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So, how did Sarah Palin do on her big national debut last night...?

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 20, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Would the woman most closely associated with the TSA airport stripsearches make a good presidential candidate? The abortion lobbying group EMILY's List and The Washington Post think so. This month, EMILY's List launched an initiative entitled "Madam President" dedicated to electing the first female president. The group's president, Stephanie Schriock, said she was not placing all her bets on a Hilary Clinton candidacy. "If she chooses not to, our options are far from exhausted," she said. "We have a deep bench of women leaders committed to fighting for progressive change who are up...

The top advisor to last year’s Republican nominee predicted Wednesday that if Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016, she will lose in a Democratic primary. Clinton is widely thought to be the strongest 2016 presidential contender in either party, with high approval ratings and early poll numbers that show her beating top Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio in their home states. But Stu Stevens, the senior advisor to Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid, told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by National Review that Clinton wouldn’t survive a Democratic primary. “I would predict that if Hillary Clinton runs, she’ll lose...

My rule of thumb is that a vast majority of alleged political scandals will have less electoral impact than the conventional wisdom initially holds. There are two main reasons for this. First, voters weigh major issues like economic performance and the conduct of foreign wars heavily in making their decisions, leaving relatively little room for everything else. Second, the news media may overplay the lead story, scandalous or otherwise, on any given day, even though it may turn out to be relatively unimportant in the context of a multiyear political cycle. But the recent admission by the Internal Revenue Service...

And they're off: With no defined field of candidates and the last election just six months in the rearview mirror, American Crossroads on Sunday aired the first attack ad of the 2016 presidential campaign, panning Hillary Clinton for her role in the "cover-up" of an attack last Sept. 11 on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The 90-second paid spot - manufactured by the Karl Rove-founded "super PAC" - was posted Friday online and ran Sunday morning on CBS during a broadcast of "Face the Nation." Previewing the ongoing saga that's likely to haunt Clinton's White House ambitions...

"Everybody knows that she's one of the most experienced candidates we've ever had running for president. She practically doesn't have to say it." So said Time magazine's Joe Klein about Hillary Clinton on Sunday's syndicated Chris Matthews Show (video follows with transcript and commentary): (VIDEO-AT-LINK) JOE KLEIN: But also, they made a decision at that point that a lot of the people in Hillaryland really regret. They went with experience rather than the notion of change. “Hey, he isn't the only change candidate - I'm a woman.” And she never did that. This time, everybody knows that she's one of...

The world of politics occasionally takes some surprising turns. One such turn that is taking place this week is the fact that the mainstream media seems to have finally realized that something wrong happened in Benghazi, that it had nothing to do with a spontaneous protest over a video no one ever saw, and that members of the Obama administration lied about their response to the attack. One would get the impression that a sudden outbreak of journalism had infected the Washington press corps, but I suspect that is not the case.

One of the Democrats’ most veteran strategists warns that the party is “in decline” and “at considerable risk” when President Barack Obama is no longer on the scene. “Since Obama was elected President, the Democrats have lost nine governorships, 56 members of the House and two Senate seats,” Doug Sosnik, the political director in Bill Clinton’s White House, writes in a new memo. While Republican branding problems get the lion’s share of attention, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating has declined by 15 points since Obama took power. A Pew Research Center survey this January showed that the Democratic Party was...

I have not seen it discussed in depth and just wonder what my fellow Freepers think about the 2016 presidential election if Hillary does not run due to Benghazi or any other reason. I'm not saying that she will not get the nomination, but if she does not who do you think might? It seems to me that the Dems do not have a very good field while the Repubs are looking much healthier due to the current crop of young, actually conservative gunslingers.

There is a keen Kennedy-like vigor to Joe Biden that overwhelms any room. As was once said of Theodore Roosevelt, he, too, wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Unlike President Obama, who speaks in interviews with Hemingway-esque sparseness, Biden rambles like Thomas Wolfe, painting a robust picture of an ever-changing America where coal miners will soon be working in clean-tech jobs, gun-safety laws will be tougher and China will be reined in by the White House from poisoning the planet with megatons of choking pollutants. Never before have a president and vice...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is swatting down criticism from GOP ranks that he isn’t conservative enough, saying in an interview airing Friday that he’s a “damn good Republican.” “Is it a fair question to ask that if you ran as a Republican for president of the United States, what Republican Party do you see that would support your candidacy out there right now? How would you survive a primary process on the current set-up of the Republican Party?” NBC’s Brian Williams asked Christie, who is considered to be mulling a 2016 run. “Listen, I think very well. I’ll worry...

