Free Republic

Rove, Romney and the GOP-e loathe pro-life Reagan conservatism, loathe the small government tea party and set out to destroy them both. I hate to admit it, but they are succeeding. As I see staunch pro-life conservatives and tea party patriots folding their small government tents in favor of Romney's GOP-e progressive, big government big tent, I can't help but see not only the end of the tea party, but the end of pro-life, pro-liberty conservatism within the Republican party. And if we cannot quickly recover, the end of liberty in America. America's great experiment in self-government by believers in...

MSNBC's supposedly most intelligent "news" anchor almost had a total meltdown on HBO's Real Time Friday. When repeatedly asked by host Bill Maher and guest Nick Gillespie for her opinion of Massachusetts' healthcare program, Maddow whined like a little girl, "Leave me alone about RomneyCare, all of you" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Maddow Almost Melts Down on HBO's Real Time: 'Leave Me Alone About RomneyCare, All of You' BILL MAHER, HOST: Mitt Romney said on the campaign trail last week, he said, “We're going to get rid of ObamaCare and return to personal responsibility.” This is the return...

Mitt Romney to roll up delegates in 5 GOP primaries [Milt predicts total win] David Lightman and Erika Bolstad ASTON, Pa. — "Mitt Romney is expected to win all five Republican presidential primaries Tuesday, but Pennsylvania and Connecticut will be watched closely for signs that he could headed for trouble in those states in November. A weaker-than-expected showing in Pennsylvania against Rick Santorum, who represented the state in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007, would raise fresh questions about Romney’s appeal in a general-election swing state. ... Connecticut also will offer some clues about Romney’s November prospects there. The...

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...

Throughout the presidential campaign, we have been lampooned by the pale-pastel wing of the party for not coalescing around the Romney campaign with alacrity. Our detractors have been stupefied by our stubborn opposition to “the only candidate who can beat Obama;” the man with the requisite resume, funding, organization, intelligence, and persona. We’ve been at a loss to encapsulate our opposition into a one-liner; a bumper sticker. After all, it takes copious pages of ink to explain the extent of Romney’s hypocrisy on the issue of healthcare alone. Yet, late in the 11th hour of the campaign, when it’s probably...

March 19, 2012 The Improbable Mr. Santorum Outgunned in staff and money, disdained by the media, he refuses to be silenced and remains Romney's only real rival. By WILLIAM MCGURN When the Illinois primary closes in the next 24 hours, it is improbable that Rick Santorum will emerge victorious. Given the states that are left, arithmetic suggests it is equally improbable that Mr. Santorum can overcome Mr. Romney's lead in delegates. Perhaps most improbable of all is the hope that a contested Republican convention would settle on Mr. Santorum as its nominee. Then again, that Mr. Santorum would be where...

They say all things must end, but the wrangling over Mitt Romney's support for an individual health-insurance mandate persists without letup. It has been nearly six years since Romney, with much fanfare, signed the Massachusetts health-care overhaul into law. On the eve of the signing ceremony he had praised the bill's requirement that every resident obtain health insurance, and suggested with pride that the rest of the nation might want to follow the Bay State's lead. "How much of our health-care plan applies to other states?" he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "A lot." It was a message he...

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...

Willard Mitt Romney these days could not be more explicit about abandoning President Barack Obama's carbon-dioxide restrictions. "Irresponsibly," Romney wrote in an Aug. 28 op-ed for Foster's Daily Democrat in New Hampshire, the Environmental Protection Agency "declared carbon dioxide, the same carbon dioxide that humans exhale, to be a 'pollutant' that poses risks to human health." He also observed: "Congress had the good sense not to compound our economic challenges by imposing cap-and-trade's extraordinary costs on the American people." Romney's website offers this carbon-friendly promise: "Mitt Romney will eliminate the regulations promulgated in pursuit of the Obama administration's costly and...

Mitt Romney isn't singing anymore. A little more than two weeks after his off-key but enthusiastic renditions of "America the Beautiful" captured the spirit of a candidate who had won the Florida primary and seemed on the verge of locking down the Republican nomination for president, Romney is back in lackluster mode. It's not just that Romney is facing a surprising challenge in his native state of Michigan from Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who vaulted into contention in the state-by-state nomination battle with wins in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. What alarms many Republican Party leaders and strategists are...

