Free Republic

On his first trip back to the nation's first voting state as a soon-to-be declared presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reaffirmed his support for federal ethanol subsidies -- an always important campaign issue in Iowa that figures to take on an even more central role in the divided GOP field. "I support the subsidy of ethanol," Romney told a potential voter after an event here was cut short by a fire alarm. "I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution in this country." Support for ethanol subsidies has long been considered a political necessity for...

The Mama Grizzly is coming out of hibernation. This weekend, Sarah Palin is launching her "One Nation" bus tour, visiting historical sites across the country. Palin will start on Memorial Day at the Rolling Thunder weekend motorcycle rally that starts at the Pentagon. Where it will end has yet to be announced. But given Palin's other recent move—the announcement of a feature-length film on her tenure as governor—it looks as if her ultimate destination may be the White House. Whatever Mitt Romney had on his plate for Memorial Day, he'd better make room. If we assume—for the purposes of page...

White House hopefuls Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin lead a narrower field of potential rivals for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination, according to a poll released on Thursday. The Gallup survey is the organization's first since Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and real estate mogul Donald Trump opted out of the slowly evolving primary race. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and so far the apparent front-runner, led Palin by 17 percent to 15 percent, well within the poll's 4 percentage points margin of error. Texas Representative Ron Paul ranked third at 10 percent. But the...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Mitt Romney (17%) and Sarah Palin (15%) now lead a smaller field of potential Republican presidential candidates in rank-and-file Republicans' preferences for the party's 2012 nominee. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain essentially tie for third, with Cain registering 8% support in his initial inclusion in Gallup "trial heat" polling. Notably, 22% of Republicans do not have a preference at this point. The May 20-24 poll is the first update of Republican nomination preferences after a recent flurry of activity in the race for the 2012 nomination, with several formally declaring their presidential candidacies, including Paul,...

Mitt Romney 25% Sarah Palin 16% Newt Gingrich 11% Everybody else below 6%

Mitt Romney still has a major lead over his GOP rivals among Republican voters in New Hampshire. But a new CNN-WMUR poll finds that an overwhelming majority of Republicans in the key primary state still have "no idea" who they will support in 2012. According to the poll, 32 percent of GOP voters in the state back Romney for the Republican nomination--a 23 point lead over his closest competitor, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who received 9 percent support.

WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney is emerging as the man to catch in the narrowing Republican presidential field, grabbing a clear head start in fundraising, organization and experience despite vulnerabilities that still might undo him. With Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels becoming the latest respected Republican to forgo a candidacy, many party insiders say the field is largely set. And Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Olympic Games organizer, is in front. "It's Romney's to lose," said Scott Reed, a GOP consultant who managed Bob Dole's presidential campaign. He said Romney's biggest advantages are his personal wealth, fundraising know-how and experience as...

Unless things change, the man (or woman) elected in 2012 will be the last American president to preside over the world's leading economy. If things get really bad, he will find himself presiding over the early stages of American collapse. Not "decline" but "collapse." "Decline" is what happens when you're Britain in the 1940s and you cede global dominance to a major ally that shares your language, legal system, cultural inheritance and broad geopolitical objectives. That deal isn't on offer this time round. Nor was the United Kingdom circa 1948 in thrall to anything like the same levels of spendaholic...

While some potential Republican presidential candidates have criticized President Barack Obama’s decision not to release photos of Osama bin Laden's dead body, presumed frontrunner Mitt Romney agrees with the president. "It's best not to release the photo because it has the potential to incite retaliatory violence against Americans," Romney said in a statement to Politico. That was the same point made by Obama....

A new poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney narrowly leading President Obama in a hypothetical general election matchup in Florida.

If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. The executive order would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health-care solutions that work best for them.

BARTLETT, N.H., March 5 (UPI) -- Republican Mitt Romney delivered a scathing assessment of U.S. President Obama Saturday night, calling him "unequal to the task of leading the free world." Speaking in the early presidential battleground state of New Hampshire, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is expected to make another run at the White House in 2012, said Obama has done a lousy job staying on top of Middle East and North Africa political unrest, CBS News reported.

The good news for Willard Mitt Romney is that his religion won’t knock him out of the Republican race for president next year. The bad news is, he’s got an even bigger problem now than the magic underwear jokes — Romneycare. “That’s the question he has to address,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H) was saying Friday afternoon. “Not just in New Hampshire, but nationwide.” You know how big a headache this is when even Mitt’s highest-profile supporters are dodging brickbats over the chaos that is Massachusetts health care.

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...

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.

Intellectual Conservative's resident Mathematics Professor takes another look at Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate. In a previous article in The Intellectual Conservative (Will I Have to Hold My Nose Yet Again?), I confessed that the not unlikely prospect of Mitt Romney securing the Republican presidential nomination filled me with dismay. I pointed out that every Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was a faux conservative and that I voted for all of them - with my fingers firmly clamped on my nose. In contemplating a vote for Romney, I rued the fact that my fingers would be similarly deployed....

<p>Two potential candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have been described as “frontrunners”: former governors Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, they’re the candidates with the most supporters among likely Republican-primary voters: Romney has 24 percent, Palin 19 percent. Intrade, the prediction market, has them as the most likely nominees: Romney is given a 23 percent chance of winning, Palin 15 percent. Each of them has a claim to being “next in line”: Romney because he was arguably John McCain’s strongest rival for the nomination in 2008, Palin because she was his running mate.</p>

LOGAN, Utah (AP) — Sen. Orrin Hatch says he would support former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney over former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for president in 2012, citing Romney's efforts on behalf of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Hatch told a newspaper in Logan that even though he likes Huntsman "very much" and is close to the Huntsman family, he has always been a Romney supporter and fully expects him to seek the White House again. He praised what he called Romney's economic background and ability to make decisions, including his role as chief executive of the...

Mitt Romney rejected Mike Huckabee's call for him to admit that the "RomneyCare" health care program failed, instead saying he's "proud" of "getting everyone covered" when he was governor of Massachusetts. "Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered,” Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, told the Boston Globe, in the first direct response Team Mitt made to Huckabee's criticism of the health plan in his new book. Fehrnstrom also put daylight between the Romney health care bill and President Obama's reform package, which is unpopular among voters and is the subject of several lawsuits by...

Without having compared the hardcover to the paperback myself, I’m duty-bound to add a question mark to the headline. But his spokesman is quoted in the piece and didn’t push back hard against the allegation, so I assume it’s a fair cop. On what planet does he gain more by doing this than he loses? In the original hardcover, Romney tried to carefully distinguish between the Massachusetts [health-care] law and the national version that was nearing passage as he wrote.But the Massachusetts model has become Romney’s bête noire among conservatives, who loathe the national reform they call “Obamacare.” The rewritten...