Along with receiving the hearty endorsement of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder yesterday, Governor Mitt Romney has also been given the stamp of approval from MI Attorney General Mike Cox, former MI Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, and 15 additional members of the MI Legislature and MI Republican State Committee:

“I am honored to have such overwhelming support from leaders across Michigan,” said Mitt Romney. “Michigan has been home to me. I remember when Michigan was the envy of the nation – I look forward to working with these leaders to bring jobs back and restore Michigan’s economy.”

“Michigan and the rest of the country can’t afford four more years of failed policies from President Obama,” said former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. “Mitt Romney is the Republican Party’s best chance

Michael Bishop, former MI Senate Majority Leader, is also backing Romney.

to defeat President Obama, repeal Obamacare, cut spending, and appoint Supreme Court Justices who respect the Constitution. Conservatives who are concerned about the direction of our country should join our growing Michigan team in supporting Mitt Romney – four more years of President Obama could be devastating for the country.”

Announcing his support, former Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said, “Mitt Romney is a conservative businessman – he knows that Washington can’t keep spending more than it takes in and mortgaging our children and grandchildren’s future. As governor, he balanced his state’s budget every year and turned a $3 billion deficit into a $2 billion rainy day fund. That is the exact leadership we need in the White House. It will take someone with Mitt Romney’s lifetime of leadership to bring fiscal sanity back to the federal government.”

(emphasis added)

Elected Officials And Leaders Endorsing Mitt Romney:

State Representative Jeff Farrington
State Representative Deb Shaughnessy
Former State Representative Brian Palmer
Joshua Leatherman, Allegan County Chair
Phillip Goodrich, Ionia County Republican Chair
Juanita Pierman, Oceana County Republican Chair & 2nd District State Committee Member
Rick Shaffer, St. Joseph County Republican Chair
Sandra Hanson, Van Buren County Republican Chair
Allan Filip, 8th District Chairman
John Haggard, 1st District State Committee Member
Paul DeYoung, 6th District State Committee Member
Theresa Stayer, 9th District State Committee Member
Gary Howell, 10th District State Committee Member
Susan Licata Haroutunian, 14th District State Committee Member
Ed Haroutunian

The following individuals join the already released Romney Leadership Team in Michigan (check out this list!):

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This just came to my attention. You may have seen my earlier article discussing, among other things, that Santorum’s leadership PAC during a certain 5 year period it gave a paltry 18.1% to its stated cause of helping GOP candidates get elected.

But that’s not the only organization Santorum founded to take third party contributions that was seriously mis-managed.

The Washington Post reported in January that a charity he formed “spent most of its money on management, political friends.”

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING…

I just got back from tonight’s Grand Rapids rally for Mitt and it was great! If I had any complaint, it would be that the venue was a bit small. The media is reporting that 700 people were crammed into a space that I suspect was more appropriate for 400. Mitt held a rally in 2008 at this exact venue, and the campaign may have underestimated the amount of support that has grown for Mitt since then. (The thousand e-mails I sent to Michigan supporters I’ve identified since 2008 may have contributed to the larger than expected turnout, but I’ll never know for sure how much I helped).

I should’ve got this on video, but the handful of protestors outside the rally were depressingly ill-informed as they usually are. They were told to come and protest, but didn’t even know for sure what they were supposed to be mad at Mitt about. I don’t know if these protestors were being paid less than these, but I didn’t hear their usual “Hey hey, ho ho…” waste of time chants today. I wonder if they will ever come up with a new tune…

Also, check out our Mitt Romney Central exclusive of Mitt walking to the podium at his Grand Rapids rally:

I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by a reporter from the Grand Rapids Press immediately following the rally. I’ll post the article here if it gets published tomorrow.

Watch Mitt’s interview with the MLive/Grand Rapids Press Editorial Board below the fold. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING…

Chalk another one up on the long list of Republican governors that are backing Mitt. The [awesome] breaking news comes from The Detroit News:

Gov. Rick Snyder will announce his endorsement of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination in an op-ed piece in The Detroit News on Thursday.

