Free Republic

A new poll suggests that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush stands to gain the most from Mitt Romney’s decision not to run for president for the third time. A Fox News poll released Thursday before Mr. Romney’s decision was announced found that Mr. Bush was the second choice of many who favored Mr. Romney, and would lead the field in his absence. Although Mr. Romney would have led the field with 21% of Republicans surveyed by Fox, the poll found that in his absence Mr. Bush rose to No. 1 spot with 15%, followed by Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee...

Former Florida Governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush reportedly “never forgave” Mitt Romney for moving to the right on illegal immigration, which was perhaps one of the only issues where Romney was somewhat in line with conservatives. Romney announced on Friday that he would not make a third run for the White House, and NBC’s Chuck Todd said Romney was Jeb Bush’s preferred candidate in 2007 before Romney flipped on immigration. Todd added that “some of the interest in the race was personal” Jeb Bush “never forgave” Romney for using “immigration as a wedge issue against McCain.”

In the race for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, there can be only one… establishment candidate. When the news broke late Thursday night that David Kochel, a once loyal Mitt Romney aide who managed the former Massachusetts governor’s Iowa campaigns in 2008 and 2012, had jumped ship and joined former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s camp, it went off like a bomb. The hire signaled to many that Romney’s campaign-in-waiting was floundering and that it was acceptable for donors and former staffers alike to abandon the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. What’s more, by hiring the architect of Romney’s virtual tie...

Glenn Beck suspects that Mitt Romney bowing out of the 2016 presidential race might be the result of a secret deal between him and Jeb Bush, to avoid the risk of both of them attacking each other and fighting for the same supporters while someone like Ted Cruz can capitalize on a split vote like that. Remember that secret meeting Romney and Bush had this month? Well, Beck figured that was about both men admitting they would “kill each other” and could both lose to the race to a more conservative candidate. And Beck admitted it bothers him that Bush...

I’ve been emailed this text of remarks Mitt Romney will be making to his supporters shortly: Let me begin by letting you know who else is on this call, besides Ann and me. There are a large number of people who signed on to be leaders of our 2016 finance effort. In addition, state political leadership from several of the early primary states are on the line. And here in New York City, and on the phone, are people who have been helping me think through how to build a new team, as well as supporters from the past who...

Complete Headline: The Romney Statement: Not Running. “I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee.” I’ve been emailed this text of remarks Mitt Romney will be making to his supporters shortly: Let me begin by letting you know who else is on this call, besides Ann and me. There are a large number of people who signed on to be leaders of our 2016 finance effort. In addition, state political leadership from several of the early primary states are on the line. And here in New York City, and...

Mitt Romney plans to update supporters Friday about his plans for the 2016 campaign. The Republican Party's 2012 nominee will host a conference call with supporters at 11 a.m. EST, according to an email from Romney obtained by The Associated Press. Romney will tell staff members about his plans a few minutes earlier. The former governor of Massachusetts jumped back into the presidential discussion on Jan. 10, when he surprised a small group of former donors at a meeting in New York by telling them he was eyeing a third run for the White House. In the days since, Romney...

Mitt Romney will call senior donors at 11 a.m. ET Friday to give them “an update” on his campaign plans. Sources have told The Daily Beast that the former Massachusetts governor will announce his intention to explore a third run for the White House. Romney and his senior aides believe he is the best placed candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton. In a memo sent by Romney to his inner circle Thursday, he highlighted three reasons he should run: He thinks he’s the only qualified Republican in the field, polling is favorable to a win, and he thinks he can do...

Republican Mitt Romney is to give an update to his supporters on Friday on whether he should run for president a third time in 2016 amid signs he has yet to convince some financial backers as to why he should take the plunge again. A former staffer, who asked to remain unidentified, said a conference call with Romney was expected to be held at mid-morning on Friday, and that he might give a signal as to which way he was leaning. Romney for the past three weeks has been seeking traction for another presidential run after he was defeated by...

A little nudge from Team Jeb to remind the new and improved Romney that this race will be new in lots of ways, many of which he won’t like. Interesting timing. David Kochel, a Republican strategist based in Iowa who worked on both of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, is joining Jeb Bush’s political action committee as a senior strategist and is in line to serve as Mr. Bush’s national campaign manager… “I really believe Governor Bush is the right person for the right time,” he said. “He has a successful conservative record in Florida, and I’d put that record up...

