Free Republic

A disqualifying & disgusting response by @realDonaldTrump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.

With Donald Trump’s ruinous domination of the Republican primary polls showing no signs of abating, top leaders in the GOP are reportedly now preparing for the possibility of a contentious brokered convention next year in Cleveland. If that happens, a small group of wealthy donors and die-hard loyalists close to Mitt Romney will be ready with a strategy to win him the nomination from the convention floor.

EXCERPT Anyway, Charlie Rose with Mark Halperin last night. Charlie Rose said, "Are you saying, Mark, that if the Republican Party unites against Donald Trump, that they can't stop him?" HALPERIN: The establishment now will not accept Trump as the nominee. They will fight him to the end, including at the convention if they need to and I think they'll run someone else if he does become the nominee. ROSE: Meaning somebody's in the field -- HALPERIN: No! Someone like Mitt Romney or Mitch Daniels, someone else to step forward to say, "We've got a safe place to vote because...

Link only http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-could-stop-donald-trump-seriously_56689e49e4b080eddf56dc2d

Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney listed a half-dozen Republican candidates he said could qualify as mainstream conservatives his party could live with in a general election — and said he didn’t think Donald J. Trump was one of those. Mr. Romney, a two-time candidate who was the party’s standard-bearer in 2012, ticked off New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and businesswoman Carly Fiorina as viable options. -snip- Mr. Romney did not mention retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who along with Mr....

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Saturday that his cash-strapped campaign machine will march forward into North Carolina next week -- despite reports that stops in that state and elsewhere had been placed on indefinite hold, according to a report by Fox News. Filed federal reports indicated that the Gingrich campaign had $4.3 million in debt and has $1.22 million cash on hand. The campaign raised $1.6 million in March but spent $2.01 million, Fox News reported. Other public records revealed that Gingrich started the month of March with $1.55 million in debt and only $1.54 million in cash reserves....

Former Governor Mitt Romney is already offering top donors access to a special "Presidential Inaugural retreat," planned on the assumption that he will be elected president this November. The offer, in a fundraising email circulated by a top Georgia supporter to fellow Republicans and obtained by BuzzFeed, is one of several goodies offered to those who contribute more than $50,000 to the joint fundraising committee known as "Romney Victory," a program whose outlines were first reported by POLITICO. Those donors will be named "Founding Members" of Romney Victory and invited to a California retreat with Romney and offered "yet to...

For those of you who did not get or see the memo from Vince Haley, Mitt still has some major problems. Here is the Haley Memo, in relevant part: [H]ere is the crucial news about why --- with 17 states to go -- the Romney forces are worried, worried that the frontrunner's weakness is surfacing again in the Republican primaries. Here are two crucial news items causing Romneyites to worry. -- Despite much pressure from Romney forces, Colorado Republicans last weekend at their Denver convention surprised political observers by electing - and by a large margin -- more uncommitted than...

Dover, DE - Newt 2012 announced today that Hans Reigle, Chairman of the Kent County Republican Party, is switching his support from Mitt Romney to Newt Gingrich. Reigle has also served as the Mayor of Wyoming, Delaware and over 20 years in the United States Air Force. “I previously endorsed Governor Romney, but since then Newt is the only candidate who has shown a willingness to meet and talk with Delaware voters for more than hour,” said Hans Reigle. ”Over the past few weeks I’ve listened to Newt discussing his vision for achieving $2.50 gasoline, balancing the budget, and shrinking...

Conservatives laugh at sheep and useful idiots. We laughed at Democrats when their "Anybody but Bush" got them Kerry. They thought that "Anybody but" works. It doesn't. The electorate needs something to vote FOR and not against. It's called "inspiration" and "something to believe in". Fear is not a belief. It is an unbridled emotion that clouds judgment and has been on full display lately. Romney is not yet the nominee but some believe it is a done deal. The controllers, the RNC and the MSM, want you to believe that. It flies in the face of everything we know....

