Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was accused on Wednesday of flip-flopping for comments he made in 2007 indicating he was open to a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Romney's remarks, made on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he was a candidate for president, were circulated by rival Newt Gingrich's campaign the day after the former Speaker of the House of Representatives came under similar fire for suggesting during a debate Tuesday night that he was in favor of such a pathway for immigrants. Opponents of a pathway, a large swath of the early-voting Republican electorate, have...

Washington and Des Moines - Throughout the roller-coaster Republican presidential contest, one thing hasn't changed: the stubborn refusal of many tea party supporters to warm up to Mitt Romney. The swift rise and abrupt fall of a succession of GOP candidates has been driven in part by the restless search for a Romney alternative by that group of voters, who energized the GOP's big turnaround in 2010. "They don't trust Mitt Romney," said Simon Conway, a Des Moines radio host popular with tea party followers. "Mitt Romney can be tea party one minute, and the next minute introduce 'RomneyCare'" —...

Mit Romney will not go on Special Report with Brett Baier to answer the tough questions as the other candidates have done. No worries. Conservatives will bitch and moan for a few days and Romney will claim it was a scheduling issue, he’d always meant to go on, and he will go on. Should Mitt Romney win the Presidency, conservatives will find this pattern play out repeated. Romney will head in a direction conservatives do not like and they will bitch and moan repeatedly and maybe, just maybe, he’ll part his hair in their direction. We’ve seen this play out...

Mitt Romney was polite as he took his seat in coach next to Carolyn McClanahan of Jacksonville, Fla., on a recent Delta flight to Boston. He thanked her when she said she appreciated his efforts to reform health care as the governor of Massachusetts and even posed for a photo with her. As a physician who heads a financial planning company and prides herself on having read every page of President Obama’s health care reform bill, Ms. McClanahan, 47, recognized that it’s not every day you’re seated next to a presidential candidate on a two-hour flight. According to Ms. McClanahan,...

DAYTONA BEACH -- At the Florida Tea Party Convention Saturday, you could find buttons calling for Marco Rubio to be on the presidential ticket, t-shirts declaring that Barack Obama has made communism cool again, and freeze-dried foods to last up to 25 years in case society collapses. Scarce among the hundreds of conservative activists gathered in Daytona Beach? Any enthusiasm for Mitt Romney, the man widely expected to win the Republican presidential nomination. “The party establishment has wanted Romney all along, and they’ve been pushing him on us,” lamented James Koll of Fort Dodge, Iowa, who said he would support...

Mitt Romney, under fire from all sides on the strength of his political convictions, said Thursday he has been as consistent as a person can be during his political career. "I've been as consistent as human beings can be," the presidential candidate said in a meeting with the editorial board of New Hampshire's Seacoast Media Group. "I cannot state every single issue in exactly the same words every single time, and so there are some folks who, obviously, for various political and campaign purposes will try and find some change and try to draw great attention to something which looks...

As the GOP field settles into its final shape, Tea Party activists seem increasingly unsettled with the prospect of a centrist like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney winning the nomination. Romney has never been popular with this group, and indeed, a Public Policy Polling survey last week found him placing just fourth among Tea Party supporters, polling an anemic 13 percent, while the leader, former businessman Herman Cain, pulled in 30 percent. For months, the Tea Party has been searching for a credible alternative to Romney, and the movement has embraced, then quickly discarded, a long list of presidential aspirants....

BOSTON — On the Republican campaign trail, the health care debate has focused on the mandatory coverage that Mitt Romney signed into law as governor in 2006. But back in Massachusetts the conversation has moved on, and lawmakers are now confronting the problem that Mr. Romney left unaddressed: the state’s spiraling health care costs. After three years of study, the state’s legislative leaders appear close to producing bills that would make Massachusetts the first state — again — to radically revamp the way doctors, hospitals and other health providers are paid. Although important details remain to be negotiated, the legislative...

And we all know what strike one is. If anyone besides Romney actually shows up to tomorrow night’s GOP debate in Nevada, I sure wouldn’t mind if someone would ask him why as Governor of Massachusetts he bragged about implementing stringent, economy-stifling regulations on CO2 emissions. On the advice of Obama’s crackpot science czar John Holdren, no less. I’d really love to hear the explanation. Via Hot Air and Moonbattery, here is an excerpt from a 2005 memo from Romney’s office: Governor Mitt Romney today announced that Massachusetts will take another major step in meeting its commitment to protecting air...

WASHINGTON - Among the Republicans angling to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. a year from January, Mitt Romney is the closest to achieving his goal. The former Massachusetts governor has reached the decisive phase in his presidential campaign: attempting to consolidate his support and cinch the nomination. (snip) Romney’s most ardent conservative critics have been left to rally around Herman Cain, simultaneously engaged in a book tour and presidential campaign, in a last-ditch effort to prevent his nomination. (snip) ...the Romney staff is focused on what it sees as an inevitable clash with Obama and the Democrats. But with the...

