The time has come for the Republican Party to close the deal. I believe Mitt Romney is the best choice for the presidency. Let me tell you why.

To begin with, like me, Mitt is a businessman, not a career politician. In other words, he’s accomplished far more in his life than collecting campaign cash from special-interest groups and making promises at press conferences with the help of a teleprompter.

Mitt played an instrumental role in starting or managing such job-creating giants as Domino’s Pizza, the Sports Authority, Staples and many other firms. He single-handedly saved the 2002 Winter Olympic Games from financial ruin and turned it into one of the best competitions in living memory. Amazingly, he governed blue-state Massachusetts as a conservative, balancing its out-of-whack budget while cutting taxes, feats carried out despite a Democratic-controlled legislature.

Mitt has what it takes to turn the country around. And he has laid out a plan to do just that.

Right now, China is cleaning America’s clock. The Chinese are building the world’s largest airports, biggest ports, a powerful military and the best of everything. And we’re paying for it all by purchasing their products. We’re buying everything they make because they keep their currency artificially low, giving them an annual windfall of some $250 billion. They are holding the yuan at a level at which it is impossible for us to compete.

Mitt Romney not only understands all this, he has thought through the policies we need to begin to set things right. Unless China changes direction, he has pledged to have the Treasury Department designate China as a currency manipulator on Day One of his administration. We can then impose duties on China’s unfairly priced products. The Chinese will get the message faster than an ICBM. As Mitt has said, “We don’t want a trade war, but neither can we accept our current trade surrender.”

Fixing our trade relations with China is just one part of Mitt’s comprehensive plan to get America back in gear. The Obama administration seems to have accepted record high unemployment as the new normal. But it is not acceptable to me, and it is not acceptable to Mitt that nearly 24 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or no longer even looking for work. Mitt’s jobs plan will create millions of jobs over four years, and I will be out there myself doing some of the hiring.

Some people call Mitt’s jobs plan conservative. I happen to know something about creating jobs, and I call it common sense. Middle-income Americans deserve far better than the slow-growth and no-growth policies President Obama has put in place. They need a president who will make it possible for all Americans to get a bigger slice of a growing pie rather than crumbs handed out by Washington. Mitt understands that government needs to get out of the way if American business is to do what it does best: innovate, make the products that people around the world want to buy, and hire American workers.

Right now, government regulations cost us annually $1.75 trillion. They constitute a stealth tax that is larger than the amount the Internal Revenue Service collects every year from corporations and individuals combined. In just three years, Mr. Obama has added hugely to the annual regulatory bill. Mitt is going to pare that back and make sure every single regulation has benefits that outweigh costs and that they don’t kill U.S. jobs.

Mitt also is going to rein in Mr. Obama’s out-of-control spending and bring the federal budget back into balance. He’s laid out the government programs that he’s going to eliminate and cut. He’s determined to trim the bloated federal workforce. That’s going to take a lot of hard work and the negotiating skills of a successful businessman. It’s precisely why we need someone with Mitt’s financial background and business experience to run the country.

True, Mitt Romney does have his shortcomings: He’s never built a Mitt Romney Tower in New York City or 12 Mitt Romney championship golf courses. Not everyone can be a Donald Trump. However, over the course of Mitt’s distinguished career, he has built other kinds of enduring monuments of accomplishment that have earned my highest regard. Mitt Romney is no one’s apprentice; he’s fully ready to step into the nation’s top job as the next president of the United States.

Donald J. Trump is president and CEO of the Trump Organization.

Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/no-ones-apprentice/

Misconception 1; George Soros and a few others claim that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are essentially interchangeable.

The difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama is profound; Mitt Romney is a capitalist and a success as a businessman and Barack Obama is a socialist and a failure as President of the United States. George Soros and a few political pundits couldn’t be more wrong. Mitt Romney appreciates the private sector and understands how capitalism works. Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have any concept of what capitalism is or a basic grasp of how the private sector functions which might explain why unemployment remains high.

Misconception 2; Mitt Romney committed Medicare fraud.

