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WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has refused to sign a pledge being circulated by a pro-life group, citing concerns with the language used in the pact. Romney, a spokeswoman said, is concerned that the pact could block some federal funding from going to hospitals and would restrict his ability to appoint Cabinet members in his administration. "Governor Romney pledged in the last campaign that he would be a pro-life president and of course he pledges it today. However, this well-intentioned effort has some potentially unforeseen consequences and he does not feel he could in good conscience sign it,"...

Mitt Romney may be leading in the polls, but his status as the GOP “frontrunner” is fragile at best. For all the talk of Romney’s “did-what-he-had-to-do” performance in the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, it’s widely accepted that the former Massachusetts governor is an uninspired choice for the GOP nomination. ... Historically, Republicans have nominated the runner-up from the previous election cycle, and Romney was the runner-up in 2008. But his second-place finish was exceedingly narrow — and in the end, closely contested. Once John McCain beat him in New Hampshire and South Carolina — after Mike Huckabee had...

DERRY, N.H. — Mitt Romney says he can appeal to Tea Partiers, even though activists and groups aligned with the movement are stressing that they need to defeat him in 2012. “I think I line up pretty well with the Tea Party,” he said in response to a question from The Daily Caller after touring the Derry Feed and Supply store. “They want to see smaller government. So do I.” But not everyone associated with the movement see Romney as one of them. Joe Miller, a former U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska and a Tea Party darling, is now running...

Mitt Romney won't be doing any apology tours on climate change. The early GOP presidential front-runner has broken with his party's conservative ranks to declare global warming a real threat to the planet that merits some sort of action to curb heat-trapping emissions. But the former Massachusetts governor is also quick to trash cap and trade, carbon taxes and other controversial policies that have been kicked around over the last decade in Washington. In a sense, Romney's initial global warming stance sounds a lot like that of former President George W. Bush, who during his two terms reluctantly accepted climate...

...my official prediction is that Obama will be facing either Romney or Palin in 2012. IF PALIN DOES NOT END UP RUNNING, MITT ROMNEY WINS THE NOMINATION. ...If Palin runs as expected, it will be a close race to the finish between the two of them. So why is Palin the only one who can derail Romney?...When voters do not vote Palin...her support drifts to Romney more than anybody else. With Palin in the race, voters will be forced to decide whether to coalesce around one conservative candidate and win, or break apart into multiple factions and hand the nomination...

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change. "I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

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...

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,...

About a year ago, I thought a Daniels-Ryan GOP ticket for the 2012 presidential race would have been ideal. Alas, Gov. Mitch Daniels is not running for the presidency. Neither is Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, John Thune, or Jim DeMint. Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush probably won’t run either. Paul Ryan would still make a good VP choice, but he isn’t running for president. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Rick Santorum are all “dark horse” candidates. They stand little chance. Jon Huntsman is too liberal (and was in the Obama...

With Mike Huckabee out of the race for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, three known politicians, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich emerge as leaders in Republicans' preferences... Palin's support is more intense. A higher percentage of Republicans have strongly favorable opinions than is the case for the other two, giving her a slightly higher overall Positive Intensity Score despite her higher strongly unfavorable percentage. Gingrich and Romney have similar Positive Intensity Scores. ...There is no clear front-runner in the race for the 2012 Republican nomination. Palin, who has given no indication of whether she will run for the...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pulled in an eye-popping $10.3 million during a national fundraising effort Monday that he described as the kick-off to his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. The event was staged at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and the site was no accident: Nevada is key to Romney's early primary state strategy. Nearly 800 participants dialed for dollars all day and hauled in nearly $4 million more than when his campaign staged a similar event four years earlier. Romney has been scarce on the campaign trail in recent months as he's focused heavily on...

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.

LAS VEGAS — In his first presidential run in 2008, Mitt Romney sought back-to-back victories in Iowa and New Hampshire to propel him to GOP nomination. He won neither, his the two-state sprint failed and so did his candidacy. ...This time his strategy is more of a multi-state marathon, with economically suffering Nevada an important round in what advisers predict could be a protracted fight to be the party’s 2012 nominee. ...The strategy calls for big showings in New Hampshire and Nevada to boost momentum. After that come strong fights in enough other states so Romney enters the party convention...

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., 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.

<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>

A highlight: Shortly after unlovable Mitt finished speaking, he was upstaged by Sarah Palin, who isn't even attending the conference. A Palin look-alike (a pretty good one, actually) entered the ballroom and immediately attracted a massive crowd. For a moment, everyone thought it was a surprise appearance by the one candidate all the (non-Ron Paul supporting) attendees are actually excited by.

An array of Republican heavyweights who backed Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential bid are not yet committed to - and in some cases, downright skeptical of - the former Massachusetts governor’s all-but-certain 2012 campaign. In each of the traditional early states, top Romney supporters from the last campaign tell POLITICO that they’re hesitant to get behind the nearest thing the GOP has to a frontrunner. His difficulties are particularly acute in Iowa and South Carolina, where his former enthusiasts say they have not heard from him, believe he may be intent on downplaying the states in his second White House run...

Belmont, Mass. — Long before it came time to actually choose a career, Peter Flaherty knew he wanted do so something exciting. “In Massachusetts, you kind of grow up with two things in your blood: sports and politics,” said Flaherty, a Belmont resident and father of three. “When I realized I was not going to be a professional athlete, I realized politics was the adult equivalent of professional sports.” Flaherty has always found room for public service in his professional life, which has seen him prosecute homicides, produce big-budget children’s movies and serve as a senior advisor to then-Gov. Mitt...