Free Republic

TV host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he is leaving his Fox News talk show as he considers whether to seek the Republican nomination for president, a decision he expects to reach in the spring. Huckabee said Saturday night's edition of "Huckabee" would be his last as he ponders his political future. The weekly show, which is taped with a live audience and features political commentary as well as interviews with guests and musical entertainment, has been on the air for more than six years. "There has been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would...

A flock of 2016 presidential hopefuls will be attending a major GOP event in Iowa this month co-sponsored by anti-immigrant gadfly Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has made outreach to minorities part of his appeal, won’t go. His office says there is a scheduling conflict. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush also begged off. What to make of all this? (SNIP) He is no David Duke, but his distasteful and flamboyant attacks on illegal immigrants are well known. (SNIP) New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie headlined a fundraiser for King and reportedly announced, “I will be a supporter...

Breaking: Mike Huckabee‘s final “Huckabee” will air tonight, TVNewser has learned. Huckabee will announce on his show that he is parting ways with Fox News as he explores the possibility of a presidential run. The show was taped at Fox News studios in Manhattan this evening and will air tonight at 8 pm ET. Huckabee began hosting his weekend show in Sept., 2008, months after he dropped out the race for the 2008 GOP nomination. In 2011, the former Arkansas governor teased on the May 14 episode of “Huckabee” that he would make a big announcement. At the time it...

For 2016, Republicans are understandably worried about Hillary Clinton’s massive political machine and finding the right candidate to win the White House. But Republicans are fortunate in the high caliber of the pool of candidates when it comes to a potential nominee. The national swelling ranks of successful governors and national leaders from various backgrounds present us with some great options. Ted Cruz leads the best of the best. Cruz would not only make a great president but would also be the best and strongest option to defeat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton in 2016 is the most invincible political force...

First it was the Boston Globe. Then came the New York Times. Then Politico and Bloomberg – and now CNN. The Jurassic media is on the march, and their goal is to help the Republicans nominate Jeb Bush in 2016. In order to achieve this goal, they have started to soften the battlefield of ideas with their stockpile of shallow psychological tactics. This is just the same old psy-ops the left always tries. And why not? It almost always works on the Republican establishment in Washington. Inside the GOP-e in DC, reality does not matter -- only polls and media...

I think that Rich Lowry is right to notice the ways in which Jeb Bush resembles pre-Obama conservatives (like his brother for instance), but I think it is just important way to think of Jeb Bush as a reaction to Obama’s political success. Specifically, Jeb Bush’s strategy is based on how the Republican lobbyist and donor classes interpreted Obama’s 2012 victory. Basically, the Republican establishment blamed their 2012 defeat on social conservatives and opponents of upfront amnesty for unauthorized immigrants. The Republican establishment asserted that the policy problem with Romney’s failed establishment candidacy was that it did not sufficiently focus...

Mitt Romney is eyeing a third run for the White House and will get in the race in the coming months if he doesn't like how the GOP field is looking, his longtime friend Kem Gardner said Monday. "I know exactly what Mitt's going to do," Gardner, a real estate developer who helped bring Romney to Utah to lead the 2002 Winter Olympics, told the Deseret News. "I think over the next few months, a lot of things will happen." But Spencer Zwick, who raised $1 billion for Romney's 2012 campaign, said the decision is a personal one for Romney...

The political baggage he carries isn't likely to fly.Politically, Bushes are, like the value of the Ivy League degrees most of them have, vastly overrated. Jeb Bush, who recently, to the surprise of no one, all but announced he would run for president, is no exception. Ever since Jeb established an “I’m Thinking About Running for President Committee” (translation to English: I’m running for president) a week or so back, the conventional wisdom, whooped up by the chatterati and the various great mentioners, is that this latest Bush is a lock for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. They...

“Who is Ben Carson? Where did he come from?” asked CNN’s Jake Tapper after a CNN poll revealed that Carson, a political novice, was running second to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. Carson has also placed second in other national polls, second in Iowa surveys and in the high single digits in New Hampshire. So just how seriously should we take Carson’s potential bid for the White House? Seriously enough. He could make some noise, particularly in Iowa. But not seriously enough to believe that he has any real shot of winning...

It is extremely notable that Manu Raju of the Politico has written that the establishment intends to destroy Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). Raju serves as the court stenographer for the Senate GOP leadership. His pieces are routinely littered with the conventional wisdom and talking points of the Senate GOP leadership. He has more than once anticipated Senate GOP leadership strategy based on their conversations with him. So when Manu Raju says the establishment intends to go on offense against the tea party by beating Sen. Mike Lee in the Utah Republican Primary, we can be sure Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY),...

