Mitt Romney | featured news

Mitt Romney promised today he would govern as a "pro-life president" less than 24 hours after telling an Iowa newspaper he saw "no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda."

Continuing to embrace a more moderate political persona, Mitt Romney offered assurances on Tuesday that he would protect tax deductions for the middle class on home mortgages and charitable donations. And he also also said he had no plans to pursue new laws limiting abortion.

Despite an apparent bounce for Mitt Romney in recent weeks, the fundamental dynamic of the electoral map appears to be locked in for now — with both campaigns focused on the nine states that have dominated for most of this year, according to interviews with strategists on both sides.

While vice-presidential debates typically don't have much bearing on the presidential contest, tomorrow night's Joe Biden-vs.-Paul Ryan showdown has put pressure on both sides. Team Obama NEEDS a strong performance from Biden to make up for last week and change the subject; another bad outing by a member of the ticket and the Democratic handwringing could turn into a full-fledged panic. Meanwhile, Team Romney needs a solid outing from Ryan to keep up the momentum. As we wrote last week, consider tomorrow night Game 2 of a baseball playoff series. After ace Romney beat ace Obama in Game 1, Democrats are looking for their No. 2 starter, Biden, to even the score. And Republicans are looking to go 2-0. That's what at stake Thursday, and that's why there's more pressure on Biden than on Ryan.

...Romney was greeted Tuesday by protesters dressed up like Big Bird, Elmo and other Sesame Street characters, The Des Moines Register reports. The Elmo protester shouted, "Trickle down economics does not tickle me." And the gang, identified by the newspaper as supporters of the liberal Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, sang a ditty about the economy and Wall Street to the tune of the Sesame Street theme song. It began: "Stormy days ... taking our jobs away."

What the Republican nominee’s campaign billed as a major foreign policy address didn’t have much new in it and left some analysts unimpressed. The speech, they said, was much like Romney’s previous swings at laying out a foreign policy -- couched in broad ideology and big ambitions and lacking the specifics for how he’d bring any of them about.

After showing President Barack Obama with an 8-point lead in September, the Pew Research Center now finds a deadlocked presidential race among registered voters — and a 4-point Romney lead among those most likely to vote...

On Monday morning the Gallup organization reported that on three days of calling after the debate, their daily tracking survey finds Romney and Obama tied with 47 percent of the vote each among registered voters nationwide. Gallup showed Obama leading Romney by 5 percentage points (50 percent to 45 percent) in interviews conducted in the three days prior to the debate.

The address mostly repackaged things Romney has said before, sometimes with greater precision. The Republican, who has stumbled in past efforts to articulate his foreign policy, offered few specific ways he would change the Obama administration’s current approach. Although he made broad critiques of Obama’s “passivity,” Romney did not call for any new armed intervention in any Mideast conflict.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stayed within striking distance of President Barack Obama in a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Sunday, two-points behind the Democrat for the third straight day after winning last week's debate in Denver.