Mitt Romney

The president is a polarizing figure whose reelection is imperiled by his handling of the nation's No. 1 issue. However, he's blessed with an opponent who is easy to attack — a rich Massachusetts patrician with seemingly flexible convictions and a personality that impedes any visceral connection with voters.   But enough about George W. Bush and John Kerry. You see where I'm going with this. The 2012 contest has taken on the broad contours of 2004, when Bush eked out a narrow win by framing the race not as a referendum on his stewardship of the war in Iraq, but as a choice between the devil people knew and the devil they didn't.

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich landed the endorsement of New Hampshire's largest newspaper Sunday while rival Mitt Romney earned a dismissive wave, potentially resetting the race in the state with the first-in-the-nation primary. For Gingrich, the former House speaker, the backing builds on his recent rise in the polls and quick work to build a campaign after a disastrous start in the summer. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has a vacation home in the state and has been called a "nearly native son of New Hampshire," absorbed the blow heading into the Jan. 10 vote that's vital to his campaign strategy.

What role should religion play in the public square? How did my own Roman Catholicism shape my work as a senator? Such questions were never far from my mind while I served in Congress. So, when Mitt Romney gave his "religion speech," I listened not as a political analyst, but as someone who wrestled with this subject for more than a decade. Romney's speech was thoughtful and courageous. Unlike John F. Kennedy in 1960, he didn't cop out and say his faith does not matter. Romney gave an impressive defense of the believer's right to be engaged in politics.

It is assumed, by many Americans, that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is run by left-wingers, Ivy Leaguers, quiche-eaters, peaceniks, and Democratic hacks whose eyes tear up at the mere mention of JFK. That image has persisted since 1988, when the senior George Bush painted Gov. Michael Dukakis as a softy. Yet it's bunk. The voters (only 34 percent of whom are registered Democrats) backed Ronald Reagan twice, they haven't elected a Democratic governor since 1986, and they recently approved a ballot measure to cut the state income tax. And now, with another governor's race on the horizon, they're smitten with Mitt Romney - a fiscally conservative Republican, a Mormon who touts family values, a rich leveraged-buyout executive with no government experience who looks like a cross between Hugh Grant and Dudley Do-Right.

What role should religion play in the public square? How did my own Roman Catholicism shape my work as a senator? Such questions were never far from my mind while I served in Congress. So, when Mitt Romney gave his "religion speech," I listened not as a political analyst, but as someone who wrestled with this subject for more than a decade. Romney's speech was thoughtful and courageous. Unlike John F. Kennedy in 1960, he didn't cop out and say his faith does not matter. Romney gave an impressive defense of the believer's right to be engaged in politics.

TAMPA - Gov. Christie pumped up an adoring Republican crowd Tuesday night as he offered a national TV audience the message he has sold for nearly three years up and down the New Jersey Turnpike: Politicians become leaders when they tell "hard truths. " That's what he has done for his state, Christie argued, and that's what former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney - newly minted as the official Republican presidential nominee Tuesday afternoon - will deliver for America. "It's simple," Christie said in his Republican National Convention keynote address on the biggest stage of his political career.

In the home stretch to Election Day, President Obama has secured a commanding lead in New Jersey - 14 points - over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to the Inquirer New Jersey Poll conducted last week. Support for the president is even stronger in the seven South Jersey counties, with Obama leading Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, 56 to 34 percent, compared with 51-37 percent statewide. Obama has a double-digit lead among unaffiliated voters, and he enjoyed a bounce in support from those who watched the Democratic convention on TV earlier this month.

DES MOINES, Iowa - An Iowa caucus campaign that has cycled through several Republican presidential front-runners entered its final week Monday as unpredictable as the day that conservatives began competing to emerge as Mitt Romney's chief rival. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, released a new television commercial for the state in which he cited a "moral imperative for America to stop spending more money than we take in. " "It's killing jobs," he said. Texas Gov. Rick Perry countered with an ad that said four of his rivals combined - none of them Romney - have served 63 years in Congress, "leaving us with debt, earmarks, and bailouts.

TILTON, N.H. - A buoyant Rick Santorum on Thursday urged New Hampshire voters to reject pundits and polls favoring Mitt Romney as the Republican standard-bearer. "Don't settle for less than America needs," the former Pennsylvania senator said at an old train station here. "Don't defer your judgment to national polls. Don't defer your judgment to the pundits. " Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, eked out an eight-vote victory in the Iowa caucuses this week and is favored to win the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - Documents filed by Mitt Romney's former company conflict with the Republican presidential candidate's statements about when he gave up control of the private equity firm Bain Capital. President Obama's campaign seized on the discrepancies Thursday to allege that Romney was lying about his background. Romney, in turn, said Obama was the one being dishonest, as he rolled out a hard-hitting TV ad that accused the president of launching "misleading, unfair and untrue" attacks about the Republican's role in outsourcing U.S. jobs.