Free Republic

Mitt Romney didn’t wait long to begin his attack on Rick Perry over Social Security—his campaign is doing door-to-door distribution of a flier attacking Perry on the issue. The flier, which a campagn spokesman said is being left at the doors of Florida GOP primary voters, portrays the GOP primary as a two-candidate race—“Two candidates. Only one will protect what’s important to you,” is the headline. Of those two, it says, Perry is “reckless and wrong on Social Security.” The bold-face tagline: “Rick Perry: How can we trust anyone who wants to kill Social Security?” Romney, it says, favors “entitlement...

Joe Scarborough has a decidedly cynical take on Sarah Palin's public musings about the possibility of a 2012 presidential run. The Morning Joe host asserts that Palin knows she can't win and won't run. According to Scarborough, Palin is in it for the money, and is engaging in open speculation about a run for the mercenary purpose of keeping her brand alive. Joe offered his jaded view on today's Morning Joe after the show aired a clip of Palin telling Barbara Walters that she believed she could defeat Pres. Obama. View video after the jump.

Karl Rove, the former senior adviser to George W Bush, has cast serious doubt on Sarah Palin's viability as a White House candidate, questioning if the American people thought she had the "gravitas" for the "most demanding job in the world". Expressing the strongest public reservations about the conservative star made by any senior Republican figure, Mr Rove said it was unlikely that voters would regard someone starring in a reality show as presidential material. In two weeks, the former governor of Alaska launches a cable television series exploring her home state's wilderness. "With all due candour, appearing on your...

BOSTON (AP) -- A hard-fought Massachusetts gubernatorial race has morphed into a courtroom thriller, complete with charges of espionage, conspiracy and subterfuge. Republicans have believed for more than a year they had a chance to unseat Gov. Deval Patrick, a marked man as a fellow Democrat, friend and political ally of President Barack Obama. But their work to narrow the campaign to a two-man race against GOP nominee Charles Baker has been thwarted by the persistent candidacy of independent Timothy Cahill. Now, in an eleventh-hour, scorched-earth lawsuit, Cahill is charging that Baker and the Republicans have gone too far. Cahill...