When I took Hillary Rodham Clinton to task in January for the mishandling of security in Benghazi, Libya, I told her that if I had been president at the time, I would have relieved her of her post. Some politicians and pundits took offense at my line of questioning. During those hearings, I reminded Mrs. Clinton that multiple requests were sent to the State Department asking for increased security measures. I asked if she had read the cables from Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens asking for increased security. She replied that she was busy and had not read them. I find...

A few days before the hearing, it was disclosed that a top U.S. diplomat had said "everyone" at the consulate thought "from the beginning" that the attack was an act of terror. And even before that, Johnson had reminded citizens at least twice of what Clinton told him about the attack during a Senate committee hearing in January 2013. "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans," Clinton said. "What difference – at this point, what difference does it make?" So that was...

When it first became clear that the CIA’s Benghazi talking points had been altered, many of us viewed the White House as the prime suspect. After all, it served President Obama’s political purposes to claim, at the height of a political campaign in which he was taking credit for the fall of al Qaeda, that the death of a U.S. ambassador was down to spontaneous outrage over a video, rather than pre-planned terrorism. It turns out, however, that the State Department was the prime culprit. It was State that pushed back hard against the original talking points. The White House,...

“Another birther controversy could be brewing for 2016,” MSNBC host Chuck Todd informed on Monday. Though this time aimed at a Republican: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who was born in Canada. While Cruz likely doesn’t face any real eligibility problems, Todd acknowledged, “questions are being asked.” Snip~ How exactly is “natural-born citizen” defined? Since Cruz’s mother was born in the U.S. and his father became a citizen in 2005, Todd explained, going on to list similar scrutiny faced by President Obama, George Romney, and John McCain. “The legal evidence seems to side with Cruz,” Todd argued, “but there is a...

A new Quinnipiac poll comparing potential Democratic candidates for 2016 comes to a familiar conclusion: Hillary Clinton, if she decides to run, would absolutely dominate the competition. The poll has 65 percent of potential Democratic voters picking Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee in 2016. That's in line with multiple recent polls — including from Gallup, PPP, and PublicMind — showing Clinton as the overwhelming favorite in a Democratic primary. What's interesting about the Quinnipiac poll is that it conducted a separate survey in which Clinton was removed from the race. Which Democrats come out on top if Clinton decides...

Many things are possible between now and 2016. Will Dr. Carson become our next President? I hope so. This post at Dancing Czars called to my attention an interview with Dr. Carson. It seemed that it might help to pull my spirits out of the pit where they had been trying to survive since last November so I watched. It did.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhpqWsneAo?feature=player_detailpage] Video linkI also noticed this new video at PJTV and also found it on YouTube. Presented largely by Bill Whittle, it covers some of the same ground but is no less inspiring. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWsqghorkog?feature=player_detailpage] Video linkOur presidential choices...

The Rand Machine Ramps Up by Bob Costa Rand Paul’s chief strategist is leaving his Senate post to run the Kentucky Republican’s political shop. Doug Stafford, who is widely seen as Paul’s closest adviser, will soon resign as chief of staff to manage Paul’s national political operation. Today’s news is the clearest sign yet that Paul, a potential 2016 contender, is building a presidential campaign.

Yesterday, I noted Sen. John McCain’s recent comments, where he lamented: “There are times these days when I feel that I have more in common on foreign policy with President Obama than I do with some in my own party.” Today, my bloggingheads colleague Bill Scher ups the ante, positing the theory that a Rand Paul nomination for president might cause the McCains of the world to jump on the Hillary bandwagon. From his column at The Week, Scher asks: Where might the “new Republican internationalists” go if Paul wins this intra-party battle? Considering that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton...

With just four months under his belt in Washington, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has made clear he isn’t easing into his new job. What’s more, he increasingly appears to have his eye on the next rung up the ladder. Just about everyone in the nation’s capital already has a fully formed opinion of the first-term Republican, who is viewed as either a breath of fresh air for challenging the status quo or a grandstanding iconoclast who favors bombast over legislative achievement. For his part, Cruz seems relatively unconcerned about making friends among his Senate colleagues or deferring to the pleasantries...

