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Mitt Romney isn’t including tea party favorite Ted Cruz among the Republicans’ most electable potential presidential candidates in 2016. … … Romney says New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “stands out as one of the very strongest lights.” …

Mitt Romney’s son says that his defeated dad never actually wanted the top job and he was reluctantly convinced to run for president. “He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to… run,” the eldest Romney son Tagg said in an interview with the Boston Globe. “If he could have found someone else to take his place… he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he...

(MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.) -- Amid continued pressure from his rivals to make public his tax returns, Mitt Romney said at a Republican presidential candidates debate Monday night that he will "probably" release that information in April. That timetable is in line with tradition of past nominees, who have released their information around tax day in early April. "I have nothing in them that suggests there is any problem," he said. "I'm happy to do so." Romney had said as recently as last Wednesday that he doesn't feel the need to do anything more than the law requires him to do,...

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says the Muslims he knows are "peace-loving and America-loving individuals." At a campaign event in Cedar Rapids Friday, the subject of how to handle the threat posed by radical Islam was raised. As reported in the Des Moines Register, Romney reminded the gathering he had grown up in the Detroit area which has a large Muslim community.

This is purely anecdotal, so I hope others out there chime in with what they are seeing and hearing on the ground where they live. If you have been reading this site since 2008 or are at least vaguely aware of our coverage of Willard “Mittens” Romneycare, you’ll know that from the day after John McCain’s defeat three years ago the “Romney Guys” in Chicago have been pushing Romneycare’s nomination for 2012. These “Romney Guys” are 70% of the reason I have nothing but disgust for Willard “Mittens” Romneycare: the people he has always surrounded himself with are vile, permanent...

Robert Gibbs, former White House Press Secretary and a top campaign adviser to President Obama, argued Sunday that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney hasn't "caught fire" with GOP voters because "he will say virtually anything to get elected." "He's a political gymnast of the highest order," Gibbs said during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation." "He will say virtually anything to get elected to any office." "If you don't like where Mitt Romney is today, just wait until tomorrow," Gibbs added. "It's a little bit like the weather." A new poll by the Des Moines Register puts Romney in...

With the Republican presidential primary appearing to have narrowed into a two-man contest, Human Events and Red State moved quickly to lock down a date for a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. The two organizations went so far this past Monday as to firm up the Annenberg Theater at the Newseum in Washington as the venue on Dec. 19 after another debate originally scheduled that day was canceled. For its part, the Newseum was excited to host the pre-primary forum. There was just one problem. While Gingrich was ready to take his place on the stage, the...

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney met with former President George H.W. Bush Thursday, but Romney aides say no endorsement is coming. The former Massachusetts governor ventured onto the turf of a rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to meet with Bush and his wife, Barbara, in the living room of their Houston home. Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said Romney and the nation's 41st president are friends, but added that the visit doesn't mean Bush will endorse Romney. Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said the meeting was a courtesy visit, noting that Bush has met with other GOP presidential hopefuls, including Jon Huntsman.

RAMESH PONNURU DECEMBER 2, 2011 Romney’s the One Even though nobody has yet cast a vote in the primaries, Republicans are increasingly resigned to Gov. Mitt Romney’s winning the party’s presidential nomination. Every week he gets a few more endorsements from Republican officeholders. He has never had a commanding lead in the polls, but one by one the other candidates who have occupied the top tier with him — first Rep. Michele Bachmann, then Gov. Rick Perry, then Herman Cain — have fallen back out of it. The current surge for Newt Gingrich looks like one last fling before Republicans...

There certainly appears to be a blood-feud between Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. Huntsman continues his attacks focused almost exclusively on Romney with this new ad that takes from Romney’s recent interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier in which Romney claimed Baier’s list of past “flip-flops” was “just not accurate.” The web ad then goes on to show clips of Romney from the past on that list of issues juxtaposed with his current views. This ad makes you think Huntsman’s Campaign is far more about keeping Mitt Romney from being President than it is about Jon Huntsman wanting to be...

