Free Republic

One of the things fellow Republicans and political observers have never liked about Mitt Romney is the wholesome piety he exhibits on the stump, while his hacks and PACs engage in some of the ugliest politics around. He can flash that plastic smile and pretend all he wants, but people know the cold fish doesn't shy away from the politics of personal destruction. If anything, his campaigns embrace it more than most, while feigning ignorance and pretending otherwise himself.This is why so many people in the GOP have come to dislike Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney backer and New Jersey Gov....

Is the date Jan. 21 about to be a lot brighter for Newt Gingrich? As South Carolina votes Saturday, Mitt Romney’s campaign sent a press release wishing Gingrich a “happy anniversary” for the House decision to reprimand him, which happened on Jan. 21, 1997. Headlined “Happy 15th Anniversary, Mr. Speaker,” the release said, “Fifteen years ago today, Newt Gingrich became the first House speaker in American history to be reprimanded by his colleagues.” Gingrich was investigated for tax irregularities and for campaign finance disclosure violations in the late 1990s. The matter, conducted when Republicans controlled the House, was settled when...

Newt Gingrich, who had trailed Mitt Romney by a double-digit margin in South Carolina in several polls conducted just after the New Hampshire primary, may instead be headed to a big victory there, recent polling suggests. Mr. Gingrich leads Mr. Romney 38-30 in the FiveThirtyEight forecast of South Carolina, which has been updated with polling through Friday evening. (Newt 82% chance of winning, chart at source link) Much of the reason for the relatively clear lead for Mr. Gingrich is that he has very clear momentum in the race. In a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling, for instance, Mr....

GILBERT, S.C. — Mitt Romney and a top surrogate called for Newt Gingrich, Romney's chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, to release the House Ethics Committee report that led to a reprimand of Gingrich and a $300,000 fine. After Romney was pressed on his tax returns, Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) stepped in and interrupted Romney. "The people of South Carolina are not talking about tax returns. They're not. They're talking about jobs, spending and the economy," she said before taking a shot at Gingrich, who is neck and neck with Romney in recent polls of South Carolina. "In all...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iowa Republican Party will certify this month's presidential caucuses as a split decision between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, citing missing data from eight precincts, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday.

A recount of the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican caucus results has Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by 34 votes, with data from 8 precincts missing and never to be certified, GOP officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday. Despite Santorum's advantage, the state Republican party views the results as a wash.

After ignoring former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for three weeks, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is renewing its assault on Newt Gingrich days before ...

Rick Santorum accused rival Mitt Romney on Tuesday of running a “dirty politics” robocall campaign in South Carolina to discredit the former Pennsylvania senator and mislead voters in the state’s fiercely contested Republican presidential primary Saturday. Campaigning at the Yorktown aircraft carrier museum in Charleston Harbor, Santorum slammed the former Massachusetts governor for an automated call that plays a tape of Santorum endorsing Romney’s 2008 run for the GOP presidential nomination. “Gov. Romney, out there playing a recording from four years ago, and suggesting that I’m endorsing him, is another example of Gov. Romney misleading the public about my record...

If you were trying to come up with the atrocious candidate imaginable to go toe-to-toe with Barack Obama in 2012, you couldn't do much worse than Mitt Romney. He was an unpopular, moderate Governor who has lost 2 out of the 3 major elections he's run in and whose signature issue, Romneycare, was an enormous failure. Moreover, he's so uninspiring that he makes Bob Dole look like Ronald Reagan and that's before you consider that his incessant flip-flopping that makes it impossible to really know where he stands on any issue. Romney's candidacy also runs counter to almost every political...

Romney has the least-impressive electoral history of any Republican frontrunner in a very long time. Most of the politicians who chase the White House are proven vote-getters with very few electoral blemishes on their record. John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis—what unites all of these men is that before getting to the presidential level, they had demonstrated a talent for getting people to vote for them. (Barack Obama is the exception who proves the rule.) Over the years, Mitt Romney has faced voters in 22 contests. He won 5 of those...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is preparing for a higher profile in Iowa, where he possibly could land a knockout punch if two top rivals don't quickly fix their campaign problems and back-of-the-pack contenders such as Newt Gingrich [and Herman Cain who is currently leading in the pols] don't move quickly to energize voters. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, recently recorded a TV campaign ad at a sheet-metal plant in Dubuque, in eastern Iowa. It's not shocking that he would prepare such ads. But every Romney step in Iowa intrigues GOP activists. After a crushingly disappointing loss there in 2008,...

