Free Republic

This time, Mitt Romney has a clear pitch: I'm the strongest Republican to challenge President Barack Obama on the country's single biggest issue — the economy. "He created a deeper recession, and delayed the recovery," Romney said Saturday, previewing his campaign message before Republicans in this influential early nominating state. "The consequence is soaring numbers of Americans enduring unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies. This is the Obama Misery Index, and it is at a record high." "It's going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work — it's going to take a new president," said the former...

President Obama launched a vicious, underhanded attack on one of the leading contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination last month: He praised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for launching a state-administered healthcare plan. "I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he's proud of what he accomplished on healthcare in Massachusetts," Obama told the nation's governors. Romney supporters winced, but his potential rivals for the Republican nomination were delighted. They've already taken to calling the Massachusetts healthcare plan "Romneycare," to remind conservative voters how much it resembles the "Obamacare" law they loathe. Like the "tea party," the Obama White...

Mitt Romney rejected Mike Huckabee's call for him to admit that the "RomneyCare" health care program failed, instead saying he's "proud" of "getting everyone covered" when he was governor of Massachusetts. "Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered,” Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, told the Boston Globe, in the first direct response Team Mitt made to Huckabee's criticism of the health plan in his new book. Fehrnstrom also put daylight between the Romney health care bill and President Obama's reform package, which is unpopular among voters and is the subject of several lawsuits by...

Part 2 in a developing series of in-depth analysis by Dr. Jeff Fuller (See part 1 here) It’s often revealing to turn conventional wisdom on its head and see what’s really hidden underneath. You’ve all heard it, I’m sure, that RomneyCare is Mitt’s doom, an albatross around his neck, his biggest weakness as a potential candidate. In Part 1 of this series I detailed not only how grave some people feel this issue is for Romney’s chances, but also pointed out that Obama and his team of key operatives (Axelrod, Gibbs, and Daley) are all praising RomneyCare as ObamaCare’s predecessor...