WASHINGTON -- It has happened again! Our gaffe-prone president has filed another blunder on his presidential record. At the dedication of George W. Bush's presidential library he invoked history with his usual mastery of detail. He placed President John F. Kennedy in Air Force One, "On the flight back from Russia, after negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War." Actually the flight was returning from Vienna, not "Russia," and not much "negotiating" had been done. Truth be known, it was one of the lowest points in JFK's presidency. As Kennedy himself recalled, "He [Khrushchev] treated me...

During the 2012 election cycle I occasionally ran stories declaring that various Republicans being touted as White House material “will never be president.” Sarah Palin after her narcissistic Gabby Giffords meltdown; Newt Gingrich early in his race-baiting campaign; Mitt Romney after his British Olympics screw-up. I batted 1.000 for that cycle, but it was easy. In 2016, Republicans won’t be facing a Democratic incumbent, so somebody has a shot. I recently wrote that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will never be president, due to his out-of-control anger issues, but candidly, I think that’s my riskiest one yet. I feel no...

Sarah Palin's supporters are urged to contribute money toward recruiting her to run for the U.S. Senate, the Tea Party Leadership Fund said. "We know that, with Sarah in the Senate, conservatives across America can rest a little easier at night knowing she's at the watch," an email from Todd Cefratti of the Leadership Fund, sent this week to supporters, read in part. She would run against incumbent Mark Begich, D-Alaska, the Los Angeles Times noted....

White House spokesman Jay Carney said in response to a question about the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terror attack that it "happened a long time ago."

Gov. Cuomo has quietly told associates that he is resigned to the fact that he can’t run for president in 2016 if Hillary Rodham Clinton enters the race, as is widely expected, sources told The Post. “The governor has told people in recent weeks that there’s not a chance for him to run if Hillary gets in the race because she’ll easily wrap up the Democratic nomination,’’ said a Cuomo administration insider with direct knowledge of the situation. “He knows that and he accepts that, and so he won’t even be thinking at all in those terms — unless Hillary...

Freshman senator Ted Cruz is considering a presidential run, according to his friends and confidants. Cruz won’t talk about it publicly, and even privately he’s cagey about revealing too much of his thought process or intentions. But his interest is undeniable. “If you don’t think this is real, then you’re not paying attention,” says a Republican insider. “Cruz already has grassroots on his side, and in this climate, that’s all he may need.” “There’s not a lot of hesitation there,” adds a Cruz donor who has known the Texan for decades. “He’s fearless.” For the moment, Cruz’s inner circle is...

Acting Deputy Spokesman Patrick Ventrell defended the State Department restricting access to Congress from lower-level staffers directly involved with the Benghazi investigation. Ventrell said that it was "appropriate" for the FBI and the Accountability Review Board to interview the Department employees but that Congress should only have access to their superiors. "Just as you wouldn’t have necessarily a soldier or troops called as witnesses, you have their superior officers, that’s the same practice for the State Department," Ventrell argued. Ventrell went on to say, "I think that these folks want to be able to continue their professional duties and activities,"...

HIGHLANDS, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that President Barack Obama "has kept every promise he's made" about helping the state recover from Superstorm Sandy. Speaking on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program on the 6-month anniversary of the deadly storm, the Republican governor said presidential politics were the last thing on his mind as he toured storm-devastated areas with Obama last fall.

The State Department is blocking local lawyer Victoria Toensing from representing whistleblowers on the 2012 Benghazi attacks, according to her legal partner and husband Joe DiGenova. Teonsing wants to represent such whistleblowers at the upcoming Congressional hearings about the Benghazi case. "The Department of State is refusing to grant clearances to Victoria and other people who want to represent the whistleblowers in an attempt to prevent the testimony," DiGenova said.

After two election cycles with Barack Obama on top, the Democratic Party is looking for a new standard bearer to lead them in the 2016 presidential election against the young and often inexperienced Republican contenders they will likely face, at least when compared to their leading candidates. And if New Hampshire Democrats are any indicator of their national comrades at all, well.. Then they have already made up their minds as to who they want to lead the charge in 2016. According to a survey of 200 Granite State Democrats, with a 7.1% margin of error, former Secretary of State...

