AP: Perry uses work phones to call top donors months before presidential bid

On December 6, 2011, the Associated Press reported:

Time and again, Texas Gov. Rick Perry picked up his office phone in the months before he would announce his bid for the presidency. He dialed wealthy friends who were his big fundraisers and state officials who owed him for their jobs.

VIDEO: Will Romney Run From His '07 RJC Speech?

On December 7, Mitt Romney is addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition's Republican Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington, DC. When addressing the same group during his last run for the White House in 2007, Romney lauded his health care plan and insinuated it should be a model for national health care reform (as he has done on numerous occasions). Will he say the same thing this year?

Reuters: Romney staff spent nearly $100,000 to hide records

On December 6. 2011, Reuters reported:

Mitt Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret, Reuters has learned. The move during the final weeks of Romney's administration was legal but unusual for a departing governor, Massachusetts officials say. The effort to purge the records was made a few months before Romney launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He is again competing for the party's nomination, this time to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012.

POLITICO: Mitt Romney and Scott Brown: Too close for comfort

On December 2, 2011, POLITICO reported:

Mitt Romney and Scott Brown have plenty in common, most notably that they’re Republicans from Massachusetts. But they also like to tell similar jokes about how the other one is cuter and more popular.

Mediaite: Wait, What? OJ Simpson Featured In New Anti Mitt Romney Ad

On December 2, 2011, Mediaite reported:

With the ascension of Newt Gingrich to the top of the GOP presidential field, perennial silver medalistMitt Romney has recently sought to contrast himself with the former House Speaker by casting himself as a political outsider, resurrecting a long-running theme. A new ad from American Bridge PAC torpedoes that notion, in hilarious fashion, with a Proustian collection of clips from the start of Romney’s political career, including that iconic slow-speed chase.

iWatch News: K Street, Wall Street line up behind Sen. Scott Brown in his race against Elizabeth Warren

On December 2, 2011, iWatch News reported:

Financial service lobbyists and other K Street advocates have for weeks been working hard to help the freshman senator win his high-stakes battle for re-election against Elizabeth Warren, a liberal Harvard law professor. Warren is anathema for many finance-sector lobbyists and Wall Street leaders who abhor the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau— a centerpiece of the financial services overhaul—of which Warren was the intellectual architect.

Mitt Romney’s 1994 – The Year His Career In Politics Began

1994… The Internet was coming to age.  Courtney Cox and David Schwimmer debuted the first episode of Friends.  O.J. Simpson led America on a slow, winding “chase” to infamy.  I got my first car (’84 Chevette).  And Mitt Romney -- the man now calling Newt Gingrich a “career politician” -- was beginning his 17-year career in national politics. It’s a tactic Romney has perfected over his two decades running for office: Regardless of the circumstances, painting himself as the political outsider and his opponent as a career politician. The irony is not just the long time Romney has spent in politics, but how he embodies the characteristics of a ‘career politicians’ he claims to be so eager to defeat. He has opportunistically changed on core beliefs so frequently, the conservative Manchester Union Leader wrote that Romney just “tells us what he thinks we want to hear.” But, to court (and win) support from the Republican establishment in Washington and on Wall Street, Romney has continued his pattern of pandering. Even the food he eats and the airlines he flies feel calculated by his chief pollster and strategist.

Plain Dealer: Shady pics and video: Groups backing Josh Mandel, Sherrod Brown having fun and fits

On December 1, 2011, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported:

Speaking of authentic images, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican who plans to run against Brown and is supported by the Chamber of Commerce, was in Washington yesterday to raise money. A video tracking team from American Bridge, a political group that says it wants to "hold Republicans accountable," was waiting for him outside one of the Capitol Hill events, and the video -- of a fast-walking Mandel -- is posted above.

Journal Sentinel: Thompson announcing at firm receiving stimulus money

On December 1, 2011, the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reported:

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson hasn't been afraid to attack others for backing President Barack Obama's controversial stimulus package. [...] So isn't it odd that Thompson is officially launching his bid for the U.S. Senate today at a company that directly benefited from the Recovery Act?

#KoolMitt: Romney's New Look

In perhaps the greatest development for high-end fashion since Derelicte, witness the look being modeled by Mitt Romney on the campaign trail this year: Averàge. Averàge is designed to give the impression that you’re just an average guy. With the help of a team of image consultants, Mitt Romney’s traded in his suits and ties for jeans and loafers. And while his wallet may still be flush with the money of someone who owns a couple mansions, that wallet is now in a pair of jeans that says “Corporations The super wealthy are people too.” And for that extra “cool” factor, you can even supplement the look by lying about smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer once.