Maeve Reston

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In 1963, an explosive year in the quest for civil rights, George Romney appeared unannounced in the mostly white suburb of Grosse Pointe and marched to the front of an anti-segregation demonstration to stand beside black leaders.

Letters from startled constituents poured into the office of the first-term Michigan governor, whose son Mitt was then 16. Supporters who had helped him win his narrow victory the previous November said his actions made him "a double-crosser" and a "Judas to the people that voted for you." Their diatribes were sprinkled with warnings that they would work against him: "You are a ’dead duck’ for 1964," one detractor typed above a newspaper photograph of a shirt-sleeved Romney walking shoulder to shoulder with civil rights activists.

WASHINGTON - It may be early in the general election contest for the White House, but Mitt Romney has not been pulling punches in his assessment of President Barack Obama in recent weeks - and he was blunt when asked Thursday to grade Obama's first term.

LYNCHBURG, Va. — When it came to evangelicals in this year’s primaries, Mitt Romney was most often the rejected suitor — struggling to overcome suspicions about his authenticity as a conservative and his Mormon faith.

On Saturday at the evangelical university founded by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Romney tried to tackle those lingering misgivings as the presumed Republican nominee — by delivering a speech that delved deep into his faith and by urging about 30,000 in the audience at Liberty University to look beyond their differences with his religion.

WASHINGTON -- At a time when his campaign is working to attract reluctant conservatives, Mitt Romney won the backing Thursday of one-time rival Michele Bachmann, who has vowed to use her connections in evangelical and tea party groups to help unite the party behind him.

GREENSBURG, Pa. -- Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and for some conservatives that is a pill still too bitter to swallow.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee came to the podium at a county GOP event in Greensburg, located in a key conservative swath of Pennsylvania, days after Romney rival Rick Santorum dropped out of the race and effectively ceded the nomination to Romney. But she couldn't bring herself to mention Romney by name.

PHILADELPHIA -- When President Barack Obama told a Russian leader that he could be "more flexible" after the election -- during what he thought was a private conversation -- Mitt Romney came down like a hammer. He accused his Democratic rival of "pulling his punches with the American people" and hiding his real agenda.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney heads to Texas on Thursday to accept the formal backing of former President George H.W. Bush -- another prominent figure in the Republican establishment who may add to the pressure for Romney's GOP rivals to bow out of the race.