Mitt Romney

When the head of JPMorgan Chase met with shareholders to answer for a trading loss of more than $2 billion Tuesday, it was against an evolving political backdrop: Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments. "There's no doubt that there's been a big diminution of support for the president," said William M. Daley, Obama's former chief of staff and a former top JPMorgan Chase executive. "People in the financial services sector are saying, ‘The president has been too tough on us, both in policy and on...

Mitt Romney unveiled a series of changes primarily intended to give low-income families more choices in education and improve schools. The proposal would: ▸ Substantially change how the federal government allocates money to those K-12 schools with a high percentage of low-income children and for the education of disabled children. Currently, that money generally goes to the school districts. Under Romney's plan, such children at low-performing schools would be able to use that money to attend another public school, charter school, or, if states allow it, private school.

Mitt Romney is on a charm offensive. He took reporters' questions after a campaign rally Thursday instead of keeping them at bay. He brought them warm chocolate chip cookies for the flight from Jacksonville to Palm Beach, Fla. After he got off the plane, he walked over to show reporters a picture of his 5-year-old grandson, Parker. It was "wild hair day" at school and the grandfather of 18 had to share what had just come into his iPad. "You know how he did that? With Elmer's Glue and egg whites.

His cash advantage threatened, President Barack Obama and his party are redoubling their fundraising efforts after robust hauls by Republican rival Mitt Romney and a slew of GOP-leaning super PACs that are raking in cash from the party faithful highly motivated to topple the Democrat. Obama still has a significant edge, but it's shrinking rapidly. That explains why the president, fresh off of back-to-back international summits, plunged back into his re-election race Wednesday with a series of fundraising events in Denver and California's Silicon Valley.

Mitt Romney has long called himself a venture capitalist, experience he says helps him understand the economy better than other candidates for president. But he spent much more of his career in leveraged buyouts than in the investments in start-up companies known as venture capital. Romney's one true venture deal was Staples Inc., the office supply superstore, two years after he started Bain Capital. He wasn't the first to discover Staples; another Boston venture firm introduced him to Staples founder Tom Stemberg.

Polls show that frustration with Washington has never been higher — and who could argue? Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Most lawmakers openly concede that nothing will get done before the November elections. The leaders of both parties are already trading threats over the possibility of a national debt default next year. Barack Obama got elected by promising to change the tone in Washington, but clearly he's failed, as George W. Bush did before him. That should be a clue that the partisan animosity consuming the political system doesn't originate in the White...

When the head of JPMorgan Chase met with shareholders to answer for a trading loss of more than $2 billion Tuesday, it was against an evolving political backdrop: Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments. "There's no doubt that there's been a big diminution of support for the president," said William M. Daley, Obama's former chief of staff and a former top JPMorgan Chase executive. "People in the financial services sector are saying, ‘The president has been too tough on us, both in...

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney on Tuesday announced an extensive list of education policy advisers, further adding to the growing roster of voices helping the presumptive Republican presidential nominee flesh out his policies on major national issues. The policy group includes several top officials from the administration of President George W. Bush, including former education secretary Rod Paige. It also includes several who advised Romney while he was Massachusetts governor, including Robert Costrell and Jim Peyser.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says he'll run his first TV ad of the general campaign in a couple of days. Romney told reporters Thursday that it will be a positive spot introducing him to voters. Separately, sources familiar with the ad buy told The Associated Press that the spot is slated to run next week. Data from television stations shows the ad will air in Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio — all critical battleground states in the fall.

MIAMI - Mitt Romney, who rarely discusses his ancestry, has repeated a striking comment in Florida in recent days to soften his rhetoric about immigration and woo the crucial Hispanic voting bloc. "My dad was born in Mexico," Romney says at many campaign stops, as he expresses empathy and solidarity with immigrant families. It follows sharp rhetoric in places such as Iowa, where he decried what he called efforts to provide "amnesty" to the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants.

