United Liberty

With polls in Wisconsin showing Mitt Romney with a healthy lead headed into tomorrow’s primary, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ron Johnson, both respected conservatives, have endorsed the former Massachusetts Governor in hopes to put him over the top.

Ryan, whose “Path to Prosperity” has become the budget blueprint for House Republicans, endorsed Romney on Friday:

“Who will make the best president? And who has the best chance of defeating Barack Obama? … In my opinion, Mitt Romney is clearly that person,” Ryan said on “Fox & Friends.” “I am convinced that Mitt Romney has the skills, the tenacity, the principles, the courage and the integrity to do what it takes to get America back on track.”

Asked if this was a message he has conveyed to Rick Santorum, Ryan, whose budget plan passed the House on Thursday, said he is planning on speaking to the former Pennsylvania senator later on Friday.

“I’m just convinced now, that if we drag this thing on until summer, it’s going to make it that much harder to defeat Barack Obama this fall,” he added. “The more we drag it out, the harder it is to win in November.”

Johnson, a part of the 2010 Tea Party class who has become a strong voice on health care, announced his support of Romney yesterday during a visit to Meet the Press:

Johnson announced the endorsement on MSNBC’s Meet the Press (MTP), according to a Sunday morning tweet from MTP executive producer Betsy Fischer.

There is no denying that Mitt Romney has had a very good March, finally pulling away from the rest of the field. He’s also managed to pick up some endorsements from conservatives, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), a Tea Party favorite, and Al Cardenas, president of the American Conservative Union.

But the biggest endorsement Romney has received came on Wednesday from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is a big name in today’s conservative movement and often thought of as possible presidential candidate in 2016:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican superstar expected to top the vice presidential shortlist, on Wednesday said Mitt Romney has “earned’’ the Republican nomination for president and called a potential floor fight at the convention a “recipe for disaster.’‘

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Rubio didn’t name Romney rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich but said it was clear to him they would not be able to win enough delegates to lock down the nomination before the Republican convention.

“I think we’re at a stage now where at least two of the candidates have openly admitted that the only way they’re going to be able to win the nomination is to have a floor fight in Tampa in August. I don’t think there’s anything good about that,’’ he said. He added, “It’s increasingly clear that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.’‘

Pressed by Hannity whether he was in fact offering his endorsement, Rubio said yes. But he offered something even better: The rising figure in the conservative and tea party movements vouched for Romney’s conservative credentials.

With all of the excitement over this week’s arguments in the Supreme Court, the on-going race for the Republican nomination for president has largely fell off the radar. However, there is still plenty of news to share, but not all of it is good, depending on which candidate you’re backing.

Republicans in Wisconsin will head to the polls next Tuesday, April 3rd, to cast their votes in the race. And while Rick Santorum had been doing well there recently, it looks like Mitt Romney has surged to the front in the latest poll:

The GOP race for president has flipped in Wisconsin since last month, with Mitt Romney overtaking Rick Santorum in the latest poll by Marquette Law School.

Romney leads Santorum 39% to 31% in a survey of GOP primary voters taken last Thursday through Sunday.

Ron Paul is running third in the poll with 11%, followed by Newt Gingrich with 5%.

The new numbers represent a major shift from Marquette’s February poll, which showed Santorum leading Romney in the state 34% to 18%, followed by Paul at 17% and Gingrich at 12%.

They are also roughly consistent with a poll done almost one week ago on March 21 by Rasmussen Reports, which showed Romney leading Santorum 46% to 33%.

If Santorum loses in Wisconsin, the pressure will only increase on him to drop out of the race. Many are saying that if he wants to be a player in 2016, assuming Romney doesn’t beat Barack Obama, than he needs to bow out very soon. But people close to Santorum say that a exit from the race is unlikely.

While Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are poking at Mitt Romney over his advisors “Etch-A-Sketch” remarks, Ron Paul is running a new ad that notes how this gimmick is taking away from the real issues facing the country:

At a time when many conservatives are realizing that Mitt Romney is on a near-certain path to become the Republican nominee, Rick Santorum seems to be doing his best to help out President Barack Obama’s bid for re-election.

Like Newt Gingrich did back in May of last year when he slammed Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget and re-emphasized that he supports the concept of an individual mandate (of course, Romney has his own problems there), Santorum said yesterday during a campaign stop in Texas that Obama might as well be re-elected if the GOP nominates Romney:

“You win by giving people a choice. You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there,” Santorum told supporters in San Antonio. “If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”

Santorum was referring to Romney, whose campaign strategist said recently that they would be able to “reset” the campaign when they transition to the general election “like an Etch A Sketch.”

