GOP isn't sold on Romney, seeking other options (AP)

WASHINGTON – If polls show one thing with certainty, it's that Republicans aren't sold on Mitt Romney and they've been looking for other presidential candidates.

At least eight other Republicans have seen their standings soar in GOP primary surveys since the beginning of the year.

Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani didn't run. Nor did Donald Trump. And among those who actually got in the race, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and now, Herman Cain all have sat near_ or at — the top of national polls, at least briefly.

The indecisiveness is a reflection on Romney, who hasn't been able to lock up the GOP's support even though he's essentially been running for president since losing his 2008 bid.

Many Republicans know him. They just don't love him.

A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that 64 percent of conservative Republicans viewed Romney favorably but only 20 percent had deeply positive opinions about him.

"The GOP is in a rebellious and ultraconservative mood," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "And," he added, "Mitt Romney is not rebellious."

Or, for that matter, ultraconservative.

Consider that in a Tuesday debate, Romney defended the 2008-2009 Wall Street bailout that irks the tea party and declared that he could work with "good" Democrats. He also gave one of his most spirited defenses of his health care initiative when he was Massachusetts governor, legislation that President Barack Obama has called a partial blueprint for his own national overhaul.

While those positions may make him appealing to a wider swath of Americans in next fall's election, they greatly disturb conservatives who dominate the GOP primary electorate.

And that helps explain why some Republicans have been itching for someone else.

Generally, Republicans say that Romney has more experience and a better chance to beat Obama next fall than anyone else in the field. But those on the party's right flank doubt whether he — more so than other candidates — shares their values.

Conservatives in the potential Republican electorate were deeply divided on that question in a CBS News/New York Times poll early this month. Only 12 percent chose Romney, while nearly half picked Cain (20 percent), Bachmann (18 percent) or Perry (11 percent).

Such divisions have been the most defining factor of the race so far.

It's not just Romney who has failed to solidify his support with the Republican primary electorate. None of the other candidates who have risen in polls has been able to, either.

Until now, Republicans have been bouncing from candidate to candidate — and even some noncandidates — in search of the perfect nominee.

But with the GOP field set and no more people flirting with bids, it's entirely possible that Republicans will rally behind one candidate — perhaps even Romney — between now and January when the first votes are cast.

Indeed, a host of Republicans — 76 percent in a recent CBS-New York Times poll — said it was too early to say who they would support when voting begins in January. Just 19 percent said they had firmly chosen a candidate.

The volatile race is taking place in a dramatically different Republican Party than the one that nominated John McCain — and for much of the 2008 race strongly favored the thrice-married Giuliani.

The GOP fell out of public favor following McCain's loss to Obama. It then rebounded with the growth of the tea party movement, which helped Republicans win control of the House and boost its ranks in the Senate last year.

Today's Republican Party is more conservative.

"The most visible shift in the political landscape since ... 2005 is the emergence of a single bloc of across-the-board conservatives," the Pew Center said earlier this year.

And those conservatives — at least at this point — seem reluctant to continue a trend that's been the hallmark of Republican presidential primaries in recent decades.

The Republican Party usually has chosen a nominee who has been the perceived next in line.

Ronald Reagan lost once before winning the 1980 nomination. George H.W. Bush got beat that year, became Reagan's vice president and won the GOP nod in 1988. Bob Dole lost twice before becoming the party favorite in 1996. And McCain made a strong run at the nomination in 2000 before clinching it eight years later.

This year, it's Romney who is making his second bid.

And, if history is a guide, he's the most likely to end up winning the nomination — even if the all-over-the-map polls don't show it.

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Agiesta is deputy polling director for The Associated Press. Follow her at http://twitter.com/JennAgiesta

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Terror by any other name: Osama eyed name change (AP)

WASHINGTON – As Osama bin Laden watched his terrorist organization get picked apart, he lamented in his final writings that al-Qaida was suffering from a marketing problem. His group was killing too many Muslims and that was bad for business. The West was winning the public relations fight. All his old comrades were dead and he barely knew their replacements.

Faced with these challenges, bin Laden, who hated the United States and decried capitalism, considered a most American of business strategies. Like Blackwater, ValuJet and Philip Morris, perhaps what al-Qaida really needed was a fresh start under a new name.

The problem with the name al-Qaida, bin Laden wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, was that it lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America.

Maybe something like Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad, meaning Monotheism and Jihad Group, would do the trick, he wrote. Or Jama'at I'Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida, meaning Restoration of the Caliphate Group.

As bin Laden saw it, the problem was that the group's full name, al-Qaida al-Jihad, for The Base of Holy War, had become short-handed as simply al-Qaida. Lopping off the word "jihad," bin Laden wrote, allowed the West to "claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam." Maybe it was time for al-Qaida to bring back its original name.

The letter, which was undated, was discovered among bin Laden's recent writings. Navy SEALs stormed his compound and killed him before any name change could be made. The letter was described by senior administration, national security and other U.S. officials only on condition of anonymity because the materials are sensitive. The documents portray bin Laden as a terrorist chief executive, struggling to sell holy war for a company in crisis.

At the White House, the documents were taken as positive reinforcement for President Barack Obama's effort to eliminate religiously charged words from the government's language of terrorism. Words like "jihad," which also has a peaceful religious meaning, are out. "Islamic radical" has been nixed in favor of "terrorist" and "mass murderer." Though former members of President George W. Bush's administration have backed that effort, it also has drawn ridicule from critics who said the president was being too politically correct.

"The information that we recovered from bin Laden's compound shows al-Qaida under enormous strain," Obama said Wednesday in his speech to the nation on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. "Bin Laden expressed concern that al-Qaida had been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that had been killed and that al-Qaida has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam, thereby draining more widespread support."

Bin Laden wrote his musings about renaming al-Qaida as a letter but, as with many of his writings, the recipient was not identified. Intelligence officials have determined that bin Laden only communicated with his most senior commanders, including his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and his No. 3, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, according to one U.S. official. Because of the courier system bin Laden used, it's unclear to U.S. intelligence whether the letter ever was sent.

Al-Yazid was killed in a U.S. airstrike last year. Zawahri has replaced bin Laden as head of al-Qaida.

In one letter sent to Zawahri within the past year or so, bin Laden said al-Qaida's image was suffering because of attacks that have killed Muslims, particularly in Iraq, officials said. In other journal entries and letters, they said, bin Laden wrote that he was frustrated that many of his trusted longtime comrades, whom he'd fought alongside in Afghanistan, had been killed or captured.

Using his courier system, bin Laden could still exercise some operational control over al-Qaida. But increasingly the men he was directing were younger and inexperienced. Frequently, the generals who had vouched for these young fighters were dead or in prison. And bin Laden, unable to leave his walled compound and with no phone or Internet access, was annoyed that he did not know so many people in his own organization.

The U.S. has essentially completed the review of documents taken from bin Laden's compound, officials said, though intelligence analysts will continue to mine the data for a long time.

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Follow Matt Apuzzo at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo

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