Bain Capital bought over 100 companies and one of the companies they bought, Damon Corporation, had some corrupt employees that were convicted in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Mitt Romney took control of the company after the corruption was already well underway and he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with what was going on before he got there. Law enforcement officials who were the most closely involved with the case, and investigated all of those concerned, never charged Mitt Romney with a crime and had no reason to consider him a suspect.

Misconception 3; Mitt Romney is an out of touch billionaire who doesn’t care about the poor.

Mitt Romney gave 15% of his income to charity last year as opposed to Barack Obama who only gave 1%. Mr. Romney’s contributions totaled approximately $7 million with most of the money going to his church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing for widows, caring for orphans, and comforting the afflicted, whether they are Mormon, or in no church at all. Mitt Romney has said “I’m not worried about the poor” because he has faith and didn’t say “I don’t care” because he cares deeply about the poor.

Misconception 4; Mitt Romney wants a national mandate for health insurance.

Mitt Romney doesn’t want a national mandate to purchase anything. He is a strong supporter of States Rights and wants each State to make its own laws concerning health-care. Mitt Romney will repeal Obama-care and get to work undoing the damage that President Obama’s policies have done.

Continued Below…


Misconception 5; Mitt Romney is a flip-flopper.

Mitt Romney listens intently, learns from others, and changes his mind only after considering the facts and weighing the pros and cons of complex issues. People that never change their mind probably don’t have one. Mitt Romney listens and learns; the best leaders usually do.

Misconception 6; Mitt Romney is a Republican in name only (RINO).

Mitt Romney is a lifelong Republican, strongly supports the U.S. Constitution and States Rights, is a strong fiscal conservative and the only tried and true capitalist currently running for President of the United States. When Ron Paul supporters change their political party from Democratic to Republican in order to vote for a Libertarian like Ron Paul; they are truly RINOs.

Misconception 7; Mitt Romney forced Holocaust survivors to eat non-kosher food.

When Mitt Romney was a Governor he saved taxpayers $600,000 by having kosher meals delivered to nursing homes instead of continuing to fund the expensive process of preparing kosher meals in nursing homes all across his State. It’s a perfect example of common sense business know-how making a difference in government.

Misconception 8; Mitt Romney is a corporate raider who bought companies, seized their assets and liquidated their liabilities; leaving thousands without jobs.

Mitt Romney is the furthest thing from a corporate raider. Although not all of the companies bought by or started by Bain Capital succeeded; the point was always to build strong companies, create good paying jobs, and make a profit. Failed companies mean losses, and no one sets out to lose money. Mitt Romney’s many successes created over 120,000 jobs.

Misconception 9; Mitt Romney thinks corporations are people.

Until a robot goes to city hall and gets a business license all corporations have been started by people for people. Corporations don’t have the right to vote, except they do have the right to represent their interests, support causes they believe in, and give generously to charities, social causes, and political causes, in order to participate in their communities and be good neighbors.

Misconception 10; Mitt Romney likes to fire people.

Mitt Romney likes performance, results, and meaningful improvement; which is why he would like to fire Barack Obama. When Mitt Romney’s quote about firing people was taken out of context, what he was talking about was giving the American people more choices. Everyone in America should be able to fire service providers who under perform and hire service providers that can get the job done. When you can’t change Doctors something is very wrong. Mitt Romney wants to fix that.

Misconception 11; Mitt Romney is a tax cheat and doesn’t pay his fair share.

It’s not Mitt Romney’s fault that he is very successful and has made a fortune. He should get all the credit for working harder and smarter than most taxpayers. He has not broken any tax laws. If everyone invested as wisely as Mitt Romney; everyone would pay the same tax rate that he does.

Misconception 12; Mitt Romney is running a very negative campaign.

Mitt Romney is running a very optimistic campaign and he promotes a bright vision for America’s future (see his Website for details). He is right not to ignore the very negative consequences of Barack Obama’s Presidency. He is also right not to ignore the very negative consequences of Newt Gingrich’s record as a Washington insider, career congressman, and influence peddler. As a businessman, Mitt Romney specialized in turning struggling companies around; creating jobs and putting people to work in the process. That is what he intends to do for America and he has the skills and know-how to get the job done.

