Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney is unlikely to win Bill Clinton's vote, but that doesn't mean he can't soak up a bit of the popular former president's luster. The two men stood side by side Tuesday as Clinton introduced Romney before the GOP candidate's speech to Clinton's annual global conference in New York. Clinton recalled working with Romney to save AmeriCorps, and praised the former Massachusetts governor's efforts to persuade fellow Republicans to support the national service program. Romney, taking the podium, returned the compliment. "If there's one thing we've learned in this election season,...

My Message to Rick Santorum March 23, 2012 Not too long ago, I had asked a woman from Pennsylvania what she thought about Rick Santorum. Knowing that she was as conservative and as Republican as I am, I was surprised at her response. She said, “He is the worst. Those of us who know him best have nothing but contempt for him. He is not an honest person and certainly would not hesitate to stab a fellow politician in the back.” That was a few weeks ago, but I have learned what a tawdry character Santorum is. He is a...

Rick Santorum's latest attempt to use a Mitt Romney aide's "Etch-A-Sketch" remark against the Republican front-runner instead gave his rival a chance to fire back on Thursday, after Santorum seemed to say he'd rather see President Obama reelected than send Romney to the White House. Speaking at an event in Texas, Santorum again made the case that Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom's comments Wednesday on CNN about a "reset" of the campaign if Romney clinched the nomination showed the former Massachusetts governor's efforts to appeal to conservatives were insincere. "You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision...

Poll: Santorum Ahead In Louisiana By Jonathan Easley - 03/21/12 Rick Santorum leads the GOP presidential field by double digits heading into Saturday’s primary in Louisiana, according to a poll released late Tuesday by Magellan Strategies. Santorum took 37 percent, followed by Mitt Romney at 24 percent, Newt Gingrich at 21 percent and Ron Paul at 3 percent. The poll was conducted on March 19, before Romney’s convincing victory in the Illinois primary, and has a 2 percent margin of error. Gingrich finished a distant fourth in Illinois, and will likely hear growing calls this week for him to end...

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, reporters found that Santorum sent “hundreds of millions of dollars to Pennsylvania,” by looking at press releases from Santorum’s office and at news accounts at the time. Thus, we can conclude that Santorum did request earmarks as a member of Congress. Furthermore, Santorum voted for the notorious 2005 Highway Bill, which contained literally thousands of earmarks including the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” (Senate Roll Call Vote #220, 2005). Not only did Santorum vote for the bill that contained the Bridge to Nowhere, but when Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma offered an...

Somewhere, buried in Rick Santorum’s fatally flawed campaign messaging, were winning words. Had he committed to them, the former senator could have derailed Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP nomination. Despite Romney’s overpowering resources and organization, Santorum’s potent argument — that the party could not throw the issue of healthcare away by nominating someone who had supported mandates — was his key to victory, but he threw it away. As he transformed from Senator 2 Percent to the last credible alternative to Romney, Santorum often made the point that nominating Romney — or Newt Gingrich — would take the issue...

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says Rick Santorum’s double-digit loss in the Illinois primary shows he is not the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney — and he can’t defeat President Barack Obama..... “Governor Romney had a pretty good day — I think he took a step towards clearly proving he was the front-runner. Senator Santorum didn’t have a particularly good day,” Gingrich said. “This is the third time now he has tried an industrial Midwestern . . . state and not succeeded. And I think that the conservatives have to think through the right strategy if they hope to stop Romney....

<p>Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that Rick Santorum "probably didn't mean to" say that he doesn't care about the unemployment rate but that it still illustrates a broader problem with the former Pennsylvania senator.</p> <p>"I know that Santorum probably didn't mean to say it, but it's what he said," Gingrich said. "And, you know, when you're going to take on an incumbent President of the United States you better know what you believe. You better be able to say it very vividly. Can you imagine a Barack Obama dealing with somebody who says he doesn't care about the unemployment rate?"</p>

The Santorum campaign appears to be taking a slightly new tack on Newt Gingrich’s continued presence in the race. Instead of calling on Mr. Gingrich to drop out of the race, they called for Mr. Gingrich’s supporters to come to their side. “It’s time for Gingrich supporters to get behind us if they truly want to have a conservative candidate; it’s up to Newt Gingrich to decide what his future is,” John Brabender, Mr. Santorum’s top strategist, told reporters after Mr. Santorum and a crowd of about 200 people had left the hotel ballroom here where Mr. Santorum had conceded...

Newt Gingrich had to win Mississippi and Alabama in order to remain a viable candidate. Those states weren't essential because of their delegate counts or their importance to the national election, but because Gingrich had won nothing outside the South and staked everything on a southern strategy. He lost. He remains in the campaign, but he's a ghost, a bitter aftertaste, and a thorn in Rick Santorum's side. Santorum now faces his own "must win" primary, Illinois. He's won more states than Gingrich, but his strength so far has been in the Midwest and South, and in neither region has...

First, here's the set-your-hair-on-fire clip about which we're all supposed to be enraged, via Rick Santorum on the stump: "I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. It doesn't matter to me..." The horror! Rick Santorum doesn't care about the unemployment rate! Except, the former Senator's sentence went on: "...my campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It's something more foundational that's going on." What Santorum was conveying -- albeit terribly ham-handedly -- is that his candidacy is about more than mere economic issues. He's arguing that while Mitt Romney's campaign relies on harnessing and exploiting...

Rick Santorum’s campaign and super PAC have been outspent by a margin of 7 to 1 in the Illinois primary, with forces supporting Mitt Romney shelling out a total of about $3.7 million on the airwaves, according to a GOP media-buying source. Romney’s campaign has spent $1,117,704 million in Illinois while the super PAC Restore Our Future has put in $2.556,353 million. The Santorum campaign spent a comparatively modest $219,961 and the super PAC backing Santorum, the Red White and Blue Fund, put in $312,150. The gulf was even more enormous in the crucial, expensive Chicago media market. There, Romney’s...