LONG BEACH, Calif. - Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney confessed on Monday to casting a vote for a Democrat on a few occasions - but only when there was no Republican on the ballot.

The man who has built his campaign in recent days on painting front-runner Sen. John McCain as a liberal said that he’d always voted Republican if there was a Republican on the ballot.

But he noted that in his home state of Massachusetts, voters can decide between voting in the Democratic or Republican primary, and sometimes he had voted tactically.

“Those of you from Massachusetts know that sometimes there’s no contest on the Republican side in a primary so you pull the Democratic ballot and you make mischief,” he told reporters on his campaign plane on Monday.

“I got a chance to vote against Bill Clinton more than once.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Nesius (Mitt Romney speaks at Florida primary election rally)

EN ROUTE FROM OKLAHOMA CITY TO LONG BEACH, Calif. - It has been a long time since White House Republican hopeful and multimillionaire venture capitalist Mitt Romney slept on the floor, but he was planning to do just that on Monday night.

The floor of a charter plane, that is. Romney has crisscrossed the United States in the final days before Super Tuesday and on Monday alone he flew from Nashville to Atlanta to Oklahoma City to Long Beach, California.

After stopping for just a couple of hours, he was due to get back on an overnight plane to West Virginia and Boston for Tuesday, when 21 states vote to pick a Republican presidential nominee.

There are no flat-bed seats in Romney’s charter plane. He does enjoy a wide business class seat in the front row but he said he planned to spend the red-eye flight on the floor.

“It’s been a while since I slept on the floor,” he told reporters on the flight to California. “Usually if I’m in trouble I sleep on the sofa,” he said.

A father of five who frequently talks about family values, Romney quickly took back the suggestion that he gets in trouble with his wife, Ann.

“Actually I’ve not been in trouble to sleep on the sofa. But sometimes in the middle of the night if I wake up and can’t sleep, instead of bothering Ann by tossing and turning, I sleep on the sofa,” he said.

“Camping is probably the last time I slept on the ground,” he said, adding that was perhaps a decade ago. “It’s been a long time.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Claudia Parsons (Romney talks to media on his charter plane on Monday)

CHICAGO - With much of America focused on the Super Bowl  on Sunday, White House hopeful Mitt Romney was looking for inspiration from his home team’s star player.

The former Massachusetts governor said he e-mailed New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on Saturday to wish him luck in the National Football League championship game between the Patriots and the New York Giants. The game brought much of the United States to a grinding halt — including the campaign for the presidency two days before 24 states hold nominating contests on Super Tuesday.

“I e-mailed him an e-mail, just said good luck, and he e-mailed back,” Romney told reporters on his campaign plane on the tarmac at Chicago after a campaign rally.

“I actually sent him a couple of plays,” he joked, adding, “I wish he’d send me a couple of plays.”

Battling to stay in the race for the Republican nomination against front-runner Sen. John McCain, Romney said that in politics like football, people shouldn’t pay too much attention to the half-time commentary.

“You go out in the second half and it’s not at all like they said,” Romney said.

He watched the kickoff of the game at a sports bar in Missouri, after taking off his shoes and climbing on a table to address supporters.

PICTURE: Reuters/John Gress (Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney campaigns at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn Illinois)

MINNEAPOLIS - Relying on a groundswell of conservative support to keep him in the Republican presidential race with Sen. John McCain, Mitt Romney says he’s happy to have the likes of Ann Coulter on his side, though he doesn’t share all her views.

Coulter, a firebrand commentator prone to tirades against liberals, railed against McCain this week and went so far as to say that if he wins the Republican nomination she would prefer Democrat Hillary Clinton as president.

Asked about her comments, Romney said: “I like getting support from people and appreciate their endorsement of my effort. I don’t agree with all of my supporters. I intend to support our nominee, whether it’s Senator McCain or whether it’s me.”

Earlier he mentioned Coulter among a string of conservative commentators  – Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Hugh Hewitt and Rich Lowry — whose support he said was turning the tide in his favor.

“I don’t know how many tens of millions of dollars of advertising would have to be purchased to equal that,” said Romney, who has thrown $35 million of his own money into his White House bid.

“Conservative Republicans and mainstream Republicans all over the country in the last 48 hours or so have concentrated on the prospect of Senator McCain being our nominee and are saying, ‘That’s not the direction we want to go,’” Romney told reporters during a flight from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis.

PICTURE: Reuters/Robert Galbraith (McCain and Romney attend the CNN/Los Angeles Times Republican presidential debate at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Jan 30)

DENVER - Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney brushed off a comment by rival Mike Huckabee that he hadn’t hit “political puberty” until he ran for president, saying the presidency was no laughing matter.

Speaking on MSNBC, Huckabee challenged Romney’s presentation of himself as a conservative candidate. “Here’s a man who didn’t hit political puberty in the conservative ranks until 60 years old,” Huckabee said.

The Baptist preacher, who is lagging behind Romney and Sen. John McCain in the polls, said 10 years ago Romney had presented himself as an independent with far more liberal views on social issues such as marriage and abortion than he does now.

“He may be saying conservative things now but he certainly wasn’t saying them until he ran for president,” said Huckabee, who is aiming to capture a number of conservative southern states on Feb. 5 to stay in the race.

Asked about the puberty comment at a rally in Denver on Friday, Romney said: “Gov. Huckabee is always good for a good chuckle, he likes to have a good chuckle. I think the presidency is about something very serious.”

“While there’s occasionally a time of natural humor, I think the presidency is more serious than that comment suggests.”

