Free Republic

Last night, Freedom Radio spoke with Combat Vet for Congress and conservative Republican candidate for Idaho's 1st District Vaughn Ward. Ward's 18 years of experience of public service includes: service with the Marines on missions in Liberia, Cuba, Japan, Korea and as a company commander in Iraq; as an Operations Officer with the CIA in the Middle East, Africa, and Washington, DC; and as a Legislative Aide on Senator Kempthorne’s staff where he worked on commerce, defense, energy, transportation, and veteran’s issues for the people of Idaho. He is running against first-term incumbent and self-proclaimed blue dog Democrat Walt Minnick....

Dr. Rand Paul, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, explained his position on taxes, government spending, the drug abuse epidemic, welfare and other government benefits during an exclusive interview with the Times-Tribune, just hours before his appearance at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg. Initially, Dr. Paul addressed drug abuse in rural Kentucky. As a doctor, he immediately zeroed in on more vigilant policing of doctors who recklessly write prescriptions. He asked, “Are they being disciplined? I’m a doctor and occasionally I’ll get notification from the medical licensure board of people who are having their licenses suspended.” Referencing a recent...

Peter Schiff's campaign website has been repeatedly targeted by cyber attackers, his brother and spokesman said this afternoon. The campaign has notified the FBI. Schiff, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, had planned a "moneybomb'' -- a one-day online fundraising blitz -- for today, but just minutes before midnight, when the moneybomb was set to start, the website went down, his brother, Andrew Schiff, said. "These are coordinated attacks,'' Andrew Schiff said in a brief phone interview. It wasn't the first time the website has been hit, Andrew Schiff said. The campaign had been targeted several times in the past...

During two heated Democratic challenges, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park was targeted by millions of dollars in TV ads painting him as a far right Republican in his north suburban district. Much of the time, it was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paying for and writing those ads. Kirk spent millions of dollars himself on ads to cultivate a moderate, independent brand in the 10th District. Now it seems the DCCC agrees with him. DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen said during a C-SPAN interview Sunday that Kirk is a "moderate," contradicting his own organizations efforts to paint him...

Certainly Democrats can try to comfort themselves with the Wall Street mantra that "past performance is no guarantee of future results." But as they recover from a troubling 2009 election season, the party in power in Washington faces a lot of reasons for concern about the 2010 horizon...

NPR is wringing its hands . . . with good reason. Let's look at their list of Senate races and see how much good news is there for the Dems. Democratic leader Harry Reid is woefully unpopular in Nevada. Six Republicans are competing for the chance to topple him the way GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota did to then-Democratic leader Tom Daschle in 2004. RCP has both Republicans Lowden and Tarkanian beating Reid. Let's keep track. So far we are R-1, D-0.

Ok, I hear around Free Republic those who argue "the GOP is hopeless, Conservatives got to form a third party". Now without debating the merits of if a third party is, or is not, the route to go for Conservatives, tell me what you put in the political platform of such a replacement party? Think of it this way. You are actually writing the plank to put in the platform, what do you personally want put in there?

Scott Brown knows he faces an uphill battle as a Republican seeking to fill Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat. Until last week, when Jack E. Robinson filed nomination papers, Brown was the only member of the GOP seeking the seat, which is also the goal of four Democrats. Although the seat has been in Democratic hands since the 1950s, and more than a decade has passed since Massachusetts voters sent a Republican to Congress, Brown, one of just five Republicans in the state Senate, said there is no inevitability to a Democrat victory. “This isn’t a Democratic seat; it’s a...

A personal crisis put Mark Shurtleff's political aspirations on hold, as the attorney general abandoned his bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Wednesday to help care for a troubled daughter. "The Senate race has to give. My family has to come first. My daughter has to come first," Shurtleff said. The departure of the strongest challenger to U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett unexpectedly jolted the GOP Senate field and created an opening in the still-fluid race that may be seized by any of several potential candidates. "I do think there will be some others who will take a...

