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prominent Republican delivered a direct request to Mitt Romney not long ago: He should make a third run for the presidency, not for vanity or redemption, but to answer a higher calling from his faith. Believing that Mr. Romney, a former Mormon pastor, would be most receptive on these grounds, the Republican made the case that Mr. Romney had a duty to serve, and said Mr. Romney seemed to take his appeal under consideration. Three years ago, Mr. Romney’s tortured approach to his religion — a strategy of awkward reluctance and studied avoidance that all but walled off a free-flowing...

OVERHEARD: Sen. John McCain (R) adding some fuel to the fire of constant veepstakes buzz surrounding one of his colleagues. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was giving a group of interns a tour of the Capitol on Thursday when McCain breezed by. The senior senator from Arizona quipped to Portman’s young crew, “Now you can say you interned for Vice President Portman.” Portman is said to be on Mitt Romney’s shortlist of potential running mates.

PARK CITY, Utah — If the majority of donors who attend this weekend’s gathering of hundreds of high dollar fundraisers go back home as fired up as Rodger Young, the Romney campaign will be in quite strong a financial position and the investment in time and effort for the event will be paid back many times over. “I am going to bundle every penny I can bundle,” said Young, a donor at this weekend’s mixer for Romney donors, GOP stars, and Republican leaders. Until this weekend, Young was merely a donor not a bundler, but that has now changed. “I...

It's amazing that most of the presidential candidates manage to find time to run for president when they're so busy running for national superintendent of schools. Republican candidates typically tell us in one breath they want to get the federal government out of education and in the next that they have some really swell ideas for educational reform they'd like to implement (impose?) once they're in charge of the federal government. Take Mitt Romney, if you can. (I know, he can be pretty hard to take at times.) At Thursday night's (more of less) debate in Orlando, Mitt was his...

Mitt Romney has been criticized for not speaking out more forcefully on the debt-ceiling negotiations. But Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, has taken a subtler tack, avoiding the issue of the debt ceiling as he presses a more general assault on President Barack Obama's economic record. That has attracted the attention of his GOP challengers, who have begun to accuse him of ducking the most vital issue of the campaign so far. "The current debate is about what kind of leadership you're going to show," former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said in an interview Monday. "If you're running for president,...

Mitt Romney holds an eight-point lead over his Republican rivals for the White House in a survey of California voters released Monday by the Field Poll... Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani... second with 17 percent... Sarah Palin came in third... with 10 percent support. Fifty-four percent of registered California voters approve of President Obama's job performance (37 percent disapprove). Further, nearly half (49 percent) of voters there support his re-election bid...

Democratic strategist James Carville spoke with Don Imus this morning about the Republican field of presidential candidates. While Imus joked he had a better chance of being President than Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, Carville was more interested in sharing his thoughts on Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Carville though Romney would be a very strong candidate and admitted that based on his record in Massachusetts, “I can almost vote for him.” Imus agreed and humorously suggested, “he probably knows what Paul Revere did.” Imus hesitated to take further jabs at Palin and her view on Paul Revere, instead suggesting...

A week after his Twitter debut, “30 Rock” star Alec Baldwin tweeted heavily about politics and 2012 presidential contenders, possibly indicating that he himself will run for office in 2012. The actor, who said earlier this year that he’s “very, very interested” in a political position, is rumored to be leaving “30 Rock” when his contract expires in 2012, just in time for the election. “I want to take the opportunity to state that although my days on network TV may be numbered, I hope ‘30 Rock’ goes on forever,” Baldwin wrote in a Huffington Post piece in April. Baldwin...

Once upon a time there was a president, wavering in popularity. He was deemed by some political pundits as “highly beatable.” He had just done his whole thing with health care, which left voters fuming, and two years before the presidential election, Republicans picked up a slew of seats in the House, taking control. But then, the Republican Party did the unthinkable: It gave the nomination to a guy because it was essentially “his turn,” and the candidate got shellacked by the incumbent Democratic president. That president was Bill Clinton; the “It’s His Turn” candidate was Bob Dole; the year,...