ATLANTA -- A day after his defeats in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota, Mitt Romney pounded Republican presidential rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich on Wednesday as big-spending Washington insiders whose careers show scant evidence of fiscal restraint. The Republican Party, he said, "lost its way" by borrowing and spending too much, particularly on the pet projects "earmarked" by members of Congress, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum and former House Speaker Gingrich deserve some of the blame. "Under Newt Gingrich, earmarks doubled," Romney told reporters here on an airport tarmac. "Rick Santorum was a major earmarker and continues to defend earmarks."...

Mitt Romney wants to be the next president of a country in need of serious and sweeping economic reform. And here are the first two points in his 59-point economic plan: 1. Maintain current tax rates on personal income 2. Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains Now imagine private-equity boss Romney back at Bain Capital sitting down to read his team’s 59-point turnaround plan for some troubled widget maker. And imagine if the first two action items started with the phrase “Maintain current ….” Romney probably wouldn’t bother reading any further before tossing the report in...

What is Mitt Romney doing in the Republican Party? (Although a better question might by why has the Republican Party strayed so far to the left that a guy like Mitt Romney could be its standard bearer…) Everyone knows the story of Mitt Romney. He ran Bain Capital and financed a number of new businesses and helped rescue others. True, he and Bain failed a few times, but Bain Capital did what it was supposed to do, which is make money for its shareholders. At the end of the day Bain Capital was a net plus in that it actually...

In some of his harshest words yet, Newt Gingrich explained Friday why he didn't call rival Mitt Romney after the former Massachusetts pulled a decisive Florida primary victory earlier in the week. Pointing to Romney's post-South Carolina campaign strategy, which turned noticeably negative against the former House speaker, Gingrich said Romney didn't earn any kudos. "They outspent me five to one to quote destroy Newt Gingrich?" Gingrich said in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "You know, I think that doesn't deserve congratulations. I think that's reprehensible, I think it's dishonest, and I think it's shameful."...

Instead of appealing to voters to vote for him based upon x,y and z, he panders for votes by trying to increase his opponents negatives (as in FL) above his own by massively outspending them on negative ads. This approach has led to his negatives skyrocketing and his positives declining among independents and moderates. Fivethirtyeight and others have been monitoring this, and it isn't pretty. With each battle won (temporarily in Iowa and now Florida), he is headed to surpassing Obama's negatives or having lower positives (some show he already has) and he will ultimately lose against Obama if he...

FLORENCE, S.C. — Mitt Romney delivered a 13-minute speech here on Tuesday morning, shook hands with an audience that filled only a small part of a ballroom and caught a plane for a fund-raising gala in New York, a clear sign that he is looking beyond South Carolina. The outward confidence in Mr. Romney’s posture belied a deeply uncertain and fluid conclusion to the Republican presidential primary here. His rivals have shifted away from assailing his business record and are reminding conservatives through radio and television advertisements about the health care bill he signed as governor of Massachusetts and about...

Marion, Iowa -- Laura Ross walked out of a roaring, 500-person Mitt Romney rally at an asphalt plant Monday evening and into the 26-degree chill with an idea of whom she will support in today's Iowa caucuses. "I really love Rick Perry," said Ross, who lives just outside nearby Cedar Falls. "But I will probably go with Romney. I think. He's got the best chance of beating Obama." Even on the final day of campaigning before the caucuses, Iowa Republicans still have a conflicted relationship with Romney, the Republican they've known longer in an up-close-and-personal way than any candidate other...

ObamaCare chickens coming home to roost: Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this September could strip more than 1 million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama’s reforms. Under the provision, insurance companies will no longer be able to apply broad annual caps on the amount of money they pay out on health policies. Employer groups say the ban could essentially wipe out a niche insurance market that many part-time workers and retail and restaurant employees have come to rely on. This market’s limited-benefit plans, also called mini-med plans, are...

President Barack Obama said Saturday that millions of Americans already are reaping benefits from the new health care law, including tax breaks for some small businesses and help for families with young adults. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama vigorously defended the new law, which passed Congress with no Republican votes and continues to stir strong emotions nationwide. He acknowledged that many provisions will not take effect for years. But he said others are helping some families now. Four million small business owners and organizations have been told of a possible health care tax cut this year, Obama...

One of the odder political subplots of President Obama's term so far has been his relationship with the tourism-dependent city of Las Vegas. A year ago, Obama irked Nevadans by demanding that corporations not use federal bailout money for trips to Vegas. A couple of weeks ago he infuriated them again by telling a New Hampshire audience to save their cash for college instead of “blowing” it in Vegas. No Nevadans were more annoyed, of course, than the state's Democratic politicians, among them Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who faces an uphill fight for re-election this fall. So now the...