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Mitt Romney blasted the Republican Party on Saturday for not doing more to stop presumptive nominee Donald Trump, saying that the prospects for the party are bleak. During a discussion in Park City, Utah, where Romney is hosting his annual conservative summit, the 2012 presidential nominee singled out Trump’s former rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio), the last two candidates to drop out of the race against Trump. "Ted Cruz was basically praising Donald Trump through the whole process," Romney told discussion host and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. And Kasich “was in well after the time...

ANN ARBOR, Michigan — As he watched last week's Republican debate from his apartment in University of Michigan's married student housing, Derek Osborne could hardly contain his disgust every time Rick Santorum came on TV. "He represents a part of the Republican party that drives me absolutely crazy," he seethed. Osborne, a Ph.D candidate, is a Mitt Romney supporter. He's also a moderate Republican who is alarmed at what he sees as the anti-intellectual fervor—and undeniable political power—of the Tea Party movement. As the latest candidate to emerge as the main populist rival to Romney, Santorum has become the primary...

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...

Call it the Clash of the Titans — the Wall Street titans, that is. Both Mitt Romney and Donald Trump want to make the case for their candidacies based on their financial wizardry, but that’s where the similarities end. Romney wants to focus on competence and a track record of executive success while highlighting all of the failures of Barack Obama over the past two years. Unfortunately, the other titan in the race is forcing everyone to talk about birth certificates instead, and Romney has apparently had enough: Mitt Romney forcefully said Tuesday night that he believes President Barack Obama...

K-Lo, a Romney fan of longstanding, thinks the unthinkable at NRO. And the Conservatives 4 Palin people are all over it. Given that his path to the nomination is impossible unless Mike Huckabee runs, something no serious person believes will happen, Lopez may be way ahead of the curve. The Daily Kos pollster found that Governor Palin was the top second choice among Romney’s current supporters, a result that I did not find surprising considering that a lot of Romney’s support comes from Mormons and that Palin would likely get their support in the event he did not run for...

BOSTON — Republican Mitt Romney is finding it hard to avoid comparisons between the Massachusetts health insurance mandate he signed into law and the federal version enacted by President Barack Obama as he weighs another presidential run. A federal judge struck down the Obama mandate last week, and appeals of that ruling and other court challenges are likely to wend their way to the Supreme Court during the next two years, legal experts say....

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, a likely GOP presidential candidate for 2012, told supporters he won’t announce his candidacy before the end of the year — but political analysts said yesterday the discussion is the strongest indicator yet that he’ll run. “We know who is running, they’re just doing everything but coming out and saying so,” said Andy Smith, director of the Political Center at the University of New Hampshire. Romney held a conference call with 245 of his top supporters Thursday and told them that unlike his failed 2008 run, he won’t be announcing until later in the cycle, according...

Six months ago, as the Republican base lined up against the Democratic health care overhaul, Mitt Romney stood by his signature achievement as Massachusetts governor, a comprehensive health care law that served as a model for the national program. That was then. Now, stopping “Obamacare” cold has become an article of faith on the right, and Romney is facing the prospect that his health care plan could be his undoing as a presidential contender. Conservatives, in turn, are increasingly blunt in their advice to Romney: Say you’re sorry. “I guarantee that, at the top of everyone’s list on how to...

In potentially the first inter-staff dust up of the 2012 presidential race, an aide of Sarah Palin is hitting back at Mitt Romney’s camp for saying the former Alaska governor is “not a serious human being.” Asked about the comments by POLITICO, a longtime Palin aide unloaded on Romney’s staff. “It shocks me that anyone would try to do that,” the aide said. “You’d think we’d all be working together toward a common goal – that being 2010 – and that should be the focus right now. Those who try to claim the mantle of Reagan would be good to...