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney says that if he is elected Congress should wait until he takes office to block automatic spending cuts and to keep tax cuts from expiring. In an interview with Time magazine Wednesday, the Republican presidential candidate said he wants Congress to deal with major issues to keep the nation from going over a "fiscal cliff" after the January swearing-in. Romney said he wants permanent legislation to deal with those problems instead of a temporary effort.

Mitt Romney struggled to find support for his education proposals while campaigning at an inner-city school Thursday, one day after declaring education the "civil rights issue of our era. " The visit, the first by the likely Republican presidential nominee to such a school, came as he begins to court a broader cross-section of the electorate he needs to defeat President Barack Obama in November. In a speech Wednesday, Romney proposed expanding charter schools, which are privately run but funded by taxpayers, and creating a voucher-like system in which poor and disabled students could...

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday laced into the Republican Party and its presumptive presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, saying its Tea Party movement faction has blocked progress by President Obama while Romney wants to take the country back to recessionary practices. "They begin to sound like the horse that just won the Derby and the Preakness, ‘I'll Have Another,' " Biden told an audience at Keene State College. "Except the horse is a real winner. " Broadening his attack, the vice president said, "We will not go back to the '50s on social...

WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney's campaign, following several days of intense attacks on his experience at Bain Capital, said it welcomed the discussion. "Look, we're happy to compare Governor Romney's record of success -- both at the state house in Massachusetts, and as a businessman for 25 years in the private sector -- to the lack of real world economic experience of President Obama," Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser, told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday morning. He touted some of the jobs that he said were created during Romney's four-year term in Massachusetts.

Mitt Romney gave President Obama a taste of his own medicine Wednesday with a new Web video featuring struggling Americans who pin their financial straits on unfulfilled economic promises by the president. In recent ads , it has been the Obama campaign spotlighting people who have lost jobs, benefits and pensions, but they have blamed Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he led from 1984 to 1999. The Obama ads have been criticized, even by some Democrats, as unfair attacks on free enterprise.

"C'mon, Mitt, think. " So said Colin Powell on Wednesday as he assessed Mitt Romney's foreign policy views. Powell, appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," said he wondered what Romney was thinking when he heard that Romney had declared that Russia was the top geopolitical foe of the United States. Powell said Romney's comment about Russia was "catching a lot of heck from the more regular GOP foreign affairs community who were kind of taken aback by it. " Powell, who served as secretary of state in the administration of George W....

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is visiting New Hampshire again, this time appearing at what's become known as the "bridge to nowhere. " The 19th century stone arch bridge in Hillsborough used to be called Sawyer Bridge. More than $150,000 from the federal stimulus bill was awarded to preserve and repair it. However, the bridge, which doesn't cross a river, hasn't had vehicle traffic since the 1800s. It ends in a field with an 8-foot drop. Residents had voted to turn the area into a park.

AS A TARGET of bullying in the 1960s, I was disgusted to hear Mitt Romney claim he does not remember being the leader of a group of prep school teens that pinned down an "effeminate" classmate as Romney allegedly cut off his hair. He is either lying or worse. If he truly cannot remember, his response betrays a creepy lack of empathy for someone seeking the highest office in the land. I suffered nothing like what the classmate, John Lauber, did, let alone Phoebe Prince and Carl Walker-Hoover, the two tormented Massachusetts youths whose bullying-related suicides roiled this state.

Mitt Romney pledged Wednesday that if elected president he will drive down unemployment to 6 percent or lower by the end of his first term. Romney has made the promise at least once before , at a North Las Vegas truck dealership in September, but he has rarely given voters such a specific figure to which he could be held accountable. The guarantee is also notable because Romney has repeatedly claimed President Obama broke a promise to hold the jobless rate under 8 percent.

President Obama has accepted $92,270 in his last two campaigns from employees of Bain Capital, the private equity firm formerly led by Mitt Romney, which he has villainized for profiting on failed companies that laid off workers. Romney has taken $229,650, more than any other politician. But together, Democratic candidates and committees have received more than $1.3 million from Bain Capital workers since the 2008 election cycle - double the amount collected by Republicans. The willingness of Obama and his party to fund their campaigns with Bain Capital money...