Free Republic

Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert with long ties to Mitt Romney, will become a more frequent and visible spokesman for the presidential campaign, a source close to the decision said on Friday. The increased responsibilities for Mr. Madden came in the wake of criticism from nervous Republicans about Mr. Romney’s campaign team. The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial that the campaign “looks confused in addition to being politically dumb.”

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown came to the defense of embattled campaign staffers he shares with Mitt Romney, the same Boston team that national conservatives blasted this week for fumbling the GOP presidential hopeful’s message in the midst of the pitched battle to oust President Obama. Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s top strategist, also serves as campaign mastermind in Brown’s tough re-election fight against Elizabeth Warren. -snip- Fehrnstrom, questioned about the flap by reporters yesterday, said he doesn’t expect a shake-up, saying that despite the pressure to dump him, the campaign is “very happy with the team that we have” and “we like...

Caroline Horn‏@CNHorn On @CBSEveningNews, @cbsjancrawford says Romney told her Roberts' opinion seemed political, not based on Constitution.

-snip- Although Fehrnstrom is one of Romney’s longest-serving aides, he, like his boss, has no roots in the conservative movement. Fehrnstrom started out as a reporter covering alderman meetings in Boston and lives in liberal Brookline, Mass. His work as a GOP operative has been confined to New England — a region, as he often notes, that’s “pretty rocky terrain for Republicans.” To some influential conservatives, Fehrnstrom is an enigma. It’s not that conservatives don’t trust him. It’s that some don’t even know him. “I’ve never heard of him. I’ve been going to conservative meetings since I was knee-high to...

It is typical of Mitt Romney's luck that, on the morning after he all but secured the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign became embroiled in a controversy over a 1950s plastic toy. On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."

And they say bipartisanship is dead. Wednesday morning was supposed to be a high point for Mitt Romney, who secured one of the the most sought-after endorsements of the cycle in former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush after an easy win in Illinois. Instead, a coalition of Democratic and Republican political operatives used every possible tool at their disposal, from cutting-edge social media to old-school political theater, to spoil his day completely. The story began with a gaffe by Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, who responded to a CNN reporter’s question about whether his candidate had moved too far to the right...

Think Progress flags an amazing exchange on CNN, in which Eric Fehrnstrom, a top adviser to Mitt Romney, seems to confirm that the conservative positions Romney has been forced to take during the primary won’t be a big deal because he can simply erase them once he becomes the GOP nominee: HOST: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election? FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like...