Free Republic

A Republican operative who is organizing an effort to torpedo Donald Trump’s presidential campaign says she is starting a super PAC that could collect unlimited funds from individual donors. Liz Mair, former online communications director for the Republican National Committee, created a limited liability company in October called Trump Card LLC. The anti-Trump effort is focusing on the two states hosting the earliest nominating contests, Iowa and New Hampshire. In an e-mail to supporters, Ms. Mair said the group has reached out to 150 churches in Iowa, 50 community leaders in New Hampshire and media outlets in both states. She...

Newt Gingrich has at least one name on his list of potential running mates: GOP rival Mitt Romney. "I think Mitt Romney is a very admirable person, and I'm not going to pick a fight with Mitt Romney," Gingrich said in an interview Wednesday with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. When asked if he would ever ask Romney to be his vice presidential nominee, Gingrich didn't mince words. "I think the consensus is that he'd certainly be on the list, whether he'd want to or not," Gingrich said. "He's a very competent person. This is a very serious man. I would certainly...

A huge majority of Washington's insiders say Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, isn't qualified to be president, a Politico poll indicates. Eight-six percent of respondents considered members of the political establishment said they don't think Palin is qualified to hold the office, compared to 64 percent of the general public, results of the Politico poll released Wednesday said. Eleven percent of political establishment respondents in Washington said they believe Palin is qualified to be president, compared to 23 percent of the general public, the survey indicated. In addition, 79 percent of those classified as Washington elites said...

It's not just Chris Matthews who sees racial bogeymen behind the RNC's now-famous ad [view here] with a Playboy bunny inviting Harold Ford, Jr. to "call me."On last evening's "Beltway Boys," good old moderate Mort Kondracke claimed the Republicans designed the ad to "stir up rednecks."Mort's fellow "Boy," Fred Barnes, was having none of it:"You have to be living in the 50's or 60's to think it is racist. . . There is absolutely nothing wrong. It amounts to the way Democrats play the race card and you fall for it."I'd say "bada-bing," but wouldn't want to be accused of...

Was just watching BB, and they were saying that the general impression that the Internet is awash in :Liberal websites and posters, but in fact, while ther may be more Dim/Lib websites..the statististics show that the top 5 Repub/consevative websites/blogs, get more than twice as many "hits" as the top 5 Dim/Liberal sites...whod'a thunk??? Yes, FR was one of them! :-) Sorry no link availiable..i checked BBs page, but nothing.

This is great! Mort Kondrake just said on their show that "Jacque Chirac and France deserve each other" and the "France is a nation of losers."

For a political junkie, the Dubai ports debacle has been a bit like the movie “Pulp Fiction”—just one freaky story inside another, unfolding at a rapid pace and leading to an unexpected ending that made no darn sense and yet was really quite satisfying emotionally. I give it two thumbs way up. Unfortunately for the President, he played the part of “Marcellus Wallace” in “Port Fiction.” He talked tough at the start of the whole thing, but really took it hard in the end. (Bada bing!) And along the way we got to see Chuck Schumer support racial profiling, Hillary...

In the "Buzz" section at the end of the just-completed Beltway Boys, Mort Kondracke predicted that Pres. Bush would nominate Court of Appeals judge Mike McConnell. Fred Barnes predicted Sam Alito, Jr. I'd say that the great majority of FReepers would be pleased by either pick.

Why have so many conservatives suddenly revolted against President Bush, nearly five years into his presidency? I think their split with Bush is ill advised, counterproductive, and in some ways childish. But there's no doubt it's happening and it's serious. And there's more to it than disappointment with his nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. So why exactly has this revolt broken out now? I've come up with six reasons, and there may be more. One, a revolt was inevitable, sooner or later, simply because Bush is not a conventional conservative. He deviates on the role of the...

HH: Joined as I am most Fridays by the Beltway Boys from the Fox News Channel. Fred Barnes from the Weekly Standard, Morton Kondracke from Roll Call. Together, tomorrow night, Six O'Clock, you can seem them in the East, Three in the West on the Fox News Channel's Beltway Boys. I suspect that they'll be talking about Harriet Miers. Let's start with you, Fred Barnes. Well, I want to start with Morton. Morton, this must amuse you to see conservatives knocking each other down with bricks and kicking each other. MK: Yeah it does, actually. I mean, the conservative movement's...

It’s hard to tell who’s in worse political shape right now: President Bush or Congressional Democrats. Polls show deep skepticism with Bush, but it’s not clear that Democrats can take advantage.Historically speaking, the 2006 midterm elections should be a bonanza for Democrats. Since World War II, the party out of power has picked up an average of 34 House and five Senate seats in a president’s sixth year in office.Polls indicate that Bush is now presiding over an unpopular war, and that’s almost always bad for the incumbent party.An early August Gallup poll showed that, by 54 percent to 44...

Vice-President Casey? After watching the Senate Hearings this week where Teddy Kennedy quizzed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a phoenix arose from the ashes of liberal angst that resulted from the Senator's inability to score any political points by attacking the administration's execution of the War on Terror. General William Casey's stellar performance in refuting Ted's outrageous claims about the lack of progress in the War on Terror and the lack of military success in Iraq prompted several people to contact us with the suggestion of General Casey as a potential running mate for Dr. Rice. (Click here to...

It’s amusing how the liberal politicians and media are wracking their brains in an endless quest to figure out why their man lost and President Bush won re-election. A popular focus of their post-election depression study has been the evangelical Christian vote, a topic addressed by Mort Kondracke, the left side of “The Beltway Boys”, in his column “Democrats Need to ‘Get Religion’.” In the article, Kondracke suggests that Democrats must attempt to “understand” the evangelical Christian faith in order to succeed politically. He offers the typical liberal tongue-lashing at the conservative positions on pro-life and marriage protection. I used...

I have to admit: I didn't realize the Beltway Boys were so popular! The Fox News tag team of Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes earned more viewers than any other cable news program on Saturday, October 2 -- 1,356,000 from 6 to 6:30pm. Other shows get more promotion, but two D.C. vets comparing notes pulls in the viewers...

Not all Hollywood celebrities are ungrateful, anti- American lefties. Prompted by a Wall Street Journal mention a couple of weeks ago about how actor Ron Silver denounced the head of the European parliament for his anti-American attitude, FNC's Beltway Boys brought Silver aboard their Saturday show. Silver, who plays liberal campaign strategist "Bruno Gianelli" on NBC's The West Wing, made clear he does not agree with the politics of the show's "President Bartlet," Martin Sheen. Silver told Beltway Boys co-hosts Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke that Europeans "criticisms are logically incoherent...they hold inconsistent views that we're utterly materialistic, and then...