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney is preparing a more prominent presence on the national scene with a new book coming out in the spring. His new book, “No Apology: The Case for America’s Greatness” comes out March 2 and Romney is kicking off a book tour at the Salt Palace March 13 with a book signing hosted by the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics. Kirk Jowers, a long-time Romney backer, is its director and says the book will offer ideas about turning around a nation some see in a decline. Jowers said he hopes...

Just before yesterday’s White House jobs summit, Mitt Romney minced no words in blasting President Obama’s economic policies. “Like other presidents before him, Barack Obama inherited a recession. But unlike them, he has made it worse, not better,’’ Romney wrote in an opinion piece published yesterday in USA Today. The former Massachusetts governor - who made his name and fortune at private equity firm Bain Capital, ran for the GOP presidential nomination last year, and could very well run again in 2012 - derides Obama’s economic know-how. “His failure to stem the unemployment tide should not have been a surprise....