Free Republic

Former Senate Majority Leader — and 1996 GOP Presidential nominee – Bob Dole just tore into Newt Gingrich with an open letter that violates Reagan’s 11th Commandment so many times, Bob Dole will be in the confessional until Easter. ... .. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway. ... Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew...

Romney haul from National Call Day in Vegas: $10.25 million

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney tried to show just how down to earth he can be in a Facebook town hall Monday. Standing in the Las Vegas convention center, in front of a group of campaign volunteers who seemed to be taking no notice, the 2012 presidential contender put on something like a ‘folksy’ charm. He wore a shirt but no tie, with the top button undone. When the camera first started going, he looked surprised, asking if he was on the air. He stood not quite in the center of the camera field. Romney spoke off the cuff, reading...

Mitt Romney wants his money to show his might. The all-but-declared Republican presidential contender, who has kept his head low for much of the year as he collected cash, raised $10.25 million in a single day Monday after bringing together his network of wealthy donors to dial for dollars in a city with no shortage of them. It's a hefty one-day total that Romney's team hopes will show his strength in the emerging GOP field. Romney's phone bank fundraiser at the Las Vegas Convention Center, much like one during his first attempt at the Republican nomination, was the centerpiece of...

On Monday, Meghan McCain told Kennesaw State University that she wants Mitt Romney, not Sarah Palin, to be the next president. As McCain explained, "My personal favorite right now is Mitt Romney. I like that he's not so radical. I like that he has really, really played his cards right, almost perfectly since the last election" (as reported by Marietta Daily Journal). McCain's endorsement may be a double-edged sword for Romney. On the one hand, her endorsement is a boon because she chose him over her own father's running mate. And McCain enjoys a devoted following among independents, moderate Republicans...

Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) held a fundraiser in Manhattan last week and outperformed Pres. Obama's own cash grab a day later on behalf of the DCCC, another sign of trouble brewing for Dems this cycle in all corners of the country. Romney headlined an event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on May 12 that raised $1.5M for his Free and Strong America PAC. By contrast, Obama's appearance at the St. Regis Hotel on May 13 raked in a lesser $1.3 million for the DCCC.

Over the past several weeks, political observers have speculated about how passage of the national health care law modeled after the one Mitt Romney signed in Massachusetts could hurt his presidential ambitions. But more significant for conservatives is how Romney's presidential ambitions could stymie the effort to repeal ObamaCare. As it is, achieving a full repeal of the recently-passed health care law will be extremely difficult. Given that Obama would veto any bill to undo his signature legislative accomplishment, it means that to get rid of the law, Republicans will have to not only take back Congress, but capture...

MITT ROMNEY’S latest position on the Massachusetts health care reform law is, finally, an honest one. “Overall, ours is a model that works,’’ the former Bay State governor and would-be presidential candidate said in Iowa.

Looking at Public Policy Polling's results, it would appear that way. PPP has surveyed GOP primary voters in 10 states since mid-February, each has found Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee to be the favored candidate. Sarah Palin placed second in six states, but did not finish first in any of them. According to PPP's latest round of polls, Mike Huckabee leads in both Alabama (with 41%, over Palin's 27% and Romney's 20%) and Missouri (with 32%, over Palin's 28% and Romney's 22%). PPP has not surveyed Republicans in Iowa or New Hampshire--the two most critical primary states--and some of the...

Yesterday, in a post about President Obama's offshore oil drilling plan, I noted that the "candidate of change" had once talked out of both sides of his mouth on offshore exploration. He condemned John McCain for wanting to expand offshore oil drilling one day, and then said another day that he was open to expanding it. So it goes. ..................................................... Reading Collins' piece, I was suddenly taken back, as if in a dream, to a more wondrous time, for me at least, during the 2008 Iowa Straw Poll at Ames. Back then, Romney was on a different tack, arguing that...

