Free Republic

Many social conservatives say they feel politically isolated as the country seems to be hurtling to the left, with marijuana now legal in Colorado and gay marriage gaining ground across the nation. They feel out of place in a GOP increasingly dominated by tea party activists and libertarians who prefer to focus on taxes and the role of government and often disagree with social conservatives on drugs or gay rights.

Tennessee Senator Bob Corker says he isn't ruling out joining the field of Republicans running for president in 2016. Corker, who is two years into his second term, said Wednesday that any decision on a White House bid would wait until next year. He also noted that his wife, Elizabeth, may be wary of the intense media attention on the presidential field. Any possible move to join the race could put Corker against fellow Republicans with higher national profiles such as potential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Following his election in 2006, Corker...

Yes, this is the genius masterstroke the DC GOP has been waiting for. You have to hand it to the establishment. They keep trying. So what if Romney is another big government Republican which a large part of the GOP vote couldn’t really support in 2012. The consultants which got paid big time during the 2012 Romney run could get paid again! And if Romney could somehow get the nomination it would be another blow to the libertarian/conservative coalition in the Tea Party. Win/win. Well not for the American people, and probably not for Mitt Romney. But certainly a win...

I was in a spiritually-oriented meeting a week ago, and there were about fifty people in the room.  Halfway through, a guy in the center of the room chimed in and announced that he was going to open his speaking time by sharing with us his personal, painful example of the worst kind of betrayal.  We all leaned a bit closer to listen as he described, with tongue secretly hidden in cheek, a time when he bit into what he’d thought was a chocolate chip cookie–only to realize with shock and dismay that it was actually a raisin cookie. He was making a wry...

Conservatives are literally praying that the Texas senator will be the 2016 nominee. The rest of the Republican Party isn't so sure. FORT WORTH, Texas—After finishing his speech, Ted Cruz announced he would take questions from the audience. But instead of asking him anything, they just wanted to tell the Republican senator how great he was. "When I look at you, I can imagine you would be just like one of the founding fathers of this country," one woman said from the microphone stand in the middle of the hotel ballroom. "Honor to you, Ted Cruz," said the next. "We...

’What do you think about Dr. Ben Carson as the GOP candidate for president in 2016?” Republican friends frequently ask me, to which my response is: “Did he win World War II?” In 1952, General Dwight David Eisenhower became the last president of the United States to be elected without first holding a lower elective office. Carson’s path from a very tough childhood to the head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University is certainly impressive. (In a political field where many Ph.D’s insist on being called “doctor” and few office holders wow you with their intelligence, Carson stands out by...

You didn’t think I was going to let this tasty morsel from Saturday go undevoured, did you?Pay attention to the timeline. Asked whether he and other Republican officials are coalescing around Romney as a 2016 favorite, [Wyoming Gov. Matt] Mead said: “There is a movement afoot. . . . I’d tell him, ‘Governor Romney, people here in Wyoming and around the country would encourage you to take another look at it.’ ”…In June, Romney’s donor retreat in Park City, Utah, had the feel of a revival. Although Christie and Paul spoke at the elite confab, the buzz was about drafting Romney…Still, the Chamber’s...

Rick Perry has taken another step to being a national player and perhaps inching his way into a national presidential campaign. One of the ways is to make friends. On July 31, he filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to create a political committee called RickPAC. He intends to use the committee to donate contributions to like-minded Republicans. “It was set up to help fund candidates who agree with the governor’s priorities,” said spokesman Mark Miner.

Gannett newspaper, link only: Ted Cruz to attend influential Iowa bash on Saturday

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and popular conservative writer and campaigner, has announced the formation of a political action committee to explore a possible 2016 presidential bid, The Washington Times reported. Carson told the Times on Friday that he had selected Houston businessman, Terry Giles, to be his 2016 campaign chairman if he decides to run and that he has signed off on the set up of a PAC called One Nation that would support his bid. "Now is the time to start all of the appropriate exploration and investigation, and put down the structure that is necessary," Carson said....