With the field clarifying, Mitt Romney’s interests now align well with those of one other possible candidate: Michele Bachmann. Both of them have an interest in seeing her do as well as possible. Like Bob Dole in 1996 or John McCain in 2008, Romney is an establishment-oriented candidate with serious vulnerabilities on his right flank. To get the nomination, he needs (as they needed) to prevent the emergence of a single candidate to his right. So Dole made a tactical alliance with Pat Buchanan in Lousiana, helping to eject from the race the one candidate who could theoretically have denied...

I was not surprised to read yet another editorial in the Journal yesterday criticizing the health-care reforms we enacted in Massachusetts ("Obama's Running Mate," May 12). I was, however, not expecting the distortions of what we accomplished. Let me deal with some of them. One, the editorial asserts that people in Massachusetts who wouldn't buy coverage, even though they could afford it, was not a major fiscal problem. But as a state we were spending almost $1 billion on free care for the uninsured. What we did was convert that money into premium support for those who needed help buying...

Mitt Romney wants to become America's next president. He's been very successful, according to a number of reports, at raising millions on Wall Street. But the paper named after it, the Wall Street Journal, isn't satisfied with Romney. In a lengthy and extraordinary editorial, it calls him the worst epithet a conservative could probably think of—"Obama's Running Mate." When a political party is out of power, or at least doesn't hold the presidency, numerous dissenting voices are usually heard. It can be a fructifying time. But it can also be a time when ideological agendas are ruthlessly enforced. The Journal...

Republican Mitt Romney faces a deeply unpleasant choice in his all-but-announced bid for the White House. He signaled Thursday that he'd rather be charged with inspiring President Barack Obama's health care overhaul than with switching positions on a fourth big issue that's vital to conservative voters. Either accusation, if it sticks, might deny him the GOP nomination. Conservatives despise Obama's 2010 health care law, especially the requirement that everyone obtain medical insurance. That same requirement is a cornerstone of the 2006 Massachusetts law that Romney championed as governor. Many advisers have urged Romney to apologize, say he made a big...

Romney’s Venue Problem May 11, 2011 5:17 P.M. By Katrina Trinko Mitt Romney will be giving a major health care speech tomorrow at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center. Two interesting tidbits about the Center: it’s affiliated with a university that provides abortions Planned Parenthood cannot do and it helped fund new embryonic stem cell lines — which requires the destruction of human embryos. From the University of Michigan Alumni Association [emphasis mine]: The University of Michigan today announced the formation of a consortium to create new embryonic stem cell lines that will aid the search for disease treatments and...

A GOP frontrunner in the party's 2012 primary with a checkered past on health care, Mitt Romney produced a rather bold headline today with his op-ed in the USA Today: As first act, out with ObamaCare. "Health care is more than just one-sixth of the American economy. It is a source of well-being for individuals and families. We are blessed with much that is good in American health care. But we have taken a turn for the worse with ObamaCare, with its high taxes and vastly expanded federal control over our lives. I believe the better course is to empower...

Poor Mitt Romney. He already had one big strike against him — his Mormonism — even before he contemplated his second run for the presidency. But thanks to the Tea Party, he’s also under serious fire for his 2006 Massachusetts health care plan, which his conservative critics liken to Obamacare — dubbing it “Romneycare” — since both plans mandate individual health coverage and expand the reach of Medicaid... ...Obama, and his close friend and political ally, current Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who says Romney’s plan is working “brilliantly,” expanding affordable health coverage to nearly 98% of the state’s residents. The...

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

Mitt Romney, my personal favorite front-runner for 2012 on our side just performed a rare *suuuuuhuuckification* on the Hugh Hewitt radio show this afternoon in Hewitt's second segment. (Holy God Hugh, if you ever bore me again as you did in that first segment teasing a Romney appearance, I swear it will be worth my time to drop everything and drive to the OC so I can personally explain to you my displeasure.) No kidding, I think Mitt is the only one who even stands a chance against Zero. (Will save how he would have mopped the floor with Zero...

"Romney made a promise to homosexual groups that strikes at the core of who Romney is and how he will govern. She says he promised that he would not defend traditional marriage once the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made its ruling on same-sex marriage." Read more: Author: Romney's promises to homosexuals still stand http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=276313#ixzz1H6TCwqLL