It didn’t take long for Sarah Palin’s team to respond in kind to insults reported by Time’s Mark Halperin from an unnamed aide to Mitt Romney. After the anonymous adviser sniffed that Palin is “not a serious person,” an anonymous “longtime” adviser to Palin told Politico’s Andy Barr that Romney and his team seem a lot more interested in self-promotion for 2012 than in getting Republicans elected in 2010. Furthermore, the source said, Romney’s “finger in the wind” leadership seems to have led his own team out of control:

It appears Mitt Romney is getting a bit nervous as a result of all the well-deserved credit Governor Palin received for helping Nikki Haley in South Carolina, both in the media and by Haley herself. In fact Romney is so nervous he feels compelled to return to South Carolina to campaign for Haley before the runoff on the 22nd. Via the Politico: Former Massachusetts GOP Gov. Mitt Romney will soon travel to South Carolina to stump for Nikki Haley in the state’s runoff of the GOP nomination for governor.

Today I endorsed Susana Martinez for governor of New Mexico - Mitt Romney Better late than never I guess...Welcome Mitt http://www.freestrongamerica.com/press/item/release_mitt_romney_announces_new_mexico_endorsements

NEW ORLEANS -- I just wrote about "Evangelicals for Mitt," a group of evangelical supporters of Mitt Romney who are pressing people to support Romney at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll. Afterward, I spoke to a young female delegate who said she planned to vote for Romney in the poll. I asked her how she had ended up at the conference. She said "Evangelicals for Mitt" had contacted her and offered to pay for her to have a limited-access ticket -- so long as she agreed to vote for Romney in the straw poll. Asked how "Evangelicals for...

Mitt Romney, the once and likely future Republican presidential candidate, is back in Iowa today. The stated purpose of his visit, which includes speeches in Des Moines and Ames, is to promote his new book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness."The broader mission, however, is to begin to reintroduce Romney to the state that holds the first in the nation presidential nominating contest. When Romney ran for president in 2008, his most delicate task was trying to convince social conservatives that he was, in the words of former Romney adviser Mike Murphy, "a pro-life Mormon" who had been "faking...

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) have both now confirmed that they will not attend the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC), which is taking place April 8-11 in New Orleans. Their absence is notable in the sense that they are the two who have been most noticeably planning for a run in 2012 and this is a chance to speak to a major group of conservative activists. Pawlenty had been scheduled to attend and was even advertised on the website as a featured speaker. The Minnesota Governor has pulled out however to attend the...

The RINO McCain is in New Hampshire now campaigning for Kelly Ayotte, who is running for Senator from that state. According to the Nashua Telegraph, he's also co-hosting a town hall with Ms. Ayotte. The Boston Globe notes that the town hall meeting was "reminiscent of those he held during his two presidential campaigns." Fox News also reports that McCain did over 100 townhall meetings leading up to the crucial "First in the Nation" New Hampshire Presidential Primary and won, once again becoming the GOP frontrunner. So, my question for my fellow FReepers is, McCain's 2010 re-election race with J.D....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Romney kicks off a 19-state book tour observers say could be an effort to garner support for a 2012 presidential run. The three-month tour to promote his book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," includes speeches and appearances in early-primary states as the one-time 2008 Republican presidential hopeful wages what some see as the most methodical campaign of any GOP presidential wannabe for the 2012 party nod, USA Today reported Monday. The tour begins next week. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington during the weekend, Romney polled...

His supporters say the book will show Romney is more thoughtful than Sarah Palin. BY KENNETH T. WALSH Friends of Mitt Romney say his upcoming book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, is a lengthy and detailed explanation of his philosophy and should be a fitting prelude to a 2012 presidential campaign if Romney decides to run. The book, which comes out March 2, seems designed to position Romney as a thoughtful conservative who has ruminated carefully about the major issues of the day, ranging from the global economy to national security. Romney supporters say it will serve as...

Mitt Romney's Man by Samuel P. Jacobs AP Photo If Scott Brown pulls off an upset in the race to replace Ted Kennedy in the Senate, he may have Mitt Romney to thank. Samuel P. Jacobs on the 2012 GOP presidential hopeful's hidden hand. There are a number of forces driving Republican Scott Brown’s surprising surge in the Massachusetts special Senate election campaign. He’s benefiting from public anger over the Obama administration’s health-care reform plan. He’s buoyed by a tide of cash from around the country, donated by conservatives eager to send a message by upsetting Democratic front-runner Martha Coakley....

(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)