Of all the numbers swirling around this week Capitol Hill this week – health care whip counts, CBO estimates, winning and losing margins in Virginia, New York and New Jersey– one stands out from the rest: 10.2 percent. That’s the national unemployment rate. And lawmakers from both parties know that, if it doesn’t go down dramatically before next November, they could be adding to it themselves. “I think anytime unemployment is high and people are concerned about their jobs, the economy, incumbents on both sides of the aisle need to be concerned,” Republican Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said Friday. “What...

(Washington, D.C.) -- Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) predicted on Thursday that there will be a constitutional challenge to the provision in the health care bill under consideration in Congress that would require all Americans to buy health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government has never before mandated that Americans purchase any good or service. When asked by CNSNews.com on Thursday where in the Constitution is Congress given the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance, McCain said, “That is an excellent question and I’m sure that if they pass health care legislation, I think there...

Elections to the United States Senate will be held on November 2, 2010, with at least 37 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate being contested. Senate Contests in 2010 State Name Party AK Lisa Murkowski Republican AL Richard Shelby Republican AR Blanche Lincoln Democratic AZ John McCain Republican CA Barbara Boxer Democratic CO Michael Bennet Democratic CT Chris Dodd Democratic DE A Ted Kaufman Democratic FL George LeMieux Republican GA Johnny Isakson Republican HI Daniel Inouye Democratic IA Chuck Grassley Republican ID Mike Crapo Republican IL Roland Burris Democratic IN Evan Bayh Democratic KS Sam Brownback Republican KY Jim...

North Dakota Republican state legislators and officials have had no better luck than anyone else in prodding Gov. John Hoeven for hints about whether he'll run against Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan next year. Four GOP lawmakers who raised the subject in a meeting with Hoeven in his Capitol office last week said the governor gave them no hints about his plans, although one participant said he believes Hoeven will make the race. "I think he feels a responsibility to do it," said Rep. Craig Headland, R-Montpelier. "Maybe I'm a little optimistic in my thinking, but I do believe he's giving...

DO IT! Now is the time. Any opinions!?

After pumping more than $1 million into an upstate New York House race to elect the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman, the Club for Growth is on the hunt again. Chris Chocola, president of the conservative political action committee, made it clear the PAC is looking for more GOP targets who don’t embrace the Club’s limited-government approach. Priority No. 1 is likely to be the Senate contest in Florida, where Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who embraced President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, is being challenged by former State House Speaker Marco Rubio. . . . . . Beyond Florida, other establishment Republicans...

Lessons from Virginia for the GOP By Ed Gillespie Thursday, November 5, 2009 After losing Virginia's governorship for the first time in eight years, some Democrats are trying to console themselves that Virginia is at its core a "red" state. This ignores not only that they won back-to-back governorships but also that Democrats defeated a sitting senator in 2006, took control of the state Senate in 2007 and won an open Republican Senate seat and three House seats in 2008 while carrying Virginia's electoral college votes for the first time since 1964. Some in the White House are trying to...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Gov. Charlie Crist is saying he did not endorse the $787 billion federal stimulus bill, a statement that might confuse some voters. Crist appeared with President Barak Obama in February to support the bill, asked Florida members of Congress to vote for it and previously told The Associated Press that he would have voted for it if he had been in the Senate. But when the Republican governor talked about the bill Wednesday on CNN, he said he didn't endorse it. Crist told CNN he understood that the bill was going to pass and wanted to...

PRINCETON, NJ -- The 2010 election cycle begins in a political climate that is shaping up to be not as favorable to the Democratic Party as the 2006 and 2008 elections were. Having capitalized on broad public discontent with the course of the nation in general and the Republican Party in particular to win control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the party faces the 2010 midterm elections trying to preserve its recent gains.Gallup's generic congressional ballot provides a summary measure of current voting intentions for Congress. This currently suggests the 2010 midterm elections could be highly...

We are proud to endorse Chuck DeVore for U.S. Senate in California. Chuck DeVore is a proven, tested conservative who is gaining momentum. He’s the kind of leader we can count on to stand up for common sense conservative principles in the United States Senate. The Senate Conservatives Fund recently conducted an online poll of our members to see which candidate in California they supported. With 2,688 total votes cast, Chuck DeVore was the clear winner with 90% of the vote. We’ve examined DeVore’s record and interviewed him in person. We are confident that Chuck DeVore is ready to come...