How is it possible that a president can win re-election by a relatively comfortable margin while receiving fewer raw votes than his first election? Enter Mitt Romney. A simple data comparison is very telling. That comparison is the Romney raw vote vs. all votes for congressional Republicans in a given state. Crunching the numbers, Romney significantly underperformed the Republican congressional vote totals in multiple states. In North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin -- all presidential swing states -- Mitt Romney underperformed the total raw votes cast for all Republican congressional candidates by an average of 3 percent. That means that...

I can never tell if these cross-party endorsements are supposed to serve as an underhanded dig, designed to shy Republicans away from viable candidates, or if they've just become a form of trolling. This one, for example, is baffling, because Nancy Pelosi can only want Mitt Romney to run a third time in order to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory, but yet, she can't possibly be daft enough to think that Republicans would see her ringing endorsement of Mitt Romney - yes, Mitt Romney - as some sort of clue that he's the one Democrats most fear. Either way, it's...

The usually grim-faced media mogul practically swooned in his seat. Moments after Jeb Bush delivered what many in the audience described as an unremarkable talk at a conference in Washington, Rupert Murdoch turned to his seatmate, Valerie Jarrett, the White House adviser, to gush over its content and tone. Mr. Murdoch was pleased that Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, had listed the economic benefits of overhauling the nation’s immigration system, confiding in Ms. Jarrett that Mr. Bush, a likely Republican presidential candidate, had said all the right things on the fraught issue, according to three people with firsthand...

prominent Republican delivered a direct request to Mitt Romney not long ago: He should make a third run for the presidency, not for vanity or redemption, but to answer a higher calling from his faith. Believing that Mr. Romney, a former Mormon pastor, would be most receptive on these grounds, the Republican made the case that Mr. Romney had a duty to serve, and said Mr. Romney seemed to take his appeal under consideration. Three years ago, Mr. Romney’s tortured approach to his religion — a strategy of awkward reluctance and studied avoidance that all but walled off a free-flowing...

Mitt Romney, you're an honorable and accomplished man. You would have been a good president and infinitely better than Obama as a steward of the economy and national security. But, Mitt, we need to talk. You don't get it. You don't really get the basic proposition that freedom works better than government by experts. Sure you believe the concept generally, but there are all those details and exceptions. You hired Jonathan Gruber to guide your health plan. You believe global schemes to reduce carbon will help the climate rather than enrich and empower global elites. You endorsed raising the minimum...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) In the fall of 2007, as Mike Huckabee was surging in the Iowa polls, Mitt Romney’s foundering presidential campaign dispatched a camera crew to Arkansas with the charge to produce one of the most brutal ads of the election cycle. The final product — a withering spot that tied Huckabee to a 2003 murder committed by a serial rapist who was paroled while he was governor of Arkansas — never saw the light of day. But the unaired ad, obtained this week by BuzzFeed News, highlights a potentially potent line of attack on Huckabee as he considers a 2016...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)With all due respect, the Republican Party could probably do with a lot less of what was heard at the Iowa Freedom Summit Saturday. On one hand, that might seem strange, considering that the Iowa Freedom Summit was all about getting America back to its "core principles of pro-growth economics, social conservatism, and a strong national defense," according to the event website. What could be more Republican than that? Combine that with the fact that a number of potential Republican presidential candidates appeared to see the event as the unofficial kickoff for the 2016 campaign, and it seemed a snapshot...

With Republicans in Congress split over the best approach to Obama's executive amnesty - and with many establishment Republicans splitting form grassroots Republicans on the issue of illegal immigration more generally - it's clear that immigration will be a hot-button primary issue in 2016. ... So where do the potential candidates stand? Here's a rundown: ...

There are enough potential candidates for president (on the GOP side at least) that you need an Excel spreadsheet just to keep them all straight. Instead of a complicated algorithm, I've boiled each candidate down to his/her most basic elements. At the end of the day, these are the things more likely to define a presidential wannabe. It's also important to distinguish between durable traits and those that are more ephemeral. For example, low name ID is something easily overcome. But, being on the "wrong side" of the base on key issues can be a campaign killer. This is by...

It is time for liberals to cheer Mitt Romney. Not because his possible entry into the 2016 Republican presidential contest could cause chaos for the GOP. But because Romney, apparently seeing the error of his "severely conservative" ways, has become a progressive crusader. Initial news reports noted that Romney was telling Republicans privately that should he mount a third presidential bid he would run to the right of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, an all-but-announced contender. Yet in public remarks, Romney has been sounding like a born-again lefty. At an investment management conference in Utah this week, Romney told the...