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Bill Kristol, son of Irving, names Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mitt Romney, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and others on his hypothetical shortlist of third-party candidates that he could run if Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee. The “Weekly Standard” editor and self-styled neoconservative power broker is back to talking about a third party, declaring that a Trump victory in Indiana would force him to re-focus on his so-called “Latter-Day Republicans” independent ticket. A third party could help to split the vote on the Right and elect Hillary Clinton president, which would allow Kristol to stave off the Trump threat and...

Failed Republican 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney took to Twitter early Thursday to attack Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is running for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, for his comments accusing President Barack Obama of becoming the leading financier of terrorism with his nuclear deal with Iran.

SALT LAKE CITY — Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said before giving a speech at the University of Utah Wednesday that shutting down the government is the wrong way to oppose the nation's new health care law. Romney repeated his concerns about the strategy against the Affordable Care Act employed by some Republicans in Congress, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, that led to the shutdown of the federal government on Tuesday. "My view is that Republicans, elected Republicans, almost universally agree that Obamacare is problematic for the economy and for the American family," he said in response to a...

Rush Limbaugh on his radio show discussed an article which stated that there is no respected voice in the national arena articulating conservatism. Such an advocate for conservatism is crucial to reversing the direction of America as Obama drives us toward socialism while low-info voters gleefully sing Kumbaya in the backseat. Well excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but we had an extraordinary advocate for conservatism, and look what happened to her. Judas on our side betrayed her -- sold her reputation for 30 seconds of fame and favor with the media. Even now, folks on our side are...

Powerful conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., thinks former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin deserves a prime speaking position at the Republican convention. "I'd love to see Sarah Palin have a big slot — as far as speaking — because there's no one still in America that excites the base of conservatives and even libertarians as she does,” he told Fox News Thursday. “She can draw a crowd more than any other Republican, and I think has more influence in primaries than any other endorsement right now, so I think she'd be good."

In a sign that Mitt Romney's campaign team plans to adjust following growing criticism from fellow Republicans, CBS News has learned that Romney campaign senior adviser Kevin Madden will soon be taking on a larger and more visible role within the campaign. Sources tell CBS News that Madden will be spending more time on the road with Romney and is likely to become a more public presence as a TV spokesperson for the candidate. He will hit the road with Romney next week, following Romney's New Hampshire vacation. This move to make Madden a more public face of the campaign...

It's becoming clear that Romney has decided to focus on the economy at the expense of everything else, even issues that could play to his political benefit. He's avoided criticizing the administration's handling of the botched Fast and Furious operation, even as it threatens to become a serious vulnerability for the president. He's been silent in responding to Obama's immigration executive order, not wanting to offend receptive Hispanics or appear like a flip-flopper. He appears more likely to tap a safe, bland running mate like Ohio Sen. Rob Portman or former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty who won't do him any...

Prominent Dems including White House chief of staff Jack Lew and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeatedly argued in recent days that the fee for not buying insurance under the health care law is in fact a penalty and not a tax. They got support from an unexpected quarter on Monday: the Romney campaign. Mitt Romney's senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told Chuck Todd on MSNBC's Daily Rundown that he agrees - the fee is a penalty and not a tax, as the Supreme Court ruled last week. "The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court," Fehrnstrom said. "He...

An article by Michael O'Brien on MSNBC's First Read this morning quotes an "informal" advisor to Mitt Romney's campaign as saying that the presidential candidate is not likely to choose a woman as his running mate because Sarah Palin "poisoned the well" for women, with the possible exception of New Hampshire freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

In their never-ending crusade to destroy traditional conservatives, we expect the corrupt media to lie. It's what they do and what they've done for decades. What we don’t expect, though, is to have our presumptive nominee fuel those lies and allow those lies to affect his crucially important vice presidential pick. This is why this morning's report in the left-wing Politico is so troubling: [emphasis added] Mitt Romney and his top aides are building a strategy, partly by design and partly because of circumstance, around what they consider John McCain’s disastrously run campaign in 2008. The strategy: whatever McCain did,...

. . . . . What sort of justice to the Supreme Court will Mitt Romney nominate - a Souter or a Thomas? A Miers or an Alito? A Kennedy or a Scalia? His record as governor of Massachusetts gives no cause for optimism. Mr. Romney nominated 36 judges while governor, just nine of whom were Republicans. What he says of this record today is that the Massachusetts Governor's Council had to confirm the nominees, and the members of the council were all Democrats. So his answer was to nominate persons palatable to Democrats. But this all-Democratic Governor's Council is...

