Mitt Romney

I'm going to skip over the day's big winner, Carrie Prejean -- hey, all three cable nets carried the presser in which she got to keep her beauty pageant crown -- to focus on one of the week's losers. I can't quite figure out Michael Steele. He's obviously a sharp guy, and one of his strengths, when he ran for Republican chairman -- aside from bringing a largely white party into the Obama era -- was his ease in media forums. He was a hip guy, not some stiff party apparatchik. Instead, he has displayed an unerring ability to talk his way into trouble.

CHICAGO — Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is walking a political tightrope as he charts his future, trying to balance his re-election campaign in a Democratic-leaning state with a potential presidential bid aimed at winning over Republicans. His latest challenge came in an appearance with former President Bill Clinton in Chicago, a move that ran the risk of alienating religious conservatives being wooed in Washington by other potential GOP presidential candidates. ...

When someone in the Washington area begins to type the president's last name into the search box of Google's home page, the top three terms it suggests as the most popular selections are Obama, Obamacare and . . . Obama phone. Obama phone? A hotline, maybe, to the Oval Office? Hardly. "Obama phone" is the widely used — and misleading — nickname of a 28-year-old federal program known as Lifeline . It provides discounts, averaging $9.25 a month, on phone service for 13.3 million...

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — A series of unorthodox decisions by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie points to a simple political calculation for a potential presidential campaign: long-term gain beats short-term pain. Christie last week refused to appoint a fellow Republican to complete the full 17 months of the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg's term. Instead the governor scheduled a special election for October and named the state's attorney general, Republican Jeff Chiesa, to serve in...

PARK CITY, Utah — John Schoenfeld came to an exclusive resort here to do business with Mitt Romney. But he stayed for the politics. Schoenfeld spent most of Wednesday in a downstairs conference room of the Stein Eriksen Lodge assessing the investments of Solamere Capital, the firm co-founded by Romney's son Tagg and increasingly managed by Romney himself . Then he learned that several potential GOP presidential candidates would be...

CHICAGO — Mitt Romney is back — and so is his foot. As reported in The Wall Street Journal , Romney is planning on re-emerging in ways that will "help shape national priorities," such as assisting the Republican Party as it tries to regain its footing with the non-white voters who ignored the GOP standard-bearer at the polls in 2012. Yes, the man known for favoring the term "self-deportation" and offending scores of Hispanics by using the word "illegals" over and over again during...

In a party where good news has been hard to find over the past two years, the current state of play in 2014 Senate races gives Republicans some reason to smile. A combination of raw numbers, a shift in the political environment and some notable recruiting failures has handed Senate Republicans a realistic — but by no means certain— chance of picking up the six seats they need to win back control of the chamber. This was always going to be a good election cycle — numbers-wise — for Senate...

Mitt Romney is indisputably a very rich man. And if he is elected president on Nov. 6, he will become one of the wealthiest people ever to hold the office. But exactly how wealthy is Romney? The figure that gets tossed around is $250 million in net worth — meaning the total value of his assets, financial and others, minus any debts. It's a big number, but frankly, it seems low. Given the industry in which he made his fortune ( private equity ), the era when he made it (the 1980s and 1990s)

In an election year filled with secret campaign money, the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has made the unlikely choice to go public with a big political donation. The Ohio-based company, familiar as the producer of a ubiquitous plant fertilizer, is now a political player, donating $200,000 in June to the Restore Our Future super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. That makes Miracle-Gro among the first public companies with well-known consumer brands to publicly...

The past several days of Newark Mayor Cory Booker's life have been painfully amusing to watch. Painful because Booker, a rising Democratic star, is such a good guy. Amusing, because rarely are Americans treated to such premier seats in the political theater of truth and consequence. That is, tell the truth and beware the consequences. Booker has gained much unwelcome attention from his own political party, while being nearly sanctified by Republicans, for the singular offense of telling the truth.

PARK CITY, Utah — The Republican Party is trying hard to move on from Mitt Romney. His donors are another story. Three potential presidential candidates grasped at the Republican Party's financial torch Friday by auditioning before an audience of Romney's most influential fundraisers and GOP officials. After huddling with the former nominee in a dark lodge Thursday night, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul woke up early to hobnob with donors and deliver...

PARK CITY, Utah — John Schoenfeld came to an exclusive resort here to do business with Mitt Romney. But he stayed for the politics. Schoenfeld spent most of Wednesday in a downstairs conference room of the Stein Eriksen Lodge assessing the investments of Solamere Capital, the firm co-founded by Romney's son Tagg and increasingly managed by Romney himself . Then he learned that several potential GOP presidential candidates would be...

CHICAGO — Mitt Romney is back — and so is his foot. As reported in The Wall Street Journal , Romney is planning on re-emerging in ways that will "help shape national priorities," such as assisting the Republican Party as it tries to regain its footing with the non-white voters who ignored the GOP standard-bearer at the polls in 2012. Yes, the man known for favoring the term "self-deportation" and offending scores of Hispanics by using the word "illegals" over and over again during...

Now that "Arrested Development's" long-awaited new episodes on Netflix have been out in the world for 10 whole days, the natural question is: Will there be more? View Photo Gallery — The Bluths ended Season 3 as they began Season 1: on yachts and on the run from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Before Season 4 debuts Sunday on Netflix, reacquaint yourselves with the comedy's cast and characters. At least, that was the issue on reporters' minds...

In a party where good news has been hard to find over the past two years, the current state of play in 2014 Senate races gives Republicans some reason to smile. A combination of raw numbers, a shift in the political environment and some notable recruiting failures has handed Senate Republicans a realistic — but by no means certain— chance of picking up the six seats they need to win back control of the chamber. This was always going to be a good election cycle — numbers-wise — for Senate Republicans.

Correction: An earlier version of this column incorrectly said that Mark Sanford served in the House from 1996 to 2002. He served from 1994 to 2000. This version has been corrected. Mark Sanford just might win. In conversations with Democratic and Republican strategists closely following the special election set for Tuesday in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District, the consensus is that the former governor, not businesswoman (and sister of Stephen Colbert)

RICHMOND — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe released summaries of income tax returns Tuesday — five days after his Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, released nearly a decade of tax returns in an effort to raise transparency as an issue in the race. According to the six pages of abridged returns provided by the McAuliffe campaign, the businessman made $8.2 million in 2011, including nearly $1.9 million in capital gains income.

Get to know Mitt Romney, who's running for the office of president of the United States. Party: Republican What he did before: He was the governor of Massachusetts. He also ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, and founded a company called Bain Capital. Birthday: March 12, 1947 (He's 65 years old.) Family: Married to Ann Romney. They have five grown sons: Taggart, Matthew, Joshua, Benjamin and Craig. Fun fact: Mitt Romney recently said that his favorite snack is a...

When is nearly 70 percent support from a key voting bloc not good enough? When you're a Virginia Democrat running statewide without President Obama atop the ballot. As he seeks to reclaim the governorship for his party, businessman Terry McAuliffe isn't drawing the same level of African American backing other Democrats have recently enjoyed, a new Washington Post poll shows. McAuliffe is supported by 69 percent of black voters, compared with 10 percent for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R)