There are times when the words "never" and "always" are the only ones that work. In my case, "never" is becoming the word I must use to describe how I feel about certain candidates for high office. For example, I voted four times for a Bush and once for a McCain — something I will never do again. In 1988, it was Bush the elder over Michael Dukakis. In 1992, I resisted the temptation to punish President "Read-My-Lips" by casting my ballot for Ross Perot, knowing that a vote for the pintsized Texas screwball would simply be handing the presidency...

Though currently retired, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still more popular than President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and her successor John Kerry, a new poll has found. According to the Gallup poll, released Tuesday, a whopping 64 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Clinton, putting her nine percentage points ahead of President Obama (55 percent), 19 percentage points ahead of Biden and 20 percentage points ahead of the current Secretary of State John Kerry. Moreover while 13 percent of respondents said they never heard of John Kerry and nine percent of respondents said the...

He doesn't get the attention of the Sunday talk shows, or Washington's political elite, but the Midwest's dragon slayer, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, is emerging in some Republican circles as the surprising favorite to win the GOP nomination for president in 2016. Untainted by scandal, far from Washington's voter-frustrating gridlock, and reinvigorated by his victory over foes who staged a recall vote, the conservative Walker is also viewed as the best candidate to sop up the Midwest white vote which, had Mitt Romney done better there, would have catapulted him into the Oval Office. But the best part in the...

In a dark room somewhere, Hillary Clinton continues to self-medicate her depression with as much alcohol as she can afford. Martin O’Malley is looking distressingly at his empty calendar trying to stay relevant. Andrew Cuomo scours the stores to claim as many bottles of slick hair gel he can. And Joe Biden, lol, poor Joe still thinks he’s got a shot despite most of his party voting base not having a clue of who the hell he is other than the guy that came in with Obama. They’ve all been usurped this week by the events that unfolded in Massachusetts...

There’s something sick about an administration which is so pro-Islamic that it can’t even tell the truth about the people who are trying to kill us,” Mr. Gingrich said ... Mr. Gingrich accused the White House of being unwilling to discuss threats from some Muslims. And he slammed President Barack Obama for mounting a “war” on the Catholic Church over contraception but apologize to Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the burning of Qurans.

Rand Paul, Kentucky’s junior Senator and Tea Party favorite, announced today of his plans to pursue the Republican nomination for President in 2016. Paul announced early Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, that he will be visiting the primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina this summer – the first major candidate to make such an announcement from either side.....

There is a powerful and profound convergence of interest between Team Obama, Team Clinton and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. The prime directive for the leadership strata of Democrats in Washington and the Democratic base nationally is clear and well understood by most national political players, if not yet the political media. This three-stage convergence of interest is as follows: First, the goal is to elect a Democratic House and preserve the Democratic Senate in 2014. This would effectively power-start a third term for President Obama that would begin after the election of a Democratic House and Senate...

'We'll have to see what the Howard students thought,' Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul shouted from an elevator Wednesday afternoon, answering MailOnline's question about whether his foray into winning the hearts and minds of black youths was successful. Paul, a Republican darling who is already laying the groundwork for a 2016 presidential run with a coming appearance in New Hampshire, had just wrapped up a two-hour appearance at the Howard University School of Business. Howard is among the U.S. colleges classified as 'historically black,' and the audience of approximately 300 included few white faces apart from those belonging to reporters. (VIDEO...

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. showed up late at an event last week, saying he was delayed because “the president keeps those meetings going longer.” But he walked into a Hillary Clinton crowd. Outside, supporters hoisted signs urging her to run for president. Inside, she was greeted as a hero. Not that Mr. Biden was an afterthought. He had plenty of friends in the room. But at the Kennedy Center, where women’s achievements were being honored by an organization Mrs. Clinton helped found, even Mr. Biden recognized that the best applause line belonged to her. “There’s no woman like...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul will attempt to sell the Republican Party to the students of Howard University Wednesday, making his first visit to a historically black university as part of an effort to reach out to youth and minority voters. As we reported last week, Paul's speech will focus on the history of African Americans within the Republican Party, as well as economic opportunity, school choice, civil liberties, and reforming drug laws — issues that Paul believes will resonate with his audience of young, predominantly black students. "Some of the speech ... will be about economic opportunity, how I think...