It's been a long time since I've agreed with anything the DNC has put out...if ever. But I can't find much fault with these new ads they put out: [VIDEOS AT SITE] The Obama flip-flops are legendary, as is Romney's which just goes to show you, Romney is Obama-lite and no choice at all if given the nomination. As for the candidate who is giving OLite a run for his money, Newt Gingrich, he picked up a few endorsements today. First up is Maryland Congressman Andy Harris and according to the Gingrich camp there are more to come today....

<p>SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — As other Republican candidates have stumbled their way toward the presidential primaries, Mitt Romney has put together what would seem to be all the elements of a winning campaign: an effective staff, a robust treasury and smooth, knowledgeable performances both in debates and on the trail.</p>

Not your grandfather’s Republican Party My lifelong friend and high-school classmate had an wonderful op-ed on iPolitics today. Please consider Not your grandfather’s Republican Party by David Wise. One of the most negative things to have happened to the increasingly dysfunctional political system in the United States has been the transformation of the Republican Party over the last generation into the party of fiscal deficits. At one time, the bastion of balanced budgets and no free lunches, 70% of gross public debt through the last fiscal year was accumulated under the last three Republican presidents who ran deficits twenty out...

They arrive now with monotonous regularity. Another day, another announcement by a New Hampshire politician of his or her endorsement of Mitt Romney for President. Former Governor John Sununu. Former Governor and U.S. Senator Judd Gregg. Senator Kelly Ayotte. Umpteen members of the New Hampshire House and Senate. Romney's the one. A businessman. A leader. The one who will create what all America wants — jobs, jobs, jobs! Overseas, seas, seas. Yet the Romney record suggests he'll be creating the jobs overseas, seas, seas, and that's what we'll be hearing from the Obama camp from here to reelection. Oh, how...

Southfield, Mich. — As other Republican candidates have stumbled their way toward the presidential primaries, Mitt Romney has put together what would seem to be all the elements of a winning campaign: an effective staff, a robust treasury and smooth, knowledgeable performances both in debates and on the trail. But for months, the threshold of support for the former Massachusetts governor hasn't inched above a quarter of Republican voters in national polls. For many GOP voters in early primary states, hesitation about Romney comes back to one thing: their perception that he has routinely molded his views to suit the...

Should Mitt Romney be the nominee of the Republican party for president in 2012? Perhaps. Should voters support him because he's the "inevitable" nominee? No. For one thing, his nomination is evitable - perhaps all too evitable (see below). For another, we are a proud, self-governing people. We're sometimes even an obstreperous bunch—and a good thing it is for the cause of liberty. We often balk at yielding meekly to claims of inevitability. Here in America, we the people rule by electing. We don't bow to those anointed by pundits. But really, you might ask - isn't Romney inevitable? And...

Don’t expect Mitt Romney to backtrack on his Massachusetts health-care plan at any point this election cycle. “I am sure there are many people who have calculated, and perhaps correctly, that the healthcare plan I put in place in Massachusetts is not good for me politically, and if I want to encourage my political future, I should say it was a mistake and walk away from it,” Romney told Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto in an interview set to air later tonight. “You have seen a lot of candidates look at their biggest vulnerability, call it a mistake, and...

Rick Santorum on Monday accused GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney of being more liberal on gay marriage than President Barack Obama. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, made his remarks during an interview on Laura Ingraham's radio show. When Ingraham asked Romney's stance on a proposed bill that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Santorum answered: “I would argue that Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, was to the left of Barack Obama on the issue of gay marriage.” DOMA is the 1996 law that bars federal agencies and the military from recognizing the legal marriages of gay...

For Mitt Romney this is like the good old days at Bain Capital, except this time his takeover involves not another company but the Republican Party. In fact, Romney is seeking a hostile takeover of the conservative movement, methodically moving to take over Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and finally Newt Gingrich. Conservatives might remember what Romney did after he took over companies. You did not want to be a worker in a firm Romney took over. He liked layoffs. I now expect Romney to move fast to the right for a few weeks while...