Free Republic

Texas Gov. Rick Perry may be surging in polls of Republican primary voters, but his party's Insiders aren't convinced he'd be the best general election candidate. More than two-thirds of Republican Insiders say Mitt Romney has a better chance than Perry of defeating President Obama in 2012, according to this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll.

[BIG Snip] Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party and a Perry supporter, thinks an Austin-Boston connection represents a potentially powerful ticket for his party, but he maintains the roles should be reversed. "Perry's going to be strong in the primaries," he said last week. "Romney may fall short, and he could be number two. Gov. Perry has a very strong record as governor of Texas that will play strong across the country. I think he'll beat Romney in the primaries." Romney falling short is a possibility, political scientist Jillson says, noting that Republicans usually nominate the person...

Public Policy Polling is out today with one of the first early presidential primary polls in Nevada, showing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leading the early Republican pack. The numbers aren’t much of a surprise. Romney was the only candidate to build a campaign organization in Nevada in 2008. He still has a strong following of invested supporters. Interestingly, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin trails him by 13 percentage points, dispelling some of the notion that Nevada is a strong tea party state. Palin is seen as incredibly popular with the Republican base in Nevada, but not necessarily as a...

Embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he won't resign despite calls for him to step down amid reports of the group's excessive spending, adding that he and other African-American leaders such as President Obama have a slimmer margin of error because of their race. "The honest answer is, 'yes,'" he said on "Good Morning America" today. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play and that's just the reality of it. But you just take that as a part of the nature of...