Nobody has ever rooted for that scrappy Romney kid to overcome the odds. Until, maybe, now. Perhaps it says something about us that our most interesting presidential candidates swear they won't run for president. This is true of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and it's increasingly true of Mitt Romney. As regular readers of this column know, I've never been much of a Romney booster. I've also expressed skepticism about the notion he would run again. But let's not let "a foolish consistency" cloud our judgment. There is reason to believe that a third try wouldn't be an absurd venture. First, in...

During an appearance on Newsmax TV's Steven Malzberg Show, Dr. Ben Carson indicated that he is giving serious consideration to a 2016 Presidential bid, hinting that it is "a step closer." In his interview with Malzberg, he touched on a number of hot button topics including the border crisis, the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as well as the current political debate in the nation. "I have to consider what's going on, and I have to consider the enormous crowds that I encounter every place I go, and the level of enthusiasm, and what I'm hearing,'' Carson told...

The wide-open fight for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination appears certain to showcase a range of credible candidates, who differ from one another in both style and substance. What the next crop of top-tier GOP contenders may not feature, however, is a woman. The Republicans taking discernible steps to build the foundations required for White House runs are all men. And for a party trying to close the gender gap, the prospect of an all-male lineup may pose a significant public perception problem. After the 2012 race saw President Obama defeat Mitt Romney by a double-digit margin among women, one...

Fellow conservatives, now is the time for us to decide on a 2016 Presidential candidate. With Hillary the ostensible and heavily flawed democratic nominee, we must decide early and decisively on a conservative contender. We cannot have years of dumb debates that let the democrats chew us up and continue their regime of destruction. Here are some of my handicaps for the 2016 election. 1.Christie - definitely a RINO, back stabbing, recent convert to pro-life positions. -I cannot vote for this man! 2. Jeb Bush - perhaps the most competent of the Bushes, but now way. Way too many Bushes...

Though set to retire from the U.S. House after her term expires at the end of this year, Michele Bachmann may not be done with electoral politics. The Minnesota congresswoman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate told RealClearPolitics on Tuesday that she is considering a second White House run. Bachmann made the revelation during an interview, in which she was asked for her view on whether any Republican women might seek the Oval Office in 2016. “The only thing that the media has speculated on is that it’s going to be various men that are running,” she replied. “They haven’t speculated,...

Summit 2016 and the Young Conservative Leadership Summit. I was especially encouraged by the impressive turnout –3,500 Saturday night– for what has become the “CPAC of the Summer in the Rockies,” and by the quality of the 120 16-20 year olds I spent teaching for the entire week prior. Next year I expect the numbers for both WCS and YCLS to double and more, and for the WCS ’15 to actually explode in attendance as every major would-be president figures out what Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin figured out this year: If you want...

Ben Carson was the top vote-getter in a 2016 presidential straw poll at the weekend’s Western Conservative Summit in Denver, The Denver Post reported. Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Carson-2016-straw-poll/2014/07/21/id/583821#ixzz38CmSgI00 Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

When asked just how vulnerable former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to a challenge from her left, the Acela Corridor’s political class is quick to note that 2016 is not 2008. They observe that the factors which made Clinton vulnerable to a challenge from then Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 simply do not exist today. For example, those grounded political reporters say, the former secretary is wildly popular among Democrats. They cite polling data which shows the former secretary leading her most likely challenger – the sitting Vice President of the United States – often by more than...

Should the Democrats nominate Elizabeth Warren for President in 2016, as a draft-Warren movement, some liberal pundits and enthusiasts at this week’s Netroots Nation convention believe? Should Republicans nominate Ted Cruz, who has kept his options open with frequent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire? In some ways, Cruz and Warren are mirror images, and the cases for and against them are surprisingly similar. But there are also some critical differences.Before 2008, the idea of a presidential contest between two first-term Senators in their (by then) fourth year in Washington would have seemed ridiculous; in 1988, Dan Quayle was roundly...

A new poll identifies four potential Republican presidential candidates for 2016 who stand out in the crowded field of viable contenders. In a Gallup poll conducted July 7-10 of 1,013 adults, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry were the best known and best liked of 11 candidates tested. More than 60 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are familiar with each of these politicians, and they all have net favorable ratings of 40 percent or better. Huckabee has slightly higher familiarity and net favorability rating than...