Coming off of his primary wins in liberal Maryland and DC and a relentlessly negative campaign in Wisconsin, Mitt Romney’s campaign has signaled to the other candidates for the Republican nomination for President that there will be no let-up in the negative tenor of his campaign going into Pennsylvania and the other spring primaries. Mitt Romney As Bloomberg’s Heidi Przybyla noted, the “defining feature of the 2012 Republican presidential primary race” has been Romney’s relentlessly negative campaign. According to Przybyla’s research, “Since the contests began, Restore Our Future has spent $35 million on commercials attacking Santorum and Newt Gingrich” and...

Shake Shake Shake! Shake Your Romney! Shake Your Romney! Thank you Mr. Fehrnstrom for saying out loud and confirming exactly what many conservative new long ago; Mitt Romney is promising to conservatives whatever it is that he thinks they want to hear without any intention of keeping it. The only thing shocking about this revelation is that Eric Fehrnstromn said it out loud, not in a conversation he believed was off the record or private, cut being broadcast by CNN live. In case you haven’t heard what the kerfuffle is all about , here’s the interview of Mr. Fehrnstrom...

 For Senator Jim DeMint, the prospect of Mitt Romney securing the GOP nomination sooner rather than later is a good thing.  In remarks made on Thursday that were reported by CNN, the reliably conservative South Carolinian and Tea Party favorite suggested that closing out the Republican presidential contest means "we [Republicans] can focus on the real problem which is Obama."At this point in the nominating fight, the delegate math is strongly working against Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.  It would take more than Hail Mary passes for either man to win the Republican nomination; it would take near miracles.After a...

On today’s Martha MacCallum Fox News Channel interview, former (liberal state) New Hampshire Governor John Sununu made astonishing statements on Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts record that look to be the opposite of what Mitt Romney’s actual record has been reported to be. But don’t take my word for it, you decide: Sununu stated that as Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney cut spending and taxes: Romney consistently likes to paint himself as a turnaround artist in Massachusetts claiming he “closed a nearly $3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes” while Governor. The facts do not back this up. According to Jason Szep...

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney sought to use the coveted endorsement of Jeb Bush on Wednesday to amplify his call for Republicans to rally behind his candidacy and get on with the mission of ousting President Obama............... But if the endorsement held the potential to further choke off the oxygen to Mr. Santorum’s insurgent candidacy, the Romney campaign inadvertently gave Mr. Santorum a new supply when a senior adviser went on CNN and seemed to suggest that Mr. Romney’s conservative positions in the primary season could change like an Etch a Sketch drawing. “I think you hit a reset button for...

Thanks to some remarkable reporting from Big Hollywood, it has become increasingly clear the upcoming HBO movie "Game Change" is less a political melodrama than an all-out attempt to destroy the person and reputation of Sarah Palin. The movie is based on a poorly researched book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, and it was criticized at the time of its publication by Howard Kurtz, then a media reporter for the Washington Post, and the New York Times for its overreliance on unsourced "deep background" interviews that were difficult to verify. Two of those sources have been revealed, according to...

John Hinderaker encapsulates an assumption which has started to take hold among many of Mitt Romney’s backers: that the fault for what appears to be an increasingly likely 2012 election loss lies with conservatives for making this a real primary. Speaking of the see-saw of not-Romney candidates, he writes: The same pattern has been repeated more than once during the current, discouraging presidential nominating process. If the GOP loses this year’s presidential contest, the party will have no one to blame but its own activists. I'm hearing this meme repeated by many increasingly dejected Romney supporters around Washington, D.C. See,...

Back in the thick of the 2008 Republican presidential race, I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he ­responded without missing a beat. Then came the CEO’s one footnote, delivered with bemusement, not pique: “Still, whenever the rest of us would go out at the end of the day, we’d always find ourselves having the same conversation: None of us had any idea who this guy was.” Here we are in...

I haven't watched Fox News Channel since the day Fox and Drudge all went on their Romney brainwashing spree. Today I decided I would watch my television before browsing FR. Tried CNN, and within 15 seconds of turning on the channel there was some "news" about some gay guy. Sure it's possible, maybe something actually did happen to a gay guy this week, but I am certain there were at least 10,000 more important things which happened in the world just so far this morning than some gay guy. Media, just shut up about gay guys. We don't actually care...