Free Republic

Washington D.C. (AHN) - While the president tries to rally bipartisan support for passing legislation, liberal groups are striking back at one of the Republican's most influential leaders, Rush Limbaugh. The liberal group, Americans United for Change is set to launch radio ads in three states Obama won - Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada - that poses a new controversial question to GOP senators, asking, "Will you side with Obama or Rush Limbaugh?""Every Republican member of the House chose to take Rush Limbaugh's advice," the narrator says while playing a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes Obama "fails." "Every Republican...

Democratic strategist James Carville, using Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton's e-mail list, sent out an e-mail Friday trying to recruit supporters and donations for Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog group. With the subject line "It's happening again," Carville compares the scandal of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and his relationship to President-elect Obama to the scandals that followed the Clintons into office and proved a distraction througout both of President Clinton's terms. Carville wrote that the Clintons "hadn't even unpacked their boxes before the right-wing noise machine started hyping phony scandals and inventing gossip." "Too...

What lessons are to be learned from recent news that conservative advocacy group, Freedom’s Watch (FW), is shutting their doors? Mistakes of 2008 must be the stepping stones upon which the future of the conservative movement is built. Here are some thoughts on the FW collapse: 1) Speak softly and carry a big stick. FW turned this concept on its head. From the onset they proclaimed themselves to be the “conservative answer” to MoveOn.org. In addition, they made public the fact they were planning to raise $200million for the 2008 cycle, falling embarrassingly short at $30million. Making public their lofty...

Freedom's Watch, a conservative political advocacy group bankrolled mainly by casino owner Sheldon Adelson that poured $30 million into this year's political races, is shutting down. Multiple sources said the board of directors, which includes former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and former Ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler, has decided to close down rather than just scale down post-election. "There are no ifs or buts," said a Republican operative close to the situation. "The board has made the decision to shut the doors." The group had always planned a reduction after the election and up until the Thanksgiving holiday it...

What if the McCain campaign had run ads using footage of Barack Obama dancing with Ellen DeGeneres to show his coziness with celebrity? Or followed up on its Paris Hilton ad with others featuring Donald Trump and Jessica Simpson? All of that was on the drawing board of Fred Davis III, the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media and one of the most talented conservative political operatives in America. Oh yes, he also had an Internet ad up his sleeve that would attack Obama's celebrity by associating him with Oprah. But in...

With the election in the rear view mirror, the progressive political action committee MoveOn.org wants to make sure the candidates it worked to help get into office support a truly progressive agenda.To that end, it held more than 500 "Fired Up and Ready to Go" gatherings throughout the country Thursday night. A meeting held at the Dardanelles restaurant on Monroe Street drew 15 people, all white and over 50.About 350 MoveOn.org members registered for get-togethers in 18 locations throughout Wisconsin, according to the state coordinator for MoveOn.org, Paul Otto. The local group wants to send a message to members of...

Here's part of an email that has been sent to MediaMyrmidons by the Democrat Party's MediaMatters. It would seem that now with complete Democrat control of the government apparatus in Washington the liberals want to step up their attacks on freedom of expression .. especially expression of ideas with which they do not agree. When and if the Democrats get the idiotically-named "Fairness Doctrine" implemented again it is clear that MediaMatters wants to be THE clearing house for challenges and demands for equal time on the nation's talk radio stations. This message to their followers is part of that process:...

“There simply wasn’t the donor base to support it,” McCarthy said. And there are some rather interesting reasons why not. One, the federal campaign finance law that John McCain helped write has made it increasingly difficult to fund independent campaigns legally. Thus, McCain’s own law was used against him.

It is the biggest and broadest American political force ever created -- a vast, electronically linked network of activists, neighborhood organizers and volunteers who raised record amounts of money and propelled Barack Obama to the White House. Now, as Obama turns from campaigning to governing, his advisors are struggling to harness this potent web of supporters to help him move his agenda over the next four years.But it is no simple task to convert an insurgency into a standing army.That challenge has sparked rare discord among Obama advisors who ran a highly disciplined operation with no public disagreements throughout the...

