Free Republic

Republican leaders, searching for a fair-minded but strategically wise way to conduct the presidential primary debates, are grappling with how to manage White House contenders in a sprawling field that mixes proven politicians with provocateurs and reflects an increasingly fractious party.The Republican National Committee’s decision last year to claim control of the 2016 debate process was welcomed by many in the party who believe that Mitt Romney, the 2012 nominee, was hurt by both the pummeling and the positions he took during the 20 debates in that primary contest.But by trying to impose order through party-sanctioned debates and limiting the...

How quickly can Dr. Ben Carson get up to speed on the details of the complex policy issues that command a president’s attention? That’s the make-or-break question surrounding Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon who had never run for office before announcing a presidential bid last week, and who remains a rookie in most policy realms other than health care. For those who wonder whether Carson has done his policy homework, the bad news is that Carson’s campaign team has few staffers specifically focused on hammering out a detailed policy agenda for the campaign. Carson hasn’t yet assembled a “kitchen cabinet” of...

Tough job, but somebody has to do it. For the 44th year in a row, the American Conservative Union has released its annual Congressional ratings for lawmakers who either uphold conservative values - or find them akin to kryptonite. The ratings have become a kind of gold standard, the organization says, in holding every member of Congress accountable for their voting record - and their support of limited government, prosperity, individual freedom and traditional values. “There are several takeaways from ACU’s 2014 Rating of Congress,” says Matt Schlapp, chairman of the group. “First, the liberals in Congress tend to vote...

So apparently Scott Walker took a quiet trip to Israel this week and we are only finding out about it via his Twitter account: Great 1st day in Israel yesterday @ Western Wall, Mount of Olives, Church of the Holy Sepulchure & Via Dolorosa .....[SNIP]..... Thanks @netanyahu for the meeting. Our democracies share common values & work to confront shared threats -skw .....[SNIP].... Enjoy your trip Governor. Tell Netanyahu to forgive us for Obama and that he has our support.

The media’s conventional wisdom is that Mike Huckabee, a onetime winner of the Iowa caucuses, doesn’t have much of a shot in 2016. So why are some pundits and news outlets suddenly attacking him if he’s just an asterisk? The answer is that the former Arkansas governor and ex-Fox News contributor will matter, at least in the early states. And beyond that, some conservatives have a visceral dislike for the guy—and especially for his passionate defense of entitlement programs.

KWQC anchor David Nelson fell for a fake story that first appeared on the website National Report saying presidential candidate Ted Cruz thought the office of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon should be like the Girl Scouts and sell cookies for funding.He deleted the tweet, but not before Amanda Carpenter, communications director for Cruz saw it and called him out.

It took Republicans three tries to win control of the US Senate and consolidate Congress under their leadership. In the end, the landscape left by the 2008 Democratic triumph left them uniquely vulnerable in the sixth-year midterm of an unpopular presidency. The tables will turn in 2016, warns National Journal’s Charlie Cook, as the gains of 2010 will make Republicans highly vulnerable to losing control of the Senate once again: Today, The Cook Political Report puts two Republican-held seats in the “Toss Up” category—the open seat in Florida and Kirk in Illinois. That toss-up column will certainly grow as...

Likely GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush says he will try to convince grassroots groups of parents who oppose the Common Core standards to flip-flop and embrace the education initiative. When Megyn Kelly of Fox News Channel’s The Kelly File observed how unpopular the Common Core initiative is with grassroots conservatives in particular, Bush responded: “Common Core means a lot of things to different people, so they could be right, based on what’s in front of them…but the simple fact is we need higher standards; they need to be state-driven. The federal government should play no role in this – either...

Lotta buzz about this in the political Twittersphere this afternoon. I can’t figure out why. The likely Republican presidential candidate will instead attend a competing event, the RedState Gathering in Atlanta, the day of the Iowa event, GOP sources in Iowa told The Des Moines Register Tuesday. A spokesman for Bush confirmed the report…

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's comments last month opposing legal immigration came as a shock. How could a man who until a little over month ago was even willing to consider a path to citizenship for undocumented workers pull such an "Olympic-quality flip-flop"? But the real story is not Walker's switcheroo, but the conservative punditocracy's switcheroo that paved the way for his. Walker, who is fast sprinting into the first place for the Republican presidential nomination, told Glenn Beck recently that "The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that's based, first and...

