Free Republic

. . . . . 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.

Ten days before the 2008 presidential election, as blame was beginning to be laid out for John McCain’s “likely defeat,” a top communications adviser to the campaign wrote a detailed strategy memo focused on how to preserve the reputation of another key adviser, Steve Schmidt, POLITICO has learned. *** The protective maneuver sheds more light on the final days of the 2008 campaign, a period of low morale marked by tensions between the Palin and McCain camps and the expectation of defeat. *** “Thankfully, and rightfully so, some members of the political punditry are already coming his defense (Rove, McKinnon,...

Even in an open convention, Gingrich wouldn't have a prayer of getting the nomination. But that seems to matter less to him than blowing up Mitt Romney. Gingrich no longer says he can capture the 1,144 delegates required to wrap up the Republican nomination. Instead, he now speaks frankly about a new plan: Keep Romney from getting to 1,144 by the end of the GOP primary season in June, and then start what Gingrich calls a "conversation" about who should be the Republican nominee. That conversation, the plan goes, would lead to a brokered GOP convention at which Gingrich would...

The GOP-e is starting to blame the GOP Primary and Newt Gingrich for what they see as a weakened Romney going into the General Election. BLAME Romney! BLAME the GOP Establishment! Newt Gingrich is the only conservative still running in the GOP primary! By employing a drumbeat of damaging headlines, using misleading delegate counts and by calling for him to leave, the GOP-e and their friends in the MSM have hurt Newt but they have not succeeded in knocking him out or silencing the base.

MATHEMATICALLY MR. ROMNEY CANNOT CLAIM THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE OUTRIGHT (Vanity) After March 13, after Alabama and Miss., Romney gets total of 391 bound delegates and he needs 1,144 for nomination. So he still needs 1,144 – 391 = 753 bound delegates. About 100 bound delegates of Florida and Arizona that Romney “won” will be challenged and will be re-allocated proportionally by CD or will be unbound, so his number will be reduced even further. In the remaining elections, I consider the following states which traditionally more conservative and growing weary of Romney’s electability, the bound delegates probably will be allocated...

Mitt Romney’s transformation into a cheesy grits- and catfish-loving, ya’ll-uttering good ol’ boy in the face of tight contests in Mississippi and Alabama today is being panned by critics — skeptical Southern party officials and pundits. “If you’re going to pander, at least pander well, and this isn’t pandering well,” said Stephen Gordon, a Republican consultant based in Birmingham, Ala. The former Bay State governor is a Yankee, Gordon said, and will always face skepticism no matter how many catfish filets he raves about. “People in the Deep South have a bit of a natural distrust for Northerners, especially folks...

Hot on the heels of his eight-vote Iowa-caucus landslide, Willard Mitt Romney is crisscrossing New Hampshire before Tuesday's key primary. Romney is masquerading as a limited-government, free-market executive from next-door Massachusetts. From the Golden Gate to the Granite State, voters should greet Romney's impersonation with a quarry full of skepticism. In fact, Romney increased taxes by $309 million, mainly on corporations. These tax hikes, described by Romney apologists as loophole closures, totaled $128 million in 2003, $95.5 in 2004, and $85 million in 2005. That final year, Romney proposed $170 million in higher business taxes, the Boston Globe reports. However,...

Back Stab Sarah Palin As Portrayed By Her Disloyal Staff. MAR 19, 2012, VOL. 17, NO. 26 • BY JOHN PODHORETZ Nicolle Wallace was the onetime consultant to CBS News and media aide to George W. Bush who was assigned to work with Sarah Palin after the Alaska governor was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It was Wallace who assured the McCain campaign that her dear friend Katie Couric, a committed liberal with a history of interviewing Republicans and conservatives in a quietly nasty way, was the right journalist to conduct a major early interview with the extremely conservative...

MITT ROMNEY may be as close to a walking, talking dollar sign as presidential politics has ever witnessed. If money were made flesh, it would apparently have fair skin, flawless hair and an off-key tropism toward patriotic anthems. I say that only partly because of all of those awkward asides of his, the ones that keep reminding voters, who need no further reminding, that he’s loaded. And I’m not really focused on just how loaded he is. With a personal net worth in the vicinity of $225 million, Romney is no Warren Buffett, no Bill Gates. There have been more...

DECEMBER 31, 2007) MassResistance is the major pro-family activist group in Massachusetts. We've been fighting for pro-family causes here since the early 1990s. We saw the Romney administration close up (although very few social conservatives were actually involved in it). We're disturbed at recent claims that Romney's campaign is making about his record. We offer the following to set the record straight. (See our Romney Report, published in November 2006.) Basically, Mitt Romney campaigned - and governed - as a social liberal. Sodomy laws and domestic partner benefits. When campaigning for governor, Romney told the homosexual newspaper Bay Windows that...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There was a column by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal (it's some months ago now) and I'll never forget this piece. Henninger writes really brilliant stuff pretty consistently. And in that column some months ago, he made the observation that Mitt Romney, a good guy, was always going to have to be nudged to conservatism; was always gonna have to be nudged to the right as he navigates his way through the Republican primaries. I think Henninger has been borne out; his piece is accurate. Romney has become a better debater. But the real evidence...

When Republican Scott Brown stunned the political world in 2010 by winning the U.S. Senate seat held for 46 years by Edward M. Kennedy, it was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney who introduced Brown at the joyous victory party in Boston. A few weeks later, still basking in the rock-star glow of that unexpected win, Brown returned the favor. He introduced Romney at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference as “one of the Republican Party’s bright lights” and “my very, very dear friend.” But now, as the two men anticipate tough general-election battles in the fall, their paths are beginning...

Only twelve states have held primaries or caucuses, and shockingly, many of them have either been scandal ridden, had their dates manipulated in violation of proposed nomination calendar, or broke the delegate distribution rules set by the Republican National Committee. State GOP chairs in Iowa and Nevada have resigned in disgrace, and others have come under heavy scrutiny following the completion of their caucus or primary. The Iowa Caucuses became the butt of too many jokes when Iowa GOP Chairman refused to declare Rick Santorum the winner of the caucuses following the state GOP’s certification process, which clearly showed Santorum...

FOX News says Romney & GOP kept Gingrich off of Virginia ballot

Only twelve states have held primaries or caucuses, and shockingly, many of them have either been scandal ridden, had their dates manipulated in violation of proposed nomination calendar, or broke the delegate distribution rules set by the Republican National Committee. State GOP chairs in Iowa and Nevada have resigned in disgrace, and others have come under heavy scrutiny following the completion of their caucus or primary. The Iowa Caucuses became the butt of too many jokes when Iowa GOP Chairman refused to declare Rick Santorum the winner of the caucuses following the state GOP’s certification process, which clearly showed Santorum...

What ever happened to the Republican genius we used to hear so much about for doing voter ID and micro-targeting their potential base? It seems like everybody I know — all faithful Democrats — has been bombarded with robocalls from Mitt Romney — and everyone who has mentioned this swears they have never voted in a Republican primary. One said she “might have” voted Reagan back in the ’80s “in another life,” but has never voted in a GOP primary. (She also said she hung up immediately because “I didn’t want that voice in my kitchen!”) Another said she’s been...