The endorsement comes as both Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will make multiple campaign appearances in southeast Michigan.

Snyder, a former entrepreneur and moderate Republican,will make the endorsement official at a Romney campaign stop in Farmington Hills on Thursday. In an op-ed column to appear in The Detroit News, Snyder writes: “Our next president must understand how markets work and know how to get our nation back on track. Mitt Romney is the man for the job.”

This big news comes on the heels of several other prominent figures in Michigan endorsing Mitt today!

Mitt Romney today announced the support of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

I am humbled to have the support of Governor Snyder,” said Mitt Romney. “Michigan is where I grew up. Getting the state back on track is personal for me. Governor Snyder is a businessman like me and understands first-hand how the Obama Administration has stifled job growth and economic expansion in Michigan. Along with the work of conservative leaders like Governor Snyder, we will be able to restore Michigan’s once-thriving economy and help the state lead a national economic recovery.

UPDATE: Read Gov. Snyder’s Endorsement of Mitt below the fold. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING…

Alternate Title: Why I Love Vanilla: A Few Reasons Big Government Career Politician Rick Santorum is NOT the One

The GOP FroYo Sweepstakes

I liken the GOP race to a trip to one of those self-serve frozen yogurt shops where you can sample the flavors before you decide. I usually try all the flavors I can without embarrassing myself before I fill up with my final selection. It’s not infrequent it’s the flavor I kind of thought I wanted in the beginning, and frankly quite often that’s vanilla.

Of course I do like the toppings, too.

“Vetting” Santorum

It takes a candidate some time before they’re deemed important enough to be vetted. Perry, Cain, Bachman and Gingrich all had their turns rising in the polls, only to come crashing back down after the media focused the spotlight on them. Meanwhile Mitt Romney has been steady, and in fact improving as all the “not-Romneys” have been dismissed. Well, Santorum is the last possible “flavor of the month” the GOP can sample before it finally decides it really does like Mitt’s brand of vanilla. I love chocolate, peanut butter cup and the rest, but vanilla is, after all, the best-selling flavor of ice cream (and I’d guess frozen yogurt). And it’s no insult that people try other flavors, but in the end there’s just something particularly satisfying about vanilla!

I must admit I’ve not taken Rick Santorum terribly seriously to this point. Perhaps that’s “my bad.” To me he’s been a bit like the flavor Tutti Frutti. Tastes good, and maybe even a nice change of pace, but not my steady diet. As a result I, and it appears many others, have avoided “going negative” with him. Why point out a guy’s weaknesses if it doesn’t serve a purpose? I kind of had the impression he’s a nice guy, liked some of what he said on social issues and have a level of respect for a man with seven children. But if Rick really wants to be our nominee, I for one want a sample. And it appears there are a reasonable number of people lined up to try Rick’s flavor, so if he’s a serious candidate, it’s time to take a taste.
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING…

I can admit it: last week was tough. But the CPAC speech, the straw poll and Maine’s results over the weekend confirmed that Mitt is still the front-runner, and for good reason. I seriously can’t imagine Rick Santorum as POTUS. But I can imagine this guy:

And now I think it’s time for us to remember why we’re supporting Mitt, who I can easily imagine as president, and do what we can to convince our fellow Republicans.

Mitt’s speech at CPAC was a home run.

Not much still gives me goosebumps, but Mitt’s speech did (click on the link for the video). He was right on point, and we need him in the White House. No more Clinton-esque surprises with interns. No more Obama-esque surprises trampling religious liberties (and if you think contraception is the last of the controversies with Obamacare you need to think again). It’s all the more clear we need to elect someone with the leadership and vision to keep this country rooted in what made it strong: individual liberty, not government assistance. And that person, unlike our current president and all of the other candidates, needs to have the sheer ability to run the executive branch. Rick Santorum? Hardly. He hasn’t even run a national campaign and is just the latest flavor of the month, who is just now being vetted. The person we need is Mitt Romney.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

See more Mitt Cartoons at MittFitts.com.