PICTURE: Reuters/Danny Moloshok (Former US first lady Nancy Reagan joins US Republican presidential candidates at a debate in Simi Valley, Calif. on January 30, 2008)

DENVER - What’s the cost of a reputation built over three decades? For Mitt Romney, it’s the equivalent of about $35 million.

Asked about the role of money in the campaign, the former venture capitalist said the winner of the Republican presidential nomination would not necessarily be the person who spent the most money, but for him, it was worth investing his own millions.

“I was not somebody who was well known in the campaign,” said the former Massachusetts governor, noting that his chief rival Sen. John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who dropped out of the race this week, started out with much better name recognition.

“There was a time in my campaign when my campaign manager said to me: ‘These guys have spent the last 30 years of their life building name recognition and reputation.  If you’re going to compete with them, you’re going to have to take something of what you’ve built over the last 30 years and invest it in your campaign.’”

“She was right,” Romney said.

Latest figures out this week showed Romney poured $18 million of his personal fortune into his White House bid during the last three months of 2007.  That took his personal spending on the race to $35 million.

“You have to play with the hand you’re dealt,” he said. “I was dealt the hand of coming from a state not known as being a Republican state, a guy who was not terribly well known. And it meant that I had to raise more money and invest more money than the other guys to get to the point where I could be competitive.”

“But at the final analysis the person who wins will not necessarily be the person who had the most money in the race or spent the most in the race. It’ll come down, I believe, to their vision for the future of America, their reputation, their organization.”

-Photo Credit: Reuters/Mark Leffingwell  (Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney makes an appearance at Freeway Ford in Denver)

SAN DIEGO - Mitt Romney presents himself as the man to fix the U.S. economy but his determination to do so doesn’t quite stretch to signing up as vice president if his chief rival for the Republican nomination, Sen. John McCain, wins the race.

Campaigning in California, the former Massachussets governor stressed his business acumen in comparison to McCain who he said had shown again and again that the economy was “not his strong suit.”

“I think the other day, by the way, he said he would choose a vice president who had a lot of knowledge about the economy because of his own relative weakness in that area,” Romney told a rally in San Diego.

“But I’ve got some bad news. I’m not available for VP.”

The Harvard-educated former business executive co-founded the private equity firm Bain Capital and has repeatedly portrayed himself as more of an economics expert than McCain, a Vietnam veteran Romney described as “an American hero.”

Romney said it was time for a change in Washington where politicians had failed to address economic challenges for decades. 

“Senator McCain is a fine guy but he’s been there 25 years and if he hasn’t been able to get it done in a quarter of a century, why give him a chance at being president?”

PICTURE: Reuters/Danny Moloshok: Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney thanks supporters in Fountain Valley, California 

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is launching a fightback against attempts to “Swiftboat” him, according to a prominent fellow Democrat who should know such tactics when he sees them.

Losing 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry implored Obama supporters in an e-mail on Tuesday to “stand up and take action” against “Swiftboat style” attacks that he said have already begun against the candidate.

“Some of you may have heard about the disgusting lies about Barack Obama that are being circulated by e-mail,” the Massachusetts senator said. “These attacks smear Barack’s Christian faith and deep patriotism, and they distort his record of more than two decades of public service. They are nothing short of ‘Swiftboat’ style anonymous attacks.”

Kerry’s 2004 campaign was dogged by political opponents called the “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” and their claims questioning his military service on a swiftboat in Vietnam that his campaign was slow to challenge.

“This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election,” said Kerry, who has endorsed Obama.

Among his tips on combating attacks, Kerry urged people to e-mail the truth to their neighbors, post it at work, talk to their neighbors, call their local radio station and write letters to editors.

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-Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Lott (Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John Kerry of Massachussetts during a campaign stop in Charleston, South Carolina on Jan 10)

NEW YORK - Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, self-help guru Deepak Chopra and civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis want some answers from Republican and Democratic White House hopefuls — and they don’t want candidates to play the “race card.” 

The three have sent an open letter to all those still in the race for nomination asking them six questions on issues ranging from diversity to the environment, reducing poverty in America and ending the war in Iraq.

The letter makes an oblique reference to recent tension over race issues between Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, who would be the first woman president if elected, and Barack Obama, who would be the first African-American president.

“Most recently, some have unadvisedly attempted to interject the race card into the Presidential campaign,” the letter reads.

“There are many in the political sphere from time to time that make a reference to the dream and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the important characteristics today about the growing awareness and participation of the ‘hip-hop generation’ of young voters is their transcendent state of mind on the issue of race. In fact, Dr. King believed in ‘the beloved community’ where all human beings are treated equally with mutual respect, justice and love.”

The final question in the letter is: “As President of the United States, how will you exemplify leadership domestically and internationally toward the fulfillment of ‘the beloved community?’”

Simmons and Chavis are co-founders of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a non-profit group that addresses social issues.

The letter promises to post whatever answers they receive on the Internet.

PICTURE: Brendan McDermid/Reuters. Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis pose together just before ringing the opening bell of The NASDAQ Market in New York, 14 June 2006

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - You can’t choose your relatives, as Barack Obama knows. But if you could, he would have picked George Washington or baseball player Willie Mays over Dick Cheney.

Speaking at rally, Obama joked that he had been embarrassed by the news last year that he was a distant cousin of the vice president.

“That was really embarrassing when that news came out,” he said.

“When they do these genealogical surveys you’re hoping you’re related to somebody cool. You want to be related to George Washington or Willie Mays. But Dick Cheney — that’s a let down.”

Obama was greeted by around 3,000 supporters at the rally at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, the day after he narrowly lost the New Hampshire primary to New York senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton.  

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– Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg/ Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks to the crowd at his New Hampshire primary night rally in Nashua