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"The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president," says a Republican adviser close to front-runner Mitt Romney. "She's making money, she's moved on, she's kind of an entertainer rather than a politician. She still has some sway with the grass roots, but she is not going to run." "I don't think she's going to run," says a Republican close to Tim Pawlenty. "She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she's doing now and say that she's found a way to get back in the story." Maybe these representatives...

Romney’s Venue Problem May 11, 2011 5:17 P.M. By Katrina Trinko Mitt Romney will be giving a major health care speech tomorrow at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center. Two interesting tidbits about the Center: it’s affiliated with a university that provides abortions Planned Parenthood cannot do and it helped fund new embryonic stem cell lines — which requires the destruction of human embryos. From the University of Michigan Alumni Association [emphasis mine]: The University of Michigan today announced the formation of a consortium to create new embryonic stem cell lines that will aid the search for disease treatments and...

Is there a beer vs. wine or a mink coat vs. cloth coat divide in the Republican primary electorate that divides affluent and more well-educated Republicans from those who are poorer and less educated? According to a recent study by Gallup, there just may be. In a survey of 3,304 Republicans during the past three months, Gallup found that “Republican college degree holders are more likely than those without a degree to support Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, 21% vs. 13%. Similarly, Romney's support climbs from 9% of Republicans earning less than $24,000 annually to 21%...

According to Romney family lawyers it doesn't matter if Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya, or even Paris: Because his mother was an American (and not even Donald Trump questions that), he is eligible to be President....posted using frpa

"Romney made a promise to homosexual groups that strikes at the core of who Romney is and how he will govern. She says he promised that he would not defend traditional marriage once the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made its ruling on same-sex marriage." Read more: Author: Romney's promises to homosexuals still stand http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=276313#ixzz1H6TCwqLL

In a brief filed Monday in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Coakley says the fact that Romney and the Massachusetts Legislature imposed an individual mandate as part of their health care law suggests that Congress had a "rational basis" for imposing a similar mandate in its law. “Obamacare is bad law constitutionally, bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families,” Romney said.

His convenient and implausibly explained reversals on issues say all we need to know about his character. He will do or say anything to become president. We're all for transparency these days, and if anything is transparently clear about American politics, it is that Mitt Romney will do or say anything to become president. The best guess is that at heart he is an old-fashioned moderate, business-oriented Republican (just about the last one standing). But there's no knowing for sure. He may have no sincere beliefs at all. There was a piece about Romney on the front page of the...

The signs are that Mitt Romney is running for president. With several Republicans edging ever closer to formally declaring their presidential candidacies, Romney told New Hampshire Republicans on Saturday that he’s the candidate who can beat Barack Obama on the central issue of the economy. ((snip)) A key hurdle for Romney among GOP primary voters will be distinguishing the health-care reform he instituted when his was Massachusetts governor from the nationwide plan championed by Obama.

A highlight: Shortly after unlovable Mitt finished speaking, he was upstaged by Sarah Palin, who isn't even attending the conference. A Palin look-alike (a pretty good one, actually) entered the ballroom and immediately attracted a massive crowd. For a moment, everyone thought it was a surprise appearance by the one candidate all the (non-Ron Paul supporting) attendees are actually excited by.

As President Obama prepares to launch his 2012 re-election campaign, one of his top advisers admits they have no idea who might be his ultimate GOP opponent. 'This is most unfathomable Republican field in my lifetime," Obama political adviser David Axelrod tells USA Today. "I don't think anybody in the media or in either party can tell you with any degree of certainty who the Republican nominee will be." But Axelrod, who left the White House last week to begin working for the campaign, went out of his way to praise one of Obama's potential rivals, Mitt Romney. The former...

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...

A new poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the early frontrunner in New Hampshire, where he holds a commanding 23-point edge over his closest potential rival -- former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The New Hampshire Journal poll, conducted by the Republican firm Magellan Strategies, found Romney comfortably at the head of the pack of rumored 2012 hopefuls with 39 percent of the vote. He's followed by Palin at 16 percent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 10 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 8 percent and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) at 7 percent. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim...

As we all know, Mitt Romney's biggest problem in the 2012 Republican primaries is that conservatives don't trust him, given that he used to be a pro-choice moderate who got health coverage for Massachusetts' uninsured. His answer to this problem has been to run frantically to the right, staking out the most extreme position he can on any issue that comes up (his latest is an attack on lazy unemployed people). But the truth is this strategy is going to fail. What Mitt needs to understand is that voters don't make judgments based on checklists. If a true-blue conservative wants...

Here is an unusual interview Mitt Romney did with a woman named Eliane Brick. The introduction to the interview is 1:25 long, so you may want to move it forward to that point. She asks Romney what role “faith” plays in his decision to run for President. Romney goes out of his way to make clear he “believes in God,” but says that his personal faith must remain separate from his commitment to uphold the laws and govern for all the people. Let’s just say the video closes with Ms. Brick making clear the importance of “faith!” NOTE: Mitt Romney...

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...

On Thursday's Parker-Spitzer, CNN's Kathleen Parker bizarrely and inaccurately claimed that Alexander Hamilton came to the United States illegally and drafted the Constitution: "Let's remember...a lot of Americans did come through the back door such as Alexander Hamilton. He got off the boat from the West Indies, and all he did was write the Constitution and become the first Secretary of the Treasury." Parker raised this false history during a discussion of Pedro Ramirez, Fresno State University's student body president, who was outed as an illegal immigrant by a student newspaper. After playing clips from Ramirez and his opponent during...

The fight for the Republican presidential nomination hasn’t officially started, but conservatives around the country are already pressuring former Mass. governor and likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney to apologize for signing the Commonwealth’s health care reform bill into law. “Stopping Obamacare cold has become an article of faith on the right,” Politico reported earlier this week, “and Romney is facing the prospect that his health care plan could be his undoing as a presidential contender.” But calls for Romney to disown his own health care plan haven’t sat well with many Massachusetts Republicans. As Romney's Republican opponents prepare to rip...

Piggybacking off of this Politico article on conservatives attacking RomneyCare, Jon Chait asks why in 2008, "nearly all (conservatives) were fine with Romney's health care plan." If you were reading the National Review -- which had a soft spot for Mitt -- I can see why you would have that impression, but the reality is a lot more complicated. For starters, there were a lot of conservatives who did raise issues about his health care plan, and we published a lot of them here at the Spectator. I was a frequent critic of both Romney and his health care plan,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLb-NY4p1q0

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a front-runner for the nomination, has signaled quietly to Graham that Republicans must address immigration before the campaign heats up, according to several sources familiar with the conversation.