Taxpayers Should Get GM Shares’ Proceeds

By Mitt Romney
February 7th, 2012

I am a son of Detroit. I was born in Harper Hospital and lived in the city until my family moved to Oakland County.

I grew up drinking Vernors and watching ballgames at Michigan & Trumbull. Cars got in my bones early. And not just any cars, American cars.

When the president of American Motors died suddenly in 1954, my dad, George Romney, was asked to take his place. I was 7 and got my love of cars and chrome and fins and roaring motors from him. I grew up around the industry and watched it flourish. Years later, I watched with sadness as it floundered.

Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama’s management of the American economy are evident in what he did.

Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses,Obama rewarded them…

Read the rest of the important op-ed here and leave a comment there for Michiganders to read. No doubt the democrats will try to characterize Mitt as someone who hates the auto industry, so it’s up to us to make sure Michiganders are provided the truth.

UPDATE: Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is making TV reservations in Michigan, starting with the Detroit market. Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future, has already purchased a half-million dollars in airtime over the next week, but Romney’s campaign was quiet until this morning. The full size of the flight is yet to be determined.

Here’s Mitt’s ad:

If you are interested in learning more about Mitt’s life in Michigan, read the beginning of our summary of the new biography about Mitt Romney.

Michael Medved nails Mitt Romney’s challenges in 2012, as well as the GOP’s.

From The Daily Beast:

Michael Medved

On no significant issue has Romney moved to the left or to the center over the last four years; his platform of 2012 offers a program of conservative reform far bolder and more substantive than any ideas he put forward in 2008.

Mitt’s precise problem came into focus for me with an e-mail from an angry listener to my radio show who upbraided me for my open support of Romney as the most electable candidate against Obama. “We remember what you did to us last time, and we won’t let you get away with it again!” she wrote. “This time you’re trying to ram the RINO, Romney, down our throats and last time it was McCain. It was because of people like you that we got stuck with McCain, when we could have had a real conservative who would have beaten Obama!”

And who would have been that “real conservative” back in the distant days of 2008?

None other than … Mitt Romney, the “conservative’s conservative ” eagerly endorsed by Senator Jim DeMint and nearly all of my talk radio colleagues, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and many more.

That Romney no longer counts as a “real conservative” doesn’t reflect any ideological shifts on his part, but it does suggest a significant movement of the entire GOP toward the enraged and indignant right. The far lower turnouts in Florida, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri all indicate that this tectonic movement hardly counts as a positive development for the Republican Party.

“The enraged and indignant right.” – Sound familiar?

We have seen many such sentiments expressed here, on other sites and in a daily diatribe on most truth twisting Talk Radio shows. This “I’d rather be RIGHT than win” mantra will prove to be a major stumbling block on the road to successfully ousting President Obama.

Just as Talk Radio and misguided fringer conservatives mucked up the 2010 mid-term elections, where the goal was to TAKE CONTROL of the Senate as well as the House (while disposing of Harry Reid in the process) they seem hell-bent on using the same tactics in the 2012 cycle. The GOP could have deposed Reid in Nevada with a popular mainstream conservative, but were overrun by the “blood in their eyes” right-wing activists who offered us an ill-prepared and unsuitable candidate.

In Delaware, rather than keep a safe, solid seat in the GOP aisle and make the incumbent tow the line AFTER control was won, we had to suffer through the debacle of a psuedo-witch leading us to defeat, while Talk Radio extolled her conservative purity.

Why?

“Because we’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

In our personal lives, very seldom is it wise or successful to make serious decisions while in a highly emotional and angry state of mind. Unfortunately, this logic doesn’t seem to be followed in certain political circles.

It’s sad to see the same storm clouds gathering again on the political horizon. Hopefully we can wake up, seek shelter from the storm and ride the sensible, pragmatic and MAINSTREAM CONSERVATIVE course to victory.