PLEASE don’t ask me this anymore. It’s such a silly question. Of course Hillary is running. I’ve never met a man who was told he could be president who didn’t want to be president. So naturally, a woman who’s told she can be the first commandress in chief wants to be. “Running for president is like sex,” James Carville told me. “No one ever did it once and forgot about it.” Joe Biden wants the job. He’s human (very). But he’s a realist. He knows the Democratic Party has a messianic urge to finish what it started so spectacularly with...

No one is more preoccupied these days with Hillary Clinton's 2016 plans than the Beltway political class—not even the former presidential candidate herself. To hear some tell it, her decision will be dispositive for all other Democrats thinking of entering the race. And pundits and reporters aren't the only ones positing the "The Hillary Factor": No less than the House Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer, told BuzzFeed, “I don't know that anybody would run against Hillary…. If she runs, she clears the field.” It's an understandable conclusion, given Clinton's stature in the Democratic Party and her 70 percent national job approval...

Lady Gaga has been named as the most popular women on web. COED Magazine has compiled a list based on Google search results, sporting some surprises-Justin Bieber comes in at No. 7, ABC News reported. The list also includes Washington's famous women like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at No. 18, first lady Michelle Obama at No. 21 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at No. 32. Here are the top 50: 1. Lady Gaga 2. Kesha 3. Madonna 4. Beyoncé 5. Rihanna 6. Britney Spears 7. Justin Bieber 8. Miley Cyrus 9. Paris Hilton 10. Avril Lavigne....

Hillary Clinton left the State Department nearly two months ago, but she still needs a staff to keep up with the considerable business of being Hillary Clinton. A half-dozen people now work for the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate in a tiny corporate space on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, in what is called her "transition office." Transition to what, Mrs. Clinton and her aides have not yet said. But the question hovers over her every move and has frozen in place the very early -but for some potential candidates, very important - presidential maneuvering on the Democratic...

Lady M is in the headlines again today: enough of the fashion icon, entertainer, (“The Evolution of Mom Dancing”) cover girl. Lady M is getting serious. Rumors abound that she is getting pressure to run for the Senate in 2016. Butt trust me, Senate? I don’t think so. She’s way more serious than that: there’s going to be an opening in the Big White that year, if I’m not mistaken. So maybe that’s why we decided to go to church as a family yesterday, once the Wee Wons returned to the nest after completing their Spring Break East and Spring Break...

Recently reporter Thomas Edsall - who has spent most of the last 30 years covering politics for the Washington Post and the New Republic - had some advice for the GOP. He draws upon some recent polling data to argue that "the Republican Party can afford to marginalize . . . Christian right leaders because evangelical social conservatives . . . are not going to vote Democratic." Thus, he reasons that Republicans can, as he puts it, "concede defeat in the culture war" in the hopes of picking up more socially liberal voters. Mr. Edsall might want to check with...

If as has been widely suggested, CPAC 2013 marked a paradigm change, a generational change, a new direction of conservatism, it is possible to speculate that someone who fits the new paradigm could be president in 2016. Among them: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, all of whom starred at the Conservative Political Action Conference. For any one of these, the perfect choice for vice president should be David Petraeus. Patraeus always wanted to be president. He still does. His admission to an extramarital affair was timed to the...

As bleak as things look for the GOP in the short-term (and they do look bleak), it’s stunning to consider the entirely possible scenario whereby Republicans could control the presidency and both houses of Congress in the very near future. Consider this: As Romney learned, history says it’s difficult to defeat a sitting president in the modern era. But it is arguably even harder for a political party to win three consecutive presidential elections. Only George H.W. Bush (who was essentially awarded Reagan’s third term) has pulled it off in the last fifty, or so, years. And that’s just what...

You gotta hand it to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for always being so optimistic about how the Democratic Party will one day rule the world. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz tweeted that @BGTX Congrats on #GameOnFortWorth! Only a matter of time and hard work until #TX is #blue! #countdowntoblue #teameffort.”

No kidding. How the tables have turned: Team GOP has a whole roster of savvy, fresh-faced up-and-comers, while the Democrats’ bench is looking decidedly less dynamic and their best bets lying in generation old school. That’s not to say another super-candidate couldn’t come out of the woodwork somewhere between now and the next campaign cycle, but it looks like the top tier currently consists of Clinton and Joe Biden — and if I were a Democrat, I would be leaning heavily on Hillary. The last election made me wary of dismissing or underestimating anyone, but when I try to imagine...