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the countdown clock

Kentucky could be the next state to host a race where the GOP's grassroots rebels against the party establishment. Rand Paul, the son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, has pulled into the lead in the Kentucky Senate race in a new SurveyUSA poll, ahead of the establishment favorite, Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Paul now leads Grayson by three points, 35 to 32 percent, the first time he’s led any poll in the Kentucky race so far. It’s not the first sign that Paul stands a credible chance at an upset: Paul raised over $1 million in the last...

Please post your prdeictions here.

Their candidate lost in the end, but for many in the rapidly expanding "tea party" movement, this fall's special House race in upstate New York was a "training ground" that taught its cadre of loosely organized grass-roots activists how to challenge both major parties and has only whetted the movement's appetite for the 2010 midterm elections. Tea party foot soldiers fueled Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's meteoric rise that drove liberal Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race, giving the anti-tax, anti-spending activists their first real victory. But the ballot-box clout of the movement remains a question mark after...

Up shot of article (my snap translation):--Obama in a painful situation, because just one year ago, he took these states. Now, tonight, they fell to the Republicans.--It seems that with the election of the 2 Republicans and defeat of Obama, his prized "Health Care" program is in jeopardy.--The results show the sentiment of the American People in those states toward Obama and is a reflection of what might be expected a year from now in the 2010 midterm elections.--Obama had quite a year in Virginia (in 2008), which did not go for a Democrat for President in 44 years, and...

The Republican party in Kentucky has never seen anything like it. Bowling Green eye doctor Rand Paul has no political experience, but with the support of the same people who backed his Dad - Texas Congressman Ron Paul when he ran for president,, Rand Paul has now at least pulled even with Secretary of State Trey Grayon in the GOP U.S. Senate primary. 32% Grayson 35% Paul 2% Johnson 1% Oerther 3% Thoney 10% Other 18% Undecided In fact, the WHAS11/Survey USA poll has Paul ahead of Grayson by three percentage points - with a 4.1 percent margin of error....

Borrowing from Ron Paul, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson kicked off a "money bomb" today, and by his telling, it's going really well. As of 4 p.m., Grayson's Web site shows $433,000 has been collected, exceeding a stated goal of $400,000.

U.S. Sen. John McCain said Friday that Americans are in the toughest times he can remember and that President Barack Obama hasn't brought the change in Washington that he promised. The Arizona Republican spoke at a town hall Friday to a couple hundred people at Mesa's Central Christian Church, reiterating many of the same arguments he's made in recent similar events. McCain took to the stage with standing ovations and an aim to address key issues affecting Arizonans, such as the economy, health care reform, the war in Afghanistan, among other things.

MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Sen. John McCain says Americans are in the toughest times he can remember and that President Barack Obama hasn't brought the change in Washington that he promised. McCain spoke at a town hall Friday to a couple hundred people in a Mesa church, reiterating many of the same points he's made in recent similar events.

Sounding more like an independent than a Democrat, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., tells ABC News he will campaign for some Republican candidates during the 2010 midterm elections and may not seek the Democratic Senate nomination when he runs for re-election in 2012. "I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the election in 2010. I'm going to call them as I see them," Lieberman said in an ABC News "Subway Series" interview aboard the U.S. Capitol Subway System. Lieberman infuriated fellow Democrats in 2008 by supporting Republican presidential nominee John McCain as well as congressional candidates...

With mid-term elections just slightly more than a year from now, 2010 may be one of the most satisfying years since 1994 for practicing conservatives. To begin with, conservatives, or at least Republicans, should be able to take government out of the hands of reckless liberals, especially in the U.S. House. What a celebration there will be if the GOP is able to send Nancy Pelosi back to the swamp from whence she came! Said swamp, by the way, even more polluted today than when the bug eyed knot head from San Francisco took over with her foolish promise to...

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's lead over his Democratic primary rival, Rep. Joe Sestak, has dwindled since summer, according to a Franklin and Marshall College poll conducted Oct. 20 to 25. The survey found Specter ahead of Sestak by 12 points, 30 percent to 18 percent, but 47 percent said they were undecided. In a similar poll from the end of August, Specter led Sestak by a larger margin, 37 percent to 11 percent, among polled registered Democrats. Matched against likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey, a former congerssman, the latest poll of 529 registered voters put Specter in the lead by...