Quite recently, it struck me that it’s not that the MSM has done everything in its considerable power to spin, deny or conceal, all the unpleasant truths about ACORN, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge, that upsets me the most. The thing that truly depresses me is that millions of my fellow Americans know the truth, but simply don’t seem to care. They also don’t seem too concerned that in a 2001 radio interview, Obama declared that his problem with the Warren Court was that although it ruled in favor of Civil Rights, it was not...

"Hope" and "change" (and a whole lot of money) propelled Obama to victory. After endorsing President-elect Obama last February, MoveOn.org Political Action's 4.5 million members contributed more than $88 million towards Barack Obama's presidential campaign, the organization announced on Wednesday. And more than 1 million MoveOn.org members worked in a trail-blazing field effort in coordination with the Obama campaign. In the 2008 presidential campaign, MoveOn.org and its members admitted they: – Contributed more than $58 million directly to Obama's campaign. – Raised and spent more than $30 million in independent election efforts. – Delivered up to 600,000 battleground state volunteers....

I just donated money to an add I think may work..I just saw it in Florida on TV so I looked up and donated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08Y2hQfbf2Q

For the GOP, the cavalry apparently isn’t coming. Republicans attuned to conservative third-party efforts say that with less than two weeks to go until Election Day, the prospects for any 11th-hour, anti-Obama ad campaign are highly unlikely. Many in the party, including inside the McCain campaign, have held out hope that a deep-pocketed benefactor would emerge to bankroll ads in the campaign’s final days – spots that might, for example, resurrect the most incendiary clips from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But thanks largely to lack of passion for McCain within the conservative base, diminished hopes that he can win and...

WASHINGTON -- A conservative political organization will begin airing nationwide TV advertisements Wednesday that criticize congressional Democrats for their ties to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, an early example of what will likely be a flood of spots running up to Election Day focused on the financial crisis. The group sponsoring the $1 million advertising buy, the American Issues Project, is the same organization that spent nearly $3 million on a television campaign to tie Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to former radical William Ayers. Spending by such outside political organizations in the 2008 election hasn't matched the...

Now is the time for FReepers to identify and help fund the best 527(s) with the best ads. I’ve seen some good ones posted here but no concerted efforts to identify and get behind the best ones with an on-going call to action. Once identified, we need to fund these 527s, e-mail these to like minded friends to help fund them and ask them to pass on to others. We also need to keep pressure on FOX and conservative commentators to give them air time. Personally, I’d even recommend a section in the sidebar on the right of the FR...

Wondered why there have been so few 527 ads this election cycle? The question has been posed numerous times on all the cable networks. Well, boys ‘n girls, here’s the answer. Not only are we witnessing the best election money can buy or steal, we now have the added stench of intimidation with the sole intent of limiting free speech and open debate. Barack Obama and his group of Chicago thugs have been threatening to use police state tactics in order to silence critics in Missouri. Additionally, his crack team of legal intimidators have sent letters to news agencies in...

WASHINGTON - The cable network MSNBC on Friday stopped airing a commercial by two liberal groups that makes an issue of John McCain's past bouts with skin cancer and demands that he release his medical records to the public. "The ad had not been thoroughly vetted prior to air, and has since been removed from our commercial rotation," NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said in an e-mail. She did not elaborate. The ad displays black and white close-up images of McCain and the scars related to the removal of melanomas from his face. A spokesman for one of the groups, Democracy...

Has anyone started a thread about conservative 527 groups in battleground states? I'm looking at donating, but I'm unsure which groups (and which states) would be most efficient. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

The wholesale descent into Swift Boat campaigning has been blocked — for now — by a federal judge in Virginia. But voters should not rest easy. A group calling itself The Real Truth About Obama is appealing the ruling. The group aims to block federal regulations so it can spend unlimited money on a commercial smearing the Democratic nominee as a zealous proponent of any and all abortion on demand — “at any time during pregnancy, as many times as a woman wants one.” If the group were to win on appeal, it would signal open season for countless stealth...

Former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore has joined the liberal group MoveOn.org to raise funds for Democratic Senate candidates. In a fundraising e-mail, Gore singles out Al Franken (Minn.), Rep. Mark Udall (Colo.) and state Sen. Kay Hagan (N.C.) as “three champions of clean energy” who should be elected to the Senate. The former vice president began his fundraising bid by promising that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is the best candidate to address pressing energy issues facing the country, but he notes that Obama, should he win in November, will need help in...