Free Republic

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, popular with conservatives and libertarians in the GOP, said Wednesday he is considering a presidential campaign in 2016 but will not make a decision before next year. Paul said at a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor that he wants to be part of the national debate and said that remaining open to a presidential bid would give him a broad audience on a number of policy issues. …

Rick Santorum appears to be eyeing the White House again, with the former Pennsylvania senator telling Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg that he may run for president in 2016. “I’m certainly leaving the door open for that,” Santorum revealed on “The Steve Malzberg Show” Wednesday afternoon. … “The same advisors who botched these last two campaigns are now saying, ‘Well, you know, since we can’t win with moderate Republicans, we have to now try to be liberal Republicans to win instead of standing up for the values that made our country great,’” he said. …

Last week former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades and two young Republican sharpshooters, Tim Miller and Joe Pounder, announced they would set up a new organization, America Rising, devoted to the collection, dissemination and deployment of opposition research against Democrats and a counterpart to the hugely successful American Bridge on the left. [snip]

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said his new book, “Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution,” is aimed at conservatives who might have a hard time embracing the increasingly important path-to-citizenship issue. Bush appeared Sunday in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to talk about what has been described as a flip flop on his previous position of enabling undocumented workers to become U.S. citizens. …

"My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience." It was close to midnight on Jan. 20, 2009, and I was about to go to sleep when my iPhone beeped. There was a new text message. It was from Richard Holbrooke. It said, "Are you up, can you talk?" When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. "No one knows this yet. Don't tell anyone. Well, maybe...

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a potential candidate for president in 2016, offered a non-committal response as to whether he backs Hillary Clinton for president. … (Cuomo:) “That’s a long way away. We just elected a president. … There’s no doubt that she’s incredibly popular, she’s got incredible support. … She’s going to have to make her decision.” …

He’ll push to loosen marijuana penalties, legalize undocumented immigrants and pursue a less aggressive American foreign policy. Call it the Rand Paul Evolution. In the wake of Barack Obama’s reelection win and ahead of a possible 2016 White House bid of his own, the Kentucky Republican plans to mix his hard-line tea party conservatism with more moderate policies that could woo younger voters and minorities largely absent from the GOP coalition. It’s the latest tactic of the freshman senator to inject the Libertarian-minded views shared by his retiring father into mainstream Republican thinking as the party grapples with its future....