Source: http://politiac.com/The_Dirty_Dozen_Misconceptions_About_Mitt_Romney/

I came across this Fox News video from 2009 of a very enthusiastic supporter of Earmarks, Rick Santorum, even declaring “I’m very proud of my Earmarks”.  In his interview with CNN’s John King, Santorum flip-flopped on his love for earmarks when he said “we’ve all learned from our mistakes…”, but is he just pandering and politicking?  Listen, I can stand someone changing a position here and there, for the better, because we all mature in life’s perspective.  What I cannot stand is hypocrisy.  Attack Governor Romney all you want to differing views, but don’t attack him for being a flip-flopper when you claim to be perfectly consistent.

Here is the interview with John King from earlier today. King asked Santorum the question: “So are you making the case that people should vote for neither you or Governor Romney because you both supported Earmarks?”

PPP Nevada Caucus Survey

• Romney 50%
• Gingrich 25%
• Paul 15%
• Santorum 8%
• Someone else/not sure

Favorables

• Romney 70/25
• Santorum 64/23
• Paul 45/46
• Gingrich 41/49

PPP surveyed 937 likely Republican caucus voters on February 1st and 2nd. The margin of error for the survey is +/-3.2%.

Obama Says He Is Looking at a “One Term Proposition”, New Romney Ad

What it is exactly isn’t clear.

But from Trump adviser Michael Cohen comes this statement:

Donald J. Trump will be making a major announcement tomorrow (Thursday, February 2, 2012) at 12:30 p.m. at Trump International Hotel & Tower, Las Vegas, Nevada.  He will be arriving this evening at approximately 11:30 p.m.  The announcement will pertain to the Presidential race.

Sources said last week that Trump was getting lobbied to endorse Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential race, but he’s also continued talking about a potential run of his own as a third-party candidate.

Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/02/a-major-announcement-from-trump-tomorrow-113193.html

This afternoon Gingrich said he did not know what Donald Trump was planning to announce in Las Vegas on Thursday and that he had not had any contact with him since a meeting a few weeks ago in New York

“I have no idea what the Donald is going to do,” Gingrich said. “He is always interesting, and I don’t know of anybody who does a better job of getting attention by announcing that he will presently announce something.”

Gingrich could be lying, but I’d assume that if Trump made the decision to endorse him, Newt would’ve known about it by now.

Update: Trump To Endorse Newt Tomorrow

I couldn’t agree more with this analysis from Dick Morris:

For students of American politics, following the way the Romney campaign played Newt Gingrich in Florida is a lesson to learn and to keep. Romney’s people must have realized that Newt does best when he is positive. His bold ideas, clear vision, revolutionary insights and extraordinary perspectives resonate with voters and win him millions of supporters.

Romney, less compelling but more consistent, doesn’t need stellar debate performances or bold vision to win. The case for the former Massachusetts governor is more circumstantial: He can reach out to independents by virtue of his past apostasies on healthcare and abortion. He looks, talks and acts like a president. His record of job creation is exemplary.

But Newt needs the bold sally, the breathtaking moment of rhetorical clarity, to prevail.

So Romney’s people set out to mire Newt in negatives so he couldn’t and wouldn’t get out the positive message he needed to project to prevail. They tormented him with negative ads in Iowa. While the ads were generally accurate — the allegation about backing China’s forced-abortion policy aside — they presented only one side of the story and were stinging in their impact. Without funds, Gingrich couldn’t answer the negative ads. He fumed but watched, in impotence, as his vote share fell away.

In Spanish bullfights, the picadors torment the bull by sticking darts into his shoulders. Enraged, bleeding, frustrated and in pain, he lowers his head, snorts, paws the ground and charges straight at the matador, oblivious to the sword awaiting him behind the red cape. That’s about what Romney did to Gingrich in the January primaries.

The Hill

Mr. Morris is right.  Newt Gingrich is a higly educated, articulate man.  But he is also a man with an enormous ego and accompanying temper that he has great difficulty controlling.  As I have said in other posts, he simply does not have the temperment to go up against Barak Obama.  If he was whining about unfair treatment from Mitt Romney, he would literally self-combust against the President and his Chicago buddies.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has proven that he can not only dish it out with the best of them, but can take it as well and he can do so without losing his head.  He has shown, as Mr. Morris points out, “consistency” through out the campaign and “he looks, talks and acts like a president.”  He has also demonstrated a strong committment to traditional family values which the hard right values.  Mitt Romney’s “apostasies” are in the past.  In FL, Newt Gingrich proved that he hasn’t really changed all that much from his inconsistent, fiery, ego induced gaffe filled career and that turned voters off.

