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Viewed in isolation, Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential candidacy is doomed. In 2008, Romney earned himself a reputation as a flip-flopper as he dramatically attempted to reshape himself as a stanch conservative despite having previously staked out liberal positions on abortion, guns, immigration and a litany of other issues. This time around, Romney faces the additional burden of trying to explain away his most significant legislative accomplishment as governor of Massachusetts -- a big government health care plan that was a model for ObamaCare. In his last presidential bid he was largely able to get a pass, because health care wasn't...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said Monday it would be "great" for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) to run for president in 2012. "She would be a great thing for the Republican primary process," said Romney, a 2008 presidential candidate and a potential candidate again in 2012. "It'd be a good thing for her to get in." Romney, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) have all rallied around Palin, who on Sunday night condemned suggestions that GOP operatives in Washington were looking to stall any potential presidential aspirations...

In the history of war, we can observe many cases of battles where someone mistakenly sounds the retreat when victory was in sight. This seems to be the case against same-sex “marriage. Traditional marriage has never been defeated. Thirty-one times it has been taken to the polls and thirty-one times it has won. Even in the bluest of blue states—California—it won against all expectations. In Maine, pro-family activists overturned the decision of the legislature. In New York, a same-sex “marriage” measure was defeated despite every effort by the Democratic majority in both houses to force it through. Homosexual activists in...

Michael Merlina was fed up, frustrated and seemingly out of options when he walked into Middlesex Superior Court last week and plunked down $275 for court fees. With help from a few clerks, Merlina became his own lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority. The 29-year-old North Reading glazier is fighting the $2,000 state fine for not having health insurance. In 2009, the first year penalties were in place, Merlina paid a $400 fine for him his wife. This time, he balked. “It makes no sense to me,” Merlina told The Pulse. “I’m a hard-working,...

Michael Merlina was fed up, frustrated and seemingly out of options when he walked into Middlesex Superior Court last week and plunked down $275 for court fees. With help from a few clerks, Merlina became his own lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority. The 29-year-old North Reading glazier is fighting the $2,000 state fine for not having health insurance. In 2009, the first year penalties were in place, Merlina paid a $400 fine for him his wife

BOSTON—A pickup-driving image helped put Scott Brown in the U.S. Senate, so is Mitt Romney hoping it will drive him him to the White House? The 2008 Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor drove a beat-up pickup to a New Hampshire fundraiser Thursday night. He's also driven it to other political events as he weighs another run in 2012. Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom (FERN'-strum) says Romney has owned the Chevy since 2002 and uses it for errands around his New Hampshire lakeside vacation home. Fehrnstrom says Romney isn't trying to emulate Brown or his upset victory in January, when he...

The Muslim community center to be built just blocks from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan cleared its final hurdle on Tuesday and was approved for construction. As a pleasant surprise, New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9-0, denying historic protection for the building that currently occupies the site where developers plan to build the $100 million center, which will include a mosque. Though this news should hardly be noteworthy, it unfortunately is. Since its incipient stages in July 2009, when a Muslim-run real-estate development company purchased the damaged, vacant building and land where the new center...

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...

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The boyhood home of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is slated to be torn down as part of an effort to rejuvenate Detroit. The 5,500-square-foot home, built in 1918 and located on a .4-acre lot in the toney Palmer Woods neighborhood, has fallen into disrepair in recent years, a neighbor said. Romney and his parents, George and Lenore, lived in the home from 1941 to 1953. Shortly after moving from the home at 1860 Balmoral Drive, George Romney became chairman of American Motors Corp. and, later, governor of Michigan. Attempts to reach Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom yesterday were unsuccessful. The...

The Boston Globe: Four of Massachusetts largest health insurers posted first-quarter losses with three blaming Gov. Deval Patrick's rate increase caps for the bulk of the financial hit that totaled more than $150 million. "The carriers attributed $116 million of their $152 million in losses to the April 1 ruling by the state Division of Insurance to deny most proposed premium increases for the so-called small-group market.

Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) held a fundraiser in Manhattan last week and outperformed Pres. Obama's own cash grab a day later on behalf of the DCCC, another sign of trouble brewing for Dems this cycle in all corners of the country. Romney headlined an event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on May 12 that raised $1.5M for his Free and Strong America PAC. By contrast, Obama's appearance at the St. Regis Hotel on May 13 raked in a lesser $1.3 million for the DCCC.

Throughout the health care debate, we have been arguing that the push for government control of health care is driven by a certain moral view: the view that need is a claim. That view is typically taken to be noble and benevolent, and one of Ayn Rand’s most controversial conclusions is that it is in fact vicious and unjust. Well, the latest proposal out of Massachusetts seems designed to prove Rand’s point.

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.

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - A new poll shows Republican Mitt Romney leading all current GOP challengers by more than 20 points in New Hampshire. A Public Policy Polling survey released this week shows Romney crushing other GOP contenders among New Hampshire Republican voters with 39 percent of the those polled. Sarah Palin came in a distant second at 13 percent, while Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee tied for third with 11 percent. Ron Paul came in fifth. 13 percent were undecided.

The standoff between Massachusetts regulators and health insurance companies intensified yesterday, as most insurers stopped offering new coverage to small businesses and individuals, and state officials demanded that the insurers post updated rates online and resume offering policies by Friday. People seeking to buy health insurance for the first time, or customers looking to change policies, found they could not do so, at least temporarily. The confusion — or market chaos, as one insurance industry official called it — f

Mitt Romney has much explaining to do about his on-the-record support for liberal causes -- affirmative action and legalized abortion, just to name two -- if he hopes to fend off any conservative insurgency on his way to facing President Obama in the 2012 general election. From that standpoint, the darkest blemish on his record will no doubt be the healthcare reform bill he signed into law in 2006 while governor of Massachusetts, a program similar to Obamacare in that it levies tax penalties on those who willfully go uninsured, among other things So how might Romney defend his record...

The DNC has a new Web vid out mocking Mitt Romney’s increasingly contorted positions on the individual mandate. As you know, he backs it on the state level as rooted in conservative principles (a la Romneycare), but he’s been warning that implementing it on the Federal level (a la Obamacare) constitutes a frightening abuse of power that conservatives everywhere should resist. But, unless I’m missing something, the DNC appears to have unearthed video of Romney, during the 2008 GOP presidential primary, coming very close to endorsing the Federal mandate. The key bit comes at around 45 seconds in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6DrH6P9OC0&feature=player_embedded Here’s...

The DNC has a new Web vid out mocking Mitt Romney’s increasingly contorted positions on the individual mandate. As you know, he backs it on the state level as rooted in conservative principles (a la Romneycare), but he’s been warning that implementing it on the Federal level (a la Obamacare) constitutes a frightening abuse of power that conservatives everywhere should resist. But, unless I’m missing something, the DNC appears to have unearthed video of Romney, during the 2008 GOP presidential primary, coming very close to endorsing the Federal mandate. The key bit comes at around 45 seconds in...

Former Massachusetts governor and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney predicted that President Obama's massive health care bill would be passed by Congress, and he outlined a legislative strategy to overturn the bill by cutting off the funding necessary to implement it. Speaking in Dallas yesterday as part of the publicity tour for his new book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney said that the key to his plan was for the GOP to reclaim majorities in both houses of Congress as well as the White House. Romney said that those members voting for the health care bill...