BELMONT, Mass. — In ticking off his credentials on the campaign trail — management consultant, businessman, governor — Mitt Romney omits what may have been his most distinctive post: Mormon lay leader, offering pastoral guidance on all manner of human affairs from marriage to divorce, abortion, adoption, addiction, unemployment and even business disputes. Bryce Clark was a recipient of Mr. Romney’s spiritual advice. Late one summer night in 1993, distraught over his descent into alcoholism and drug use, Mr. Clark, then a 19-year-old college student, decided to confess that he had strayed from his Mormon faith. So he drove through...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney's early success in the Republican presidential race is challenging the tea party's clout. Will it continue to pull the GOP sharply right? Will it slowly fade? Or merge with mainstream Republican elements in a nod to pragmatism, something it's hardly known for? On the surface, Romney's strength seems at odds with the tea party's fiery success in ousting Republicans seen as compromisers, and in making the House GOP caucus more ideological, even when its leaders plead for flexibility. Romney defends the government's 2008 bank bailouts, plus the mandated health insurance he initiated as Massachusetts governor....

After watching the GOP presidential debate the other night, it was hard to avoid this conclusion: Mitt Romney looks more and more like the GOP presidential nominee. He's the best debater. He's got his issues and his rejoinders down pat. He brushes away his opponents like lint on his lapel. And all with such ease. That said, there's a teensy problem he just can't seem to beat: Conservatives don't like him. Or trust him. Or really want him to be the GOP nominee. Sure, you say, Republicans never like their nominees, and they still manage to vote for them. There...

The Obama administration may have relied much more heavily on Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare legislation as a blueprint for Obamacare than was previously believed. White House visitor logs obtained by NBC News revealed that three of Romney’s healthcare advisers had up to a dozen meetings with senior administration officials, including one in the Oval Office presided over by President Barack Obama. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model,” MIT economist and Romney healthcare adviser Jon Gruber told NBC. What’s more, the records show Gruber was...

The PUGET SOUND CONSERVATIVE UNDERGROUND Message Board › Warning: Black Hole for Romney Forming Let me preface this by stating my belief that Mitt Romney is, in all probability, a nice intelligent good-hearted man, notwithstanding his handsome looks and beautiful family who appear to have come straight from central casting. That stipulated, after tens of $millions spent and years of practice trying to sound Conservative, why can’t he completely shake the aura of a car salesman? Or, is it just me? He tries to sell you that he’s a bonafide Conservative, and that he has been all along, but when...

In the recent Presidential debate, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said America’s voters did not need to “settle” for the moderate candidate. Amen to that. And gun owners do NOT want candidates who talk out of both sides of their mouths. As the Gun Owners of America’s Board of Directors looks at the Republican candidates running to unseat radical anti-gun President Obama, we see several who have strong pro-gun backgrounds. Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman all have solid pro-gun records and deserve a hard look from pro-gunners. At least one frontrunner candidate stands in contrast with a decidedly mixed record on...

Rose Marie Belforti is a 57-year-old cheese maker, the elected town clerk in this sprawling Finger Lakes farming community and a self-described Bible-believing Christian. She believes that God has condemned homosexuality as a sin, so she does not want to sign same-sex marriage licenses; instead, she has arranged for a deputy to issue all marriage licenses by appointment. But when a lesbian couple who own a farm near here showed up at the town hall last month, the women said they were unwilling to wait. Now Ms. Belforti is at the heart of an emerging test case, as national advocacy...

At a fundraiser yesterday, Former Massachusetts Governor and current contender for the GOP presidential nomination Mitt Romney said his short list for the Vice President is "[Virginia Governor Bob] McDonnell, Governor [Chris] Christie of New Jersey and [Senator] Marco Rubio of Florida." Obviously Mr. Romney is trying to boost the appeal of his candidacy with the many conservatives who find his record lacking, but this premature discussion of a running mate might have the opposite effect.

I'm not trying to inflame. I am not trying to troll. I just bring reality. You probably know it's true yourself. Romney will be the guy. At this time in 2007, the dreadful McCain was polling in single digits, and fundless. Yet he won the nomination pretty easily. Romney is MUCH stronger right now. Who will beat him? I tend to doubt Palin will even run. Bachmann will never get establishment support, and the MSM's efforts to trash her are already underway. Cain just doesn't have the impetus. Ron Paul? Well, he's just Ron Paul. The rest are asterisks. Back...

An Ohio Republican Party official sent over results from the party's presidential straw poll in a proving-ground swing state, which showed Mitt Romney the clear winner. Romney, who made the Ames Straw Poll his Holy Grail in 2007 but is bypassing Ames, Florida's Presidency V and all other such contests this cycle, won handily with 25 percent. Tim Pawlenty, who is fighting his own war for Ames, scored second place, with 16 percent. But Pawlenty was bunched with the third- and fourth-place finishers, Michele Bachmann (15 percent) candidate Rick Perry (14 percent). Perry is especially noteworthy, since he has yet...