Rand Paul supporters have turned the cameras on an opposition research tracker, presumably from the Trey Grayson campaign, who was videotaping Paul flipping pancakes at a charity breakfast. Watch the YouTube video here. The tracker remains stonefaced and concentrates on his own video camera as a Paul supporter attempts to interview him and provide him breakfast.

AUSTIN, Texas — Former Vice President Dick Cheney will throw his support behind U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign for Texas governor. Hutchison’s campaign confirmed today that Cheney will endorse the Texas Republican’s March primary challenge of Gov. Rick Perry at a fundraiser next month.

He couldn't possibly be doing this for selfish political reasons, could he? If so, it makes you wonder how he thinks screwing over the elderly with $500 billion in Medicare cuts, forcing people to buy insurance as a condition of being alive in the United States (or face a fine and jail time), and saddling individuals and businesses with $400 billion in new taxes is a good move for a reelection bid. But that is exactly what some Democrats are wondering.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) —Nevada Republicans who supported Ron Paul in last year's GOP presidential contest announced a political action committee Monday to oppose the U.S. Senate bid of former state party chairwoman Sue Lowden. Robert Holloday, spokesman for the Fair Nevada Elections PAC, said Lowden's handling of last year's state convention when delegate selections were stopped amounted to betrayal. "Sue Lowden's leading role in improperly halting the delegate election disqualifies her for any position of trust in government," Holloday said. "Our group hopes to raise awareness of the dismal record of Sue Lowden and to oppose her election to...

Eighty years ago this Thursday, the Great Depression began. While the great stock market crash of 1929 actually began on Oct. 24, it was the fourth day of the crash, Oct. 29, 1929, now known as Black Tuesday, that confirmed the severity of the four-day decline and alerted the world to the fact that not all was well with the U.S. economy. Those who appreciate historical rhythm will probably be aware that the most intense part of the subsequent depression was the four years from 1930 through 1933 that Milton Friedman described as the Great Contraction. Although 1929 marked the...

Marco Rubio capitalizes on a photo of Charlie Crist hugging Barack Obama. BY CARLOS MILLER Marco Rubio has less political experience than Charlie Crist. And he hasn’t raised nearly as much money in his run against the governor for U.S. Senate. And he still lags behind the governor in polls leading up the November race. But he hasn’t hugged Barack Obama. And that just may be his ace in the hole. The former republican House Speaker has seized on a February photo that shows Crist hugging Obama as to why he is the better candidate. And it appears to be...

Registered Independents: did you know in most states the primaries are NOT open. You can't help get a conservative elected because the rinos in the republican party will vote for the liberal candidate. IF you really want to get a conservative in office get yourself re-registered as a Republican for the primary election in 2010 to get this job done. I know your are upset with the rinos that have been elected by the republican party, but we probably can't change the demographics unless you come back. In 2010 let's kick the crap out of RINOs! Info on open primaries-http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1801

WASHINGTON -- The national debate among Republicans over their party's future is nowhere sharper than in South Carolina, where Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint pursue distinctly different visions for restoring GOP primacy at the polls. Graham and DeMint, who profess to be friends and live within an hour's drive of each other in the conservative Upstate, prescribe conflicting cures for the Republican ailments that led to sweeping defeats in the last two national elections. Graham, a Seneca Republican elected to his second term last year, says the party must stop alienating young people and Hispanics and start promoting pragmatic,...

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that after controlling the state for years, the Ohio GOP got slaughtered in 2006 and again in 2008. In addition to losing the state's top offices, the party lost a U.S. Senator, four U.S. House seats and its majority in the Ohio House of Representatives over the past four years. But timing is everything in politics, and Ohio once again looks like a barnburner in next year's midterm elections.

