Free Republic

SALT LAKE CITY — Reports emerged last week that some Republican donors are encouraging Utah Sen. Mitt Romney to run against President Donald Trump in 2020, and Romney addressed those rumors Thursday by saying there is "no circumstance I can conceive of that would have me running for national office again.” But that isn't stopping some Republicans from trying to change his mind. Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's short-lived former communications director turned prominent critic, tweeted a link Friday to a website selling Romney 2020 T-shirts and attempting to "nudge" the senator into a run. Featuring slogans like "commit to Mitt" and...

Ask a Republican elected official in Utah if they're endorsing a second term for the sitting president of their own party and the answer should be obvious, shouldn't it? Apparently not if the president running for re-election is Donald Trump. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, answered that question from CNN's Jake Tapper recently by joking he wasn't ready to say yet if he's going to write in the name of his wife, Ann, in the 2020 presidential election, as he did in 2016.

Former Governor Mitt Romney is already offering top donors access to a special "Presidential Inaugural retreat," planned on the assumption that he will be elected president this November. The offer, in a fundraising email circulated by a top Georgia supporter to fellow Republicans and obtained by BuzzFeed, is one of several goodies offered to those who contribute more than $50,000 to the joint fundraising committee known as "Romney Victory," a program whose outlines were first reported by POLITICO. Those donors will be named "Founding Members" of Romney Victory and invited to a California retreat with Romney and offered "yet to...

The large Republican presidential field, along with the dramatic surges and collapses of several of its candidates, may ultimately be much ado about nothing. That, at least, is the conclusion of the Republican strategists surveyed in this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll, who almost unanimously identified Mitt Romney as the most likely candidate to win the nomination. In the five times the GOP Insiders have been asked that question in 2011, Romney has never surrendered the top spot.

The large Republican presidential field, along with the dramatic surges and collapses of several of its candidates, may ultimately be much ado about nothing. That, at least, is the conclusion of the Republican strategists surveyed in this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll, who almost unanimously identified Mitt Romney as the most likely candidate to win the nomination. In the five times the GOP Insiders have been asked that question in 2011, Romney has never surrendered the top spot.

In the past few weeks we’ve seen the media scrambling to promote a cat fight between Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. As the UK’s Telegraph recently wrote: The first shots have been fired in what could become an ugly battle between Sarah Palin and her potential rival Michele Bachmann for the Republican presidential nomination. [...] A Republican consultant who declined to be named because he is aligned with a rival camp, said: “The claws are out. It’s the cat fight everyone has been waiting for – Queen Sarah being taken on by the Palin mini-me.” This is all obviously designed...

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Friday that he expected same-sex marriage legislation to be approved before the end of the legislative session next week, and indicated that to win passage of the measure he is prepared to yield to Republican concerns for greater protections of religious groups. “I am a proponent of marriage equality, and I’m working very hard to make that a reality in New York,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters on Friday as lawmakers prepared to go home for the weekend. “I am also a proponent of religious freedom, and separation of church and state, so these...

Sahil Kapur has a good piece up at TNR about the Tea Party’s plans to go after Mitt Romney because he’s not the “rock-solid fiscal conservative” they want. According to Kapur, FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led Tea Party organization, is threatening to “uneash part of its $25 million treasure trove in an attempt to sink his candidacy.” Meanwhile, Joe Miller, the Tea Party candidate who took on Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and lost last November, has his own political action committee dedicated to going after Mitt Romney where it matters most: New Hampshire. Last November, the Tea Party swept into state...

(CNSNews.com) - Five of the seven Republican presidential candidates participating in a debate in New Hampshire last night said they would favor a constitutional amendment to define marriage in the United States as between a man and a woman. Only businessman Herman Cain and Rep. Ron Paul said they did not favor an amendment. New Hampshire Union Leader reporter John DiStaso raised the marriage issue by asking Rep. Michele Bachmann whether she would come into the state of New Hampshire as president and campaign to overturn the state's law allowing same-sex marriage.

On the heels of Barack Obama’s announcement of his 2012 reelection campaign, speculation has been mounting over which candidate Republicans will nominate to challenge Obama. But you won’t find the next Ronald Reagan in this group of potential candidates. With 20 months left until the presidential election, the list of potential candidates is still long. UC Santa Barbara political science professor Dr. Ted Anagnoson, who specializes in the study of the American presidency, explained that unlike in 2007, when Republicans and Democrats declared candidacy early in the year, in 2011 Republicans are still waiting to make official declarations of candidacy....

BARTLETT, N.H. (AP) -- Call it an attempt to address an obvious political vulnerability. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday derided President Barack Obama's health care law - modeled in some ways after one the ex-governor signed in Massachusetts - as a misguided and egregious effort to seize more power for Washington.

BARTLETT, N.H. – Call it an attempt to address an obvious political vulnerability. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday derided President Barack Obama's health care law — modeled in some ways after one the ex-governor signed in Massachusetts — as a misguided and egregious effort to seize more power for Washington. "Obamacare is bad law, bad policy, and it is bad for America's families," Romney declared. "And that's the reason why President Obama will be a one-term president." He vowed to repeal it if he were ever in a position to do so, and drew hearty cheers from his...

Michael Merlina was fed up, frustrated and seemingly out of options when he walked into Middlesex Superior Court last week and plunked down $275 for court fees. With help from a few clerks, Merlina became his own lawyer and filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority. The 29-year-old North Reading glazier is fighting the $2,000 state fine for not having health insurance. In 2009, the first year penalties were in place, Merlina paid a $400 fine for him his wife

Mitt Romney has been the frontrunner for several months but Sarah Palin has been steadily climbing and closing the gap. It is essentially dead even, as of today, but for the first time she has a small lead and it is expected she will pull ahead. Intrade represents a type of stock market which trades in predictions regarding outcomes of future events. If you believe that Sarah Palin will be the Republican nominee in 2012, you can purchase a "contract" for the prevailing price, currently 25.8. Romney is currently 26.0. This price is determined by the contact traders themselves (anyone...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is warning the tea party activists to not run third party candidates that would “divide” Republican voters and waste opportunities for the GOP. Romney said in an interview with Newsmax posted on the conservative outlet’s website Monday night that he was pleased the conservative grassroots movement is “silent no longer.” The likely 2012 GOP presidential candidate cautioned though that while he supports the idea of conservative challenges in GOP primaries, third party tea party-backed candidates in the general election could be disastrous. “Divide and fail is the result,” Romney said of third party challenges. “That...

(snip) Unlike McKeon and Shuster, Cantor endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2008 presidential primary. Cantor's PAC transferred $5,000 to Romney's PAC in January -- about five months before the two Republicans participated in a forum for the National Council for New America in May. The report also indicated that Cantor's campaign committee also received $5,000 from Romney's PAC in May -- a donation that Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom chalked up to mutual admiration between the two.(snip)

Reversing his previously stated belief that none of the Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have all three legs of the conservative stool, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that Mitt Romney is indeed a three-leg conservative. Describing the three legs as "national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives," Rush said, "The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way... The foreign policy crowd is obviously what it is. I don't think there's anybody on our side who doesn't care about national...

Link only, per FR copyright rules

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivered a scathing criticism of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy Friday night, accusing the president of delivering rhetoric and not action in the war-torn country. Quoting from a speech Obama delivered in March, Romney agreed with the president "that 'we are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies."' Romney continued on seconding the president: "I believe 'that to succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban's gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.'"