Free Republic

FLORENCE, S.C. — Mitt Romney delivered a 13-minute speech here on Tuesday morning, shook hands with an audience that filled only a small part of a ballroom and caught a plane for a fund-raising gala in New York, a clear sign that he is looking beyond South Carolina. The outward confidence in Mr. Romney’s posture belied a deeply uncertain and fluid conclusion to the Republican presidential primary here. His rivals have shifted away from assailing his business record and are reminding conservatives through radio and television advertisements about the health care bill he signed as governor of Massachusetts and about...

Mitt Romney has picked up a major, if still unofficial, endorsement in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Former President George H.W. Bush told the Houston Chronicle he believes Romney is the best candidate in the race—though he stopped short of officially endorsing his 2012 bid. "I think Romney is the best choice for us," Bush told the Houston Chronicle. "I like Perry, but he doesn't seem to be going anywhere; he's not surging forward." The ex-president, who is personally close to Romney, praised the former governor's "stability, experience, principles." "He's mature and reasonable—not a bomb thrower," Bush said,...

The European Union spearheaded a $1 trillion plan Monday to contain Europe's spreading debt crisis and keep it from tearing the euro currency apart and derailing the global economic recovery. Central banks around the world joined the coordinated effort to prop up the euro and repel speculative attacks against Europe's weakest countries. The European Central Bank used what analysts called its "nuclear option" — buying public and private debt to shore up liquidity in "dysfunctional" markets and lower borrowing costs.The U.S. Federal Reserve separately reopened a currency "swap" program to ship billions of dollars overseas, pumping more short-term cash into...