Attorney Roxanne Conlin (D) is saying that she is “more likely than not” going to challenge Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2010. Conlin, the losing Democratic nominee for governor in 1982 and a former president of the trial lawyers’ national association, on Thursday told the Des Moines Register, “I don’t know how this is going to come together, but I have reached the point where I would like to do it.” Democratic leaders are promising a vigorous challenger for Grassley, who has won all four of his Senate re-election bids with at least 66 percent of the vote against weak...

Senate Republican campaign chief John Cornyn (Texas) turned his eye toward New York this week, and on Thursday he expressed confidence the GOP could go after Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in 2010. New York has emerged as perhaps the next big recruiting target for Cornyn. Candidates have flooded primaries in other races, but all eyes in New York are on Gov. George Pataki, who could decide as early as the next two weeks.

Shortly before Super Bowl XXII, Clint Didier had a dream that his team, the Washington Redskins would be down, but come back to win, and that he would catch a touchdown pass. That dream came true. Later that year, Didier dreamed that he would no longer be with the the Redskins and watch from afar as they played in another Super Bowl. That dream also came true. Now, Clint dreams of going back to Washington, D.C., this time as a U.S. Senator, to rein in what he sees as a government out of countrol. Disgusted at the confirmation of Obama...

U.S. Senate Candidate Rand Paul is responding to a comment made on WYMT's Issues and Answers program. During a show that will air Monday night, Secretary of State Trey Grayson accused Paul of not being a Kentuckian. Paul said, "I've been a Kentuckian longer than Grayson's been a republican."

Combing through Colorado GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton’s campaign filings this week, Congressional Quarterly finds Rick Davis among the many notables on the impressive Norton donor list, a collection of interested parties that generated a cool half million dollars in 16 days. Who is Rick Davis? Grassroots Colorado Republicans not in the know already will be interested to learn he was an adviser to John McCain during last year’s failed presidential bid. Davis is yet another McCain connection for Norton, who has been taking heat from state conservatives as a doomed McCain-driven national party pick since even before she announced...

Both men seeking the Republican nomination to become Florida’s next U.S. senator lead their likely Democratic opponent by double digits. A new Rasmussen Reports survey of Florida voters shows Governor Charlie Crist leading Representative Kendrick Meek by a 46% to 34% margin. In August, Crist led by 19 and in June he was ahead by 21. Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio leads Meek by a similar margin, 46% to 31%. In August, Rubio led by 13 percentage points. Crist currently holds a 49% to 35% lead over Rubio among likely Republican Primary voters.

The Republican Party is in search of a message to attract voters who are angry with just about everything — healthcare, the U.S. deficit, Wall Street bonuses, increased unemployment and home foreclosures to mention a few. “There’s a lot of anger out there and there’s a lot of frustration,” said Republican Senator John McCain, who was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama for president last year. Thousands of people are turning up at townhall meetings and “tea party” protests against government policies, he noted. “So there’s something going on out there. And I’d love to sit here and tell you that...

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain said on Wednesday his party needed a positive agenda to better attract those Americans who are disenchanted with Democratic policies. McCain said he sensed "a lot of anger and a lot of frustration" among Americans over taxpayer-backed bailouts of banks and auto companies while they cope with a persistently high U.S. jobless rate of 9.8 percent and see bank executives get "obscene" bonuses. McCain, who was his party's presidential nominee and lost the 2008 election to Democrat Barack Obama, spoke to a Reuters Summit in a roundtable interview with journalists.

As 2010 approaches, Democrats are on the ropes. So once again, those vaunted Republican "moderates" are attempting to come to their rescue.Our nation is coming apart at the seams, and Barack Obama is proving to be absolutely inept, or worse, at dealing with the situation. Instead of honestly assessing things and advancing solutions conceived in the best interests of the American people, he presses mindlessly forward with his ultra-liberal agenda, ignoring or deriding those who make any effort to forestall his destruction of the great institutions of this country. In league with him are the leading players of the Congress,...

The first campaign finance report filed by former Colorado Lt. Gov. Jane Norton (R), who is running for the Senate in 2010, reads like a who’s who of GOP officeholders past and present, strategists and lobbyists. Prominent Republicans in Colorado and Washington, D.C., helped Norton raise $510,000 in less than one month for her campaign to defeat appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D).