ABC News reported that Homelands Security has contacted the Romney campaign and informed them that due to growing popularity and crowd size, Mitt Romney will be receiving protection from Secret Service.  Here are the details:

TAMPA – Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has been informed that it will start receiving Secret Service protection on Thursday, two campaign sources and a senior Republican tell ABC News.

Secret Service protection is being given to the campaign not because of a specific threat but because of the increase in crowd sizes as the primary season has progressed over the past few weeks, according to the sources, who refused to be identified because they don’t have authority to comment on such matters publicly.

The Secret Service is charged with protecting presidential candidates in addition to the president himself, and providing protection to a candidate before he secures a nomination has become fairly common. Such decisions are made by the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with congressional leadership.

The Romney campaign, which has long traveled with private security of its own, did not request Service protection, and was approached about the additional security steps in the weeks following the New Hampshire primary, the sources told ABC News.

Officials with the campaign and the Secret Service declined to comment on the decision.

Romney will become the only current Republican candidate with Secret Service protection. Herman Cain became the first candidate to receive Service protection, in November, but he ended his candidacy in December.

The article above from ABC News stated that the Romney campaign did not request secret service protection, but the article below from the Washington Post says they did request Secret Service protection:

A Romney campaign adviser says the Secret Service will provide security for the former Massachusetts governor starting Wednesday.

An administration official says Romney’s campaign requested the protection. The official says the administration determined that Romney met all the conditions for protection. Those include being a major presidential candidate who has raised a certain amount of money.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security means.

It’s come to this…

Romney’s little joke suggests that he understands that his most glaring weakness may be his lack of a poetic flaw, a useful element in a politician’s essential task of connecting with other human beings. Romney’s perfect hair and perfect family, his abstinence from petty vices (alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine), and his relentless good cheer invite easy caricature (Wedding Cake Man) and somehow further distance him from ordinary Americans. Gingrich, ever able to turn flaws into virtues, touched on this last week, when he said that his own obvious imperfections, such as his past infidelities, may actually have helped him with evangelicals in South Carolina. “It may make me more normal,” he told the Christian Broadcasting Network, “than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect.”

Newsweek

Just how sad a comment is this on today’s society?  Someone who not only talks about family values but actually strives to live them in his own life and has apparently successfully taught his children the same values is now abnormal and suspect behavior?  Are Newsweek and Mr. Gingrich actually serious in suggesting that a Presidential candidate needs a couple of divorces under his/her belt to be “normal?”

Not only that, but some in the press have expressed some serious concern that Mitt Romney is a – gasp! – full tithe payer.  This makes him even “weirder” apparently.  Only in the Left-wing media could obeying a commandment be viewed as suspicious behavior.  Yikes!  Can there be any doubt now that there is now and has been for many years now, a concerted effort to undermine and destroy the traditional family unit?  I was surprised enough by the author’s statement but then Mr. Gingrich’s claim that his infidelity to two previous wives made him “more normal” and more electable is a stunner to say the least.

Just to be clear here, my understanding of what the author and Mr. Gingrich are saying is: a man who has been married to his high-school sweetheart for over 30 years, has a happy family with children and grand children who love him, who doesn’t smoke, drink, swear, cheat on his taxes or wife, pays a faithful tithe as the Bible commands and is “relentlessly cheerful,” is abnormal?  Are we really that far gone as a society?  And if we are, shouldn’t we be doing something about it?  Like, say, voting for someone who takes Family Values seriously for a change?  I know the Left has certainly gone down the “bad is good/good is bad” road but are we to follow them as Newt seems to have done?  As for me and my not so perfect family, its nice to know that at least someone is doing it right and I look forward to voting for someone who doesn’t just talk the talk but walks the walk.

This is about as hard hitting as they come.  Tom Brokaw has been known on the left as well as the right for being a decent journalist.  And just think, all the baggage on Newt hasn’t even begun to surface yet.