LANCASTER, Pa. - Two of the Republican candidates for president are in Pennsylvania a week ahead of the state's primary election. Mitt Romney, the GOP's all-but-certain presidential nominee, and Newt Gingrich, are scheduled to speak at the Republican Committee of Lancaster County’s spring event in Lancaster on Tuesday evening. Rick Santorum, who suspended his campaign last week, has canceled his appearance. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania U.S. senator, hasn't hinted whether he'll eventually endorse Romney, but said he'll say soon how he'll continue to press for conservatism in politics.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Five different political contests are being conducted right now. Only two are evident to the naked eye. The first of the visible contests pits Mitt Romney against Rick Santorum for the Republican presidential nomination. The results here in Maryland and in Wisconsin this week tell us who has a commanding lead there. The second visible contest pits Romney against President Barack Obama. That one began this month with their twin addresses to the convention of editors in Washington. Obama has a 4-point lead, according to a Gallup poll conducted last week for USA Today. Now to...

Before I get to the thread title material, let me say that Bush is not going away anytime soon. Obama brought him up today with Medicare Part D and will continue to bring him up again & again. If Romney praises Med. part D, Obama can say "See, Romney agrees with me that the first Republican president was right about the federal gov't..." as he said today. If Romney attacks Med. Part D as being big gov't, Obama can retort "Why is Romney attacking me for attacking Bush? Romney has also attacked Bush." And the issue of whether or not...

APPLETON, Wis. — Mitt Romney’s advisers and top supporters have begun informally discussing potential vice presidential candidates and although they are careful to note that the campaign is far from putting together a short list, key supporters and strategists said Friday that they are beginning to see the outlines of the kind of person Romney will choose — and the kind he will avoid. The conventional thinking has been that after a long and divisive primary campaign, the challenge of uniting the GOP would force Romney to pick a running mate with strong appeal to tea party activists and evangelicals....

The Washington Times is usually pretty good, but they really blew this one. They claim that Romney is now getting Tea Party support. The writer for the Times either didn’t know better or engaged in some creative writing. Among other things, he claims that Freedomworks has dropped its opposition to Romney, something that Freedomworks denies. The Times in its blatant desire to see Romney as the nominee claims that Freedomworks launched the Tea Party movement. Ignoring the fact that is not true, I don’t think even Freedomworks makes that claim. They did help organize a big DC rally in 2009,...

. . . . . Romney’s Jobs’ Initiative Worsened the Housing Crisis in Massachusetts So when President Bush’s administration was attempting to regulate GSEs to avert a financial crisis, Governor Romney’s affordable housing policies in Massachusetts were significantly contributing to the bad assets on the books of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston the number of subprime mortgage originations in Massachusetts spiked between 2003 and 2006 during Romney’s tenure as Governor of Massachusetts. Given that there were prominent conservative whistle-blowers warning about the potential dangers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,...

Half of all Americans now express unfavorable views of Mitt Romney, a new high for the GOP presidential hopeful in Washington Post-ABC News polling. The deteriorating public impressions of the former Massachusetts governor foreshadow a significant obstacle for him as he tries to shift the focus of his campaign toward a potential match-up against President Obama. Romney’s negative numbers have jumped around this election cycle, but the overall pattern is similar to his trajectory four years ago: As he became better known, his unfavorables shot up far more rapidly than his positive numbers. Negative impressions are up eight percentage points...

A version of this column appeared originally in THE DAILY BEAST.As he campaigns for re-election, Barack Obama pursues a profound and uncommon honor denied to nearly two-thirds of his predecessors. Contrary to a widely held popular belief, political history doesn’t anoint incumbent presidents as automatic winners or even presumptive favorites. The numbers show that most presidents fail in their efforts to maintain a long-term hold on the affections of the fickle public and that Obama will face an uphill struggle in attempting to reprise his epic victory of 2008. Of the 42 men who served as president before the current...

...Romney said, “If they are 45 years old and they show up and say I want insurance because I have heart disease, it’s like, hey guys. We can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you are well and then if you get ill, you are going to be covered.”

Alabama's Republican governor has some advice for Mitt Romney the next time the former Massachusetts governor campaigns in the Deep South: Cut out the y'alls and references to "cheesy grits'' and be himself.