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(CNSNews.com) - Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania beat former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts by a margin of 22 points in the Republican presidential primary held in Louisiana on Saturday.

-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...

“Independence and pragmatism” have been at the heart of Mitt Romney’s politics from his first entrance into the electoral arena, CNSNews.com reports today, with a look back at an article that revealed Romney as he was when he decided to run for the United States Senate in 1994. ~~~~~ “When Romney decided to run, Republicans exchanged quizzical looks: ‘We didn’t know a single Republican when we jumped in in December,’ his wife, Ann, says,” Brownstein reported. “As a registered independent, Romney had voted in the Democratic presidential primary in 1992 to support Paul E. Tsongas (though he backed George Bush...

Is Mitt Romney an Etch a Sketch? No way, say Romney’s aides. They insist that when Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN Wednesday morning and compared the campaign to an Etch a Sketch, he was talking strictly about the mechanics of general elections, not about Romney’s malleability. But before you buy that explanation, look at what Fehrnstrom has said in previous years. He’s been erasing his candidates’ positions for a long time. In 1994, Romney ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. He had been a pro-life abortion counselor in the Mormon Church, but a private campaign poll warned...

We know about the Romney etch-a-sketch gaffe and that Santorum thinks Obama would be better than Romney. Well, I like Rick, but bless his heart on this one. There's only one Etch-a-sketch I care about this year...

Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up? Or maybe better yet, leave. After trying for years with mixed success at best to persuade the core of Republican voters that he’s like them and not a Republican in Name Only (Rhino), Romney was betrayed by his own campaign’s candid admission last week. Asked whether the candidate had moved too far to the right for the general election, Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom told CNN that the GOP hopeful would hit a reset button for the fall campaign. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch,” he said. “You can kind of shake...

Mitt Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom on Wednesday dismissed concern that the nastiness of the GOP primary race could negatively affect the fight to replace President Obama. "It's almost like an Etch A Sketch — you shake it all up and start over again," he told CNN of the general election. He said the Republican Party would rally around the eventual nominee.

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...

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney sought to use the coveted endorsement of Jeb Bush on Wednesday to amplify his call for Republicans to rally behind his candidacy and get on with the mission of ousting President Obama............... But if the endorsement held the potential to further choke off the oxygen to Mr. Santorum’s insurgent candidacy, the Romney campaign inadvertently gave Mr. Santorum a new supply when a senior adviser went on CNN and seemed to suggest that Mr. Romney’s conservative positions in the primary season could change like an Etch a Sketch drawing. “I think you hit a reset button for...

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...

(July 13) -- Happy 50th birthday, Etch A Sketch. This week in 1960, the Etch A Sketch first hit the market, according to HowStuffWorks.com. Fifty years later, the beloved piece of technology has been transformed from a simple toy to a medium for fine art, a movie character thanks to the "Toy Story" series, and an iPhone app. Even after half a century, the Etch A Sketch maintains its youthful appearance. Once only available in the iconic red-with-grey-screen variety, the drawing tool now comes in neon-colored housings and multicolor interfaces. The premise behind the Etch A Sketch is simple: Two...