Mitt Romney has maintained his one-quarter vote share in the Republican contest against all comers … and against those who stayed home. Whether confronting hypothetical threats from Donald Trump, Mitch Daniels, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin or Chris Christie — or real ones from Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry or Herman Cain — the former Massachusetts governor, with maddening consistency, has gotten a quarter of the primary vote. But the key question for Mitt is whether his glass is one-quarter full or three-quarters empty. No matter what the matchups, he never drops below one-quarter of the vote or rises above it. It...

It might have been Mitt Romney’s most revealing moment in all the Republican debates. Badgered by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was continually interrupting him, Romney appealed to CNN moderator Anderson Cooper to reassert the rules of the debate: “Anderson?” That one-word plaint could stand for all of Romney’s straight-arrowness. It is a virtue and a curse. “Scandal” and “Romney” are two words you expect never to have to see in a sentence together. He’s every bit as upstanding as you would expect from a former Mormon bishop, a father of five and grandfather of 16. Romney is a familiar...

OKLAHOMA CITY – So, how excited were the good, conservative folks at the Jim Thorpe Sports Hall of Fame Museum when Republican Mitt Romney arrived there Friday morning for a fundraising event? They weren't really. There was polite applause and a "Wow, it's the GOP presidential frontrunner - in the buckle of the Red State Bible Belt! Gee whiz!" reaction. Yeah, there was some "enthusiasm, but it was more subdued than you would have guessed.This reporter came in expecting throngs. Perhaps a lot of them were "busy" or didn't have the spare $20.12 for a ticket. Regardless, Mitt Romney was...

DES MOINES, Iowa: Republicans Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann took veiled swipes at surging presidential rival Herman Cain Saturday as six of the party’s White House hopefuls courted social conservatives at an Iowa forum. Appearing separately before about 1,000 conservative activists, the Republican candidates all pledged to protect the unborn, defend traditional marriage, limit government and bring an end to the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama. But Cain, the former pizza executive, came under indirect fire for seeming to suggest earlier this week that while he opposed abortion, government should not be trying to tell a woman what to do...

In a new website, in a controversial ad that was launched and then quickly pulled, and in the now-infamous touching episode during Tuesday’s debate, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is handling rival Rick Perry as if the Texas governor’s poll numbers were not at a paltry single digit. He is, in short, treating Perry more and more like Perry has Herman Cain’s numbers. Why? Because despite the terrible reviews of Perry’s debate performances and the ugly polling data that show him struggling even in his base in the South, Perry is still Romney’s biggest threat. Perry did, after all, best...

In a new web site, in a controversial ad that was launched and then quickly pulled from sight, and in Tuesday’s now infamous debate touching episode, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is handling rival Rick Perry as if the Texas governor’s poll numbers were not at a paltry single-digit. With mounting evidence, he is, in short, treating Perry like Perry has Herman Cain’s numbers. [snip] If Romney can fatally weaken Perry now, it would allow him to dominate in the early primaries. Strategically, a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses would be followed by an anticipated victory in the New...

Okay, the creepiness is overwhelming. Mitt Romney strikes me as the guy who wants to be president so bad that his ambition overrides his intellect. During last night's debate it was the cheap shot fired at Perry "well you've had a couple of bad debates" and Romney's hand resting atop Perry's shoulder. But if you've followed all the debates as I have you will notice a repeat offender. There is simply no graciousness to the man. And I'm an avowed Palinista.

<p>Our purpose and goal on FR is to restore, defend, preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity!!</p> <p>The goal of the domestic enemy (the left), i.e., the statist liberals, Marxists and progressives is just the opposite.</p>

In 1972, Brazilian biologist Francisco Varela introduced the concept of “autopoiesis,” which explains the process by which cells regenerate and replace themselves. According to the theory, human cells die and are replaced; so every ten years or so, you are literally an entirely different person than you were before. So if you called your car-insurance company to tell them the speeding ticket you got in 1998 wasn’t you, you’d actually be right. Seeing as how I’m reaching the end of my 30s, I figure I’m due a new body. I hope model 4.0 will be taller and skinnier; if it’s...