Today the Club for Growth PAC, Senate Conservatives Fund, and Madison Project released the results of a poll done by Basswood Research in the Utah Senate race of likely Republican Primary voters. The poll finds incumbent Senator Mike Lee in an extremely strong position for re-nomination. Senator Lee is endorsed for re-election by the Club for Growth PAC, Senate Conservatives Fund, and the Madison Project. Among the poll highlights: Senator Lee has a +65 favorable rating, with 76% of Utah Republicans having a favorable opinion of Lee and only 11% having an unfavorable opinion. By contrast, Senator Orrin Hatch, while...

In the aftermath of President Obama giving the Castro regime diplomatic recognition, Senator Marco Rubio has been pretty much everywhere, including multiple television appearances and authoring this Wall Street Journal op-ed. According to Senator Rubio, “By conceding to the oppressors in the Castro regime, this president and his administration have let the Cuban people down, further weakened America’s standing in the world and endangered Americans.” Whether or not one agrees with Rubio’s position–and I’m sympathetic to it–he makes his case clearly, intelligently, and with passion. Despite some differences with him now and then–I found his advocacy for the tactics that...

* Trump has kept his spotlight hot and raised smirks by speculating about a White House run, but now he's scheduling speeches in early primary states * 'A lot of people believe I'm having fun with it, and I enjoy the process,' he said during an Economic Club of Washington event, but 'the country's in serious trouble' * He lashed out at potential opponents including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz * Couldn't come up with a 'single nice thing' to say about Hillary Clinton and insists Sen. Elizabeth Warren will give her serious competition * Trump has flirted with running...

Jeb Bush, the pro-life former governor of Florida, announced today that he is forming an exploratory committee to examine a potential Republican presidential bid in 2016. Bush is known for signing pro-life legislation and a bill to try to save the life of Terri Schiavo. Bush, the brother of pro-life President George W. Bush, made the announcement on Facebook, saying he and his wife and family had long conversations over Thanksgiving about whether to run for president. “We also talked about the future of our nation. As a result of these conversations and thoughtful consideration of the kind of strong...

Jeb Bush is exploring a 2016 presidential bid. The former Florida governor said in a post on Facebook Tuesday that over the Thanksgiving holiday there was a lot of discussion about the future of the nation. “As a result of these conversations and thoughtful consideration of the kind of strong leadership I think America needs, I have decided to actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States,” Mr. Bush said. Mr. Bush said he plans to establish a Leader PAC next month to “help me facilitate conversations with citizens across America to discuss the most critical...

Republicans won big in the 2014 midterm election, but it already looks as if conservatives still lost. Just look at what’s transpired the past few weeks: - The GOP establishment moved quickly to retain all their leadership positions before the new Congress is convened in January, thus shutting conservatives completely out of the mix. - That same GOP leadership has already funded every Obama scam they promised the American people during the campaign they would stop, scheming alongside a president they keep describing as “lawless” to pass the so-called “Cromnibus.” - Only 21 Republicans in the U.S. Senate went on...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has a plan for running for president in 2016, according to National Review: don't focus on winning over Independents, instead hedge on getting "Jews, Hispanics, and Millenials." That's according to a new report in National Review on Monday which said that the Texas senator, if he does decide to run for president as he's rumored to be planning on, has a strategy for victory that does not center around winning independents. As an unnamed adviser put it to National Review, "winning independents has meant not winning." The Cruz circle cited John Kerry in 2004 and Mitt...

For fifty years the Republican nominating process has been the avenue through which the party chooses the nominee for the next election season. This year’s nominee is never in doubt. Whoever finished second last time simply steps up for his turn. If the second-place finisher from the last campaign decides not to run, as in ’68 and ‘00, the nominee is appointed by the party leadership and presented for ratification in the primary process. This is no historical accident, but rather a product of the institutional structure of the party. That institutional structure has broken down. Priorities and practices that...

It’s crystal clear that Hillary Clinton has a glass jaw and is poised to be knocked out in 2016. With Barack Obama and his legacy of failure weighing her down, Hillary must cobble together a coalition by recovering the normal Americans who used to help Democrats win while at the same time satisfying the freak show that is the Democrat base. But she'll still be the face of the party of idiots who block you on the freeways, of morons who burn stores, of faceless Obamacare bureaucrats raising premiums, and of Goldman Sachs. Yeah, Wall Street crony capitalists pay hundreds...

About a year out of the 2016 Iowa caucuses, Governor Palin’s taking part in the Iowa Freedom Summit hosted by Congressman Steve King and Citizens United.The event was announced a few weeks back and reported by Politico: Iowa Rep. Steve King, the GOP lawmaker well-known for his deeply conservative position on immigration, is hosting a January summit for possible 2016 hopefuls, according to a new report from the Des Moines Register.The event, dubbed the Iowa Freedom Summit, is slated for Jan. 24 in Des Moines, and three likely Republican presidential hopefuls — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former...