Believe it or not, this may end up being Romney’s best argument in the primaries. Electability, pure and simple. Sure, he’ll do what he can to salve the wound that RomneyCare has left on his campaign, but that scar will be with him forever now. The difference in places like New Hampshire and Florida won’t be his posturing about repealing O-Care; potentially, it’ll be the fact that Mitt, perhaps alone among major Republican figures, stands a chance at beating The One. People will shudder at me saying that since that was also the argument for McCain, but the landscape in...

America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation — rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better.

Why Vote For Romney: Supports Mandatory Health Insurance Why Vote For Romney: Supports Mandatory Health Insurance Many Americans want mandatory health insurance. Mitt Romney was the leader, being the first in the nation to introduce mandatory health care. Thanks to Mitt Romneys generosity. 80% of Massachussetts residents are now insured, and the other 20% are receiving health insurance while serving there jail terms for failure to buy insurance.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suggested Sunday that his decision on whether to run again for president may hinge on the outcome of the November midterm elections. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suggested Sunday that his decision on whether to run again for president may hinge on the outcome of the November midterm elections. Romney, who was beat out for the GOP presidential nomination by Sen. John McCain in 2008, told "Fox News Sunday" that he's not making any calls quite yet. He said that he will wait at least until the end of the year, after the voters have...

As Mitt Romney sets out this week to promote his new book, “No Apology,’’ he is also auditioning for a rapidly disappearing role in American politics: a politician who is speaking out against the “temptations of populism.’’ “The populism I’m referring to is, if you will, demonizing certain members of society: going after businesspeople, going after Wall Street, going after people who are highly educated, people who are CEOs,’’ Romney said in an interview.... [snip] Instead of ideological fervor, Romney is working to win over Republican voters and party elites with intellectual sobriety more tightly linked to his career as...

1. Mitt Romney: Romney gave a command performance at CPAC -- delivering a solid speech aimed at establishing himself as the de facto leader of the party and offering a detailed critique of the Obama Administration and its policies. And, his decision to put Matt Rhoades, communications director of his 2008 presidential bid, in charge of his Free and Strong America PAC was a savvy move that won him kudos among party insiders. Romney appears far more at ease in this race than he did in 2008; he knows who he is and what he can (and can't) do --...

With the latest Gallup Poll showing that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is leading the pack of potential GOP Presidential nominees, serious questions need to be asked of the candidate. Although Sarah Palin comes in 2nd in the polls and is actually in a statistical tie with Romney, Palin is the one who has been scrutinized to the point of navel-gazing. Romney, on the other hand, has so far received a pass from the media. If Republican voters are going to turn to a moderate governor of a very liberal state to be its standard bearer even after the policies...

Over past 7 months, Mitt Romney’s favor among Republicans has fallen off a cliff. Monthly surveys by Public Policy Polling shows that Romney’s level of support has fallen to just 48% among Republican voters from a high of 67% in May of this year. Romney polled in the 60s on the first three polls but has not reached that threshold since and now for the first time he's below 50% with the party base. I don't have any theories to explain Romney's popularity slide with Republican voters but it certainly bodes ominous for his 2012 nomination prospects if he can't...

WASHINGTON - Later this winter, Mitt Romney will strike out on a national book tour, but unlike his party’s most successful recent author he does not expect to make headlines with bits of fresh gossip from the 2008 campaign, see his fans camp overnight outside bookstores, or chat with Oprah Winfrey about his family. “Inevitably there are going to be comparisons with the Sarah Palin book,’’ said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman. “We’re not going to match her crowd size or sales. These are two different people with different ways of expressing themselves.’’ -snip- But Romney, considered by many in...

She pulls at the heartstrings of the Republican base, but in addition to all the peculiar problems of her own design, Sarah Palin has one obstacle she cannot overcome. Republicans like to choose the next in line—and she isn't. Sarah Palin is the bright red thread in the dull, grey fabric of the Republican Party. She is charismatic, quirky, melodramatic, and fervently anti-choice, anti-gay, and anti-Obama. But there's one thing she'll never be—the GOP nominee for President in 2012. Palin has the most intense grassroots base of any potential candidate, in the true-believing core of the party. And that's worth...