The ties between the Clintons and the Spanish language television network run deep When former President Bill Clinton took center stage at Univision’s upfront presentation for advertisers and the media on Tuesday, it marked more than just one of his many paid appearances. The relationship between the Clintons and Univision is deep — from owner Haim Saban’s unabashed support for Hillary Clinton’s election effort to a partnership between Univision and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, to the network’s newscasts that have bashed Republicans and, most recently, praised Hillary’s new position on immigration — putting her squarely in line...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/05/ted-cruz-election-2016-political-goat

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, is coming to South Carolina on May 27, a campaign official said Tuesday. No details are available on a place or time for Clinton’s visit — her first stop in the Palmetto State since announcing her White House bid a month ago. The visit also will be the first time Clinton has come to South Carolina since her 2008 presidential campaign, a campaign official confirmed.

The headlines I’ve seen this morning about this exchange claim that Bush said he wouldn’t rescind Obama’s executive action “right away,” which is sort of true. What Jeb said is that he’d rescind the amnesty as part of a deal with Congress on immigration. That won’t happen on day one of his presidency, so yeah, technically O’s order would remain intact for at least a few months while President Bush works out the details of the new bill with the House and Senate. But focusing on the timing misses the point of what Jeb’s implying: If Republicans in Congress refuse...

MADISON (AP) — The state Democratic Party has paid for a series of billboards demanding Republican Gov. Scott Walker return to Wisconsin...... ....Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate announced Monday that the party has paid for billboards in Milwaukee and Green Bay that call on Walker to return to Wisconsin, accept federal money to expand Medicaid — a move the governor has steadfastly refused and get back to work for the state."

"With Dues Depleted, three AFSCME Councils Merge" Here: Wisconsin’s three AFSCME councils are merging four years after the state rolled back public-sector union rights, prompting two out of three dues-paying members to drop out.

This weekend, a dozen Republican presidential hopefuls showed up at the South Carolina Freedom Summit. They were there to court primary voters who will winnow the presidential field next February. Judging from the speeches, it’s going to be an ugly race. What the candidates are selling, and primary voters are buying, is vituperation against people who don’t look, talk, or pray like the Republican base.............. [SNIP of stuff that sounds good to me - Santorum was on fire] ...............Mexicans, Muslims, gays, rats, roaches. Christian superiority, military contempt for the president, and gauntlets thrown down to queer-loving CEOs. It’s going to...

Former California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring will serve as chairman of 2016 GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s campaign in the Golden State. Nehring, 44, of El Cajon, unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor last year against incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom. He was the state GOP’s chairman from 2007 to 2011, leading a robust fundraising program to pull the party out of debt; he also chaired the Republican National Committee’s State Chairmen’s committee during those years. Earlier, he chaired the Republican Party of San Diego from 2001 to 2007. Cruz “is an exciting, Reaganite candidate for president who has demonstrated the...

Hillary Rodham Clinton calls them “everyday Americans.” Scott Walker prefers “hardworking taxpayers.” Rand Paul says he speaks for “people who work for the people who own businesses.” Bernie Sanders talks about “ordinary Americans.” The once ubiquitous term “middle class” has gone conspicuously missing from the 2016 campaign trail, as candidates and their strategists grasp for new terms for an unsettled economic era. The phrase, long synonymous with the American dream, now evokes anxiety, an uncertain future and a lifestyle that is increasingly out of reach. The move away from “middle class” is the rhetorical result of a critical shift: After...

Team Hillary is pushing Julian Castro as her VP nominee. “The Republicans are making a big push for the Hispanic vote, so that makes Castro an obvious pick.” Julian Castro, and his twin brother, Congressman Joaquin, were early backers of 2008 Clinton......the odds of Mrs. Clinton picking another woman for the ticket are “zero” .... which eliminates Wendy Davis, the liberal darling of Texas Democrats. --SNIP--That leaves Julian Castro. At just 40 years old, he’s a a two-term mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and is Obama’s HUD Secy. The Castro brothers — twins born to a single mother whose grandmother...