The Santorum camp later clarified the candidate’s remark, saying he didn’t mean to insinuate that voters would be better off re-electing Obama than choosing Romney.

They’re not happy about, and understandably so, but based on the reaction around the conservative blogosphere yesterday, it seems that many are giving up the fight against Mitt Romney and accepting that he will be the Republican Party’s nominee for president this year.

This came the same day that FreedomWorks seemed to acknowledge that the race was all but over. To be fair, FreedomWorks has long been rallying grassroots to get behind House and Senate candidates, paying less attention to the presidential race. Another blow to conservatives came when Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a frequently mentioned dark-horse candidate in a brokered convention, endorsed Romney.

The delegate race is clearly in Romney’s favor at this point, not to mention that Rick Santorum hasn’t met Rule 40 requirements, which is a threshold for a candidate to be nominated at the convention.

Erick Erickson sums up the the general feeling in the conservative movement:

We’ve constantly pointed out that Rick Santorum isn’t a friend to Tea Party voters and advocates of limited government. Unfortunately, the dislike for Mitt Romney has led many conservatives to vote for the former Pennsylvania Senator.

Santorum’s record doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny. As we’ve noted before, he’s voted to expand entitlements, backed earmarks, and cast votes for bloated budgets. Despite this, he still claims to be a fiscal conservative and worthy of Tea Party support. If you’re not going to believe those of us that has been calling Santorum out for what he really is, another big government Republican, just listen to him in his own words.

In an interview in 2008, Santorum said, “Republicans, to our credit, have morphed away form the Goldwater idea that government just needs to be small”:

Conventional wisdom has been that if Newt Gingrich drops out of the race for the Republican nomination, most of his support would go to Rick Santorum over Mitt Romney. It seems only logical given the sizable anti-Romney faction in the GOP. But a new poll from Gallup shatters that thought, showing that Romney is actually the second-choice of Gingrich voters:

So while Santorum is talking about the likelihood of a brokered convention, the math still doesn’t add up. Not that it did anyway.

Yesterday while campaigning at the University of Chicago ahead today’s primary, Mitt Romney made a profound remark about young Americans voting for Democrats; one that needs to be addressed:

GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said Monday he doesn’t understand how young people could vote for Democrats.

“I don’t see how a young American can vote for, well, can vote for a Democrat,” Romney said in a speech at the University of Chicago.

The former Massachusetts governor said Democrats were saddling young people with debt while Republicans are committed to reducing spending and balancing the budget.
[…]
“My party is consumed with the idea of getting federal spending down and creating economic growth and opportunity so we can balance our budget and stop putting these debts on you,” he said.

Given that Democrats seem to want to spend endlessly on government programs that will only add to the river of red ink flowing from Washington, Romney has a really good point here. But it’s not that difficult to understand why young Americans tend to vote for Democrats instead of Republicans.

Most of the young voters that I encounter are, loosely defined, libertarian. They consider themselves fiscal conservatives, but socially liberal. But when it comes down to it, in my experience talking with younger voters, that they care more about social issues. They’re tired of endless crusades by social conservatives against gays. They are also exceedingly weary of more wars, though that seems to be a lesser concern.

Despite the delegate math looking very favorably to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are continuing to hope that they can peel enough support away to prevent him from winning the nomination outright. And while a brokered convention may be a slight possibility, Romney’s rivals will need to improve their numbers if they hope to catch up, as Tim Carney noted last week at the Washington Examiner.

For Santorum, a lack of campaign organizaton may lead to an embarassing situtation in his home state of Pennsylvania. According to The Daily, Santorum could win the state and still not take home any delegates:

As Rick Santorum desperately tries to make a dent in Mitt Romney’s formidable delegate lead, he faces an unlikely obstacle on the primary calendar: his home state of Pennsylvania.

Yes, Santorum is currently favored — though hardly a lock — to win the popular vote in the state he represented in Congress for 16 years.

But Pennsylvania’s non-binding primary rules for distributing delegates raise the prospect that Santorum, who has said he’ll win the vast majority of the state’s delegates, could actually come away from next month’s primary empty-handed at a time when he can ill-afford it.

Which means the April 24 primary could represent yet another chance for Romney — who kicked off his Pennsylvania campaign this week by trotting out supportive Republican leaders — to finally deal Santorum a knockout blow.