Cross-posted at Right Speak

We’ve all heard the line “the conservative base doesn’t like Mitt Romney” or some version of that idea. It’s a line that has been thrown around carelessly in the media for several months now, and we all know that once the media adopts a theme or “narrative” about a candidate, it becomes incredibly difficult to break that narrative even when evidense abounds to the contrary.

Well, now that there has been some actual voting, lets look at the FACTS to see if that claim holds water. What I am going to argue is that, if we analyze the exit polls from the competitive primaries and caucuses held so far, Romney has captured the conservative base by a large margin over his competitors. So according to actual voters, and not just the pundits and talking heads in the media, Romney is doing just fine with the “conservative base.” 

Of the eight states that have held competitive primaries or caucuses, Romney has won four and tied one. Romney won New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada and Maine and then essentially tied Iowa. Exit polls from the states that Romney has won show that Romney captured the “conservative base” by a large margin. Lets look at some examples:

New Hampshire – Chris Cillizza gave a summary of the exit polls which showed: 

Mitt picked up 49% of GOP voters.

Romney’s 49 percent is the highest mark among self-identified Republicans for any presidential candidate since New Hampshire moved its primary forward in the calendar.

Contrast that with John McCain, with whom he’s often compared as a squishy moderate with problems with Republicans.

McCain is the only candidate since 1980 to win New Hampshire even as he lost among self-identified Republicans.

That means McCain was essentially the worst winner with Republicans in New Hampshire over the past 30 years, while Romney was the best.

Florida – Exit polls in Florida show that Romney received the vast majority of Republican support between the candidates with 48%. Among those who self-identify as “conservative,” Romney garnered 41%, more than any other candidate. Among those who consider themselves “very conservative,” Romney split the vote with Gingrich (Romney got 30% and Gingrich got 41%).

Nevada: Exit polls in this state reveal Romney truly stomped the other competitors in regard to which candidate the self-identified “very conservative and “conservative” voters supported.

Romney garnered a vast majority of the Republican vote at 56%. Romney won every category of Republican voters including the Very Conservative by wide margins. The category of very conservative is particularly interesting, Romney got 46%, Gingrich got only 25% and Santorum only 15%.

Maine: No exit/entrance polls were taken. Results of the caucus show:

Mitt Romney has 39.2 percent of the vote with 2190 votes, Ron Paul has 35.7 percent with 1996 votes, Rick Santorum has 17.7percent with 989 votes, and Newt Gingrich has 6.25 percent with 349 votes.

So the pundits and talking heads say that the conservative base doesn’t like Mitt Romney, but exit polls of ACTUAL VOTERS in New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada and Maine show otherwise. 

A critic might say, “O.K., Romney did well among conservatives in the states he won, but what about the states that Romney didn’t win?”

While it is true that Romney didn’t do as well among conservatives in the states he lost (South Carolina, Colorado, and Minnesota), we have to also acknowledge that Santorum and Gingrich didn’t do well among “the base” in the states that Romney won. So if we are going to claim that “the base doesn’t like Romney” because he lost some states, by the same logic, we would have to conclude that the base doesn’t like Santorum because of how voters of the base rejected Santorum in Florida, South Carolina, Nevada and Maine. We would likewise have to conclude that the base doesn’t like Newt Gingrich because of how he performed in Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado and Maine. The same standard needs to be applied to all the candidates.

National Polls – I just want to make a quick comment about national polls. For those of us who have been watching the presidential race closely, we remember a couple of months ago how the pundits frequently used national polls to illustrate that “the base didn’t like Romney.” The pundits would say something along the lines of “Romney just can’t break out of that mid-twenties approval rating in national polls, that shows that the base just doesn’t really like Mitt Romney.” However, in the last month, Romney has shattered that myth by shooting into the mid to low thirties since Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact, after Romney’s win in Florida, he polled higher in the national polls than any other candidate has polled since the race began a year ago. That is why I was amused yesterday to hear Sarah Palin say “I like Mitt Romney . . . but he has to do more work to convince conservatives. His support can’t break out of that mid-thirties level.”