George Romney

Mitt Romney has regained the lead in Arizona but is locked in a tie with rival Rick Santorum as primary day looms less than a week away, according to a pair of new polls released Wednesday. The polls suggest Romney's message is resonating with more pragmatic voters who are focused on finding a candidate who can beat President Obama in a general election.   An NBC/Marist poll of likely Republican primary voters in Arizona shows Romney leading the pack with 43%, a 16 percentage point lead over Santorum, who has 27%.  Newt Gingrich ranks third with 16%, followed by Ron Paul with 11%. The race appears to be tighter in Michigan, according to an NBC/Marist poll of likely Republican primary voters there.

The White House on Tuesday needled GOP front-runner Mitt Romney on releasing his tax returns, noting that it was the former Massachusetts governor's father who set the precedent for such personal financial disclosure on the part of presidential hopefuls decades ago. At his daily televised briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked about Romney's hedging response to debate questions Monday night on the issue, and he had a ready answer....

With his presidential candidacy newly invigorated by donations from a casino billionaire, Newt Gingrich accused Mitt Romney's Wall Street supporters on Wednesday of trying to "brainwash" voters into backing the former Massachusetts governor. "It's just Wall Street pouring money in to try to buy the election," Gingrich told a few hundred supporters Wednesday evening at a rally here in northern Georgia. "In fact, I think eight of his top 10 sources are people who got money out of the U.S.  taxpayer.

Remember Rick Perry? He's the guy who tangled bitterly with Mitt Romney in the Republican primary, attacking him for practicing "vulture capitalism" at Bain Capital and being attacked, in turn, for what Romney characterized as "liberal" immigration policies in Texas. Perry, the Texas governor, resurfaced Tuesday as a voice in the presidential campaign when he appeared to join the chorus of (mostly Democratic) voices urging Romney to release more of his tax returns. "No matter who you are or what office you are running for, you should be as transparent as you can be with your tax returns and other aspects of your life so that people have the appropriate ability to judge your background," Perry said to CBS News Austin affiliate KEYE-TV.

Conceding that his refusal to release his tax returns immediately was "a mistake" and "a distraction" that helped cost him a South Carolina primary win, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Sunday that he would release his 2010 federal return this week, along with an estimate of his 2011 taxes. "We made a mistake in holding off as long as we did," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday. " As a result, he added, the issue became "a distraction" as he attempted to halt Newt Gingrich's surge in the first Southern primary.

Reeling from defeats in New Hampshire and Iowa, Mitt Romney suspended TV advertising in South Carolina and Florida on Wednesday, a money-saving move that laid bare the dire condition of his run for the White House. After a year of sparing virtually no expense in his quest for the Republican nomination, Romney's pullback amounted to an extraordinary retreat in two states that will hold crucial primaries this month -- even though he could resume advertising on short notice.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden railed Tuesday against the GOP's hard-line stance on immigration in a speech warning Latino voters of the consequences if they "sit on your hands" in the coming elections. And in a political twofer, Biden linked Mitt Romney's support for Arizona's controversial anti-illegal immigration measure to his reluctance to provide greater disclosure of his personal finances, quipping at the National Council of La Raza's annual conference: "He wants you to show your papers, but he won't show us his. " Biden's zinger was the latest in an escalating campaign by Democrats to press the presumptive Republican nominee to release more detailed tax records.

Looking to fend off a serious challenge from Rick Santorum in his home state,  Mitt Romney returned to Michigan on Thursday night trolling for votes at gathering of eight tea party groups in the Detroit suburbs. Romney, the son of Michigan's three-term  Gov.  George Romney, reminisced about Detroit's golden age, his first day of kindergarten and his early childhood in Palmer Park near 6 Mile and Woodward Avenue: "We had home there. It's been bulldozed now, because it turned, I guess, into an eyesore or a place that drugs were being used.

DENVER - As President Obama and Mitt Romney prepare to face off Wednesday evening, their wives each played the role of political spouse perfectly, declining to offer the mildest critiques of their husbands' debating skills and speaking of their nerves as they watch their husbands in their first face-to-face contest. “I get so nervous at these debates and, you know, I'm like one of those parents watching their kid on the balance beam. You're just -- just standing there just trying not to, you know, have any expression at all,” First Lady Michelle Obama told CNN in an interview aired Tuesday.

FRANKENMUTH, Mich. - For most governors, an 8.5% unemployment rate would be a source of embarrassment. Not in Michigan, a national symbol of Rust Belt decline where unemployment hit 14.2% in 2009. So when Gov. Rick Snyder joined Mitt Romney on Monday at a rally in this remote central Michigan town built to resemble a medieval village in the Bavarian Alps, he could not resist boasting. “We're the comeback state in the United States,” said Snyder, the latest in a string of Republican governors whose sunny descriptions of a swing state on the rebound clash with Romney's dark portrayal of economic wreckage under President Obama.