Free Republic

Donald Trump is running riot in the GOP china shop and gleefully tearing the place up. Consider the strength of Trump’s position: If he wins South Carolina by a big margin, he goes into Nevada with momentum, and the latest poll there has him leading by 26 points and pushing 50 percent. If he enters Super Tuesday a week later having won three out of the past three states — and with Cruz diminished by a South Carolina loss and Rubio having won nowhere — he could easily win, say, 10 contests that day. It might still be possible to...

Poor Donald Trump. He really, really wants to leave behind his brash, vulgar, sexist and bigoted comments and be seen as presidential. Trump told reporters as much last week, noting how easily he can pivot to be more presidential. "I'm very capable of changing to anything I want to change to," he said. He also vowed to "never" use "foul language" again on the campaign trail. What has brought on this sudden change of heart? Apparently Trump, much like countless past presidential candidates before him, wants to begin pivoting from more partisan positions in the primary to more moderate ones...

MSNBC's choice to host Donald Trump in an exclusive town hall on Wednesday did not result in a ratings win against competitors CNN or Fox News. During the 8pm hour, when MSNBC's Trump town hall was up against CNN's GOP town hall (which kicked off with Ben Carson), it was actually Fox News that had the highest total viewers, with 2.3 million, despite the fact that "The O'Reilly Factor" was helmed by a guest host, Eric Bolling. MSNBC's Trump town hall had 1.4 million total viewers, while the first hour of CNN's three-part town hall had 2.05 million viewers. CNN...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he trails Ted Cruz in a new Wall Street Journal poll because the publication has it out for him. “I think somebody at the Wall Street Journal doesn’t like me,” he told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski during a MSNBC town hall in Charleston, S.C. “I think most of the polls were taken after the debate and they worked out good for me,” Trump said. "I have never done well with the Wall Street Journal poll. I don’t know. They do these small samples and I don’t know exactly what it represents.”

The significance of this NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is two fold. First, it is the first poll to be conducted completely after the news of Antonin Scalia’s passing and Trump’s meltdown at the South Carolina CBS News debate. Second, it is from a highly respected pollster focused on likely voters and who has a good track record of success. The poll shows Ted Cruz in the lead now. It could be an anomaly. But internal polling of several campaigns all show the South Carolina race far tighter than the public polling. This latest poll, however, does not account for Nikki...

AUSTIN -- A liberal Texas political group has filed a formal complaint alleging that a recent fundraising solicitation mailed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign violated state law.

It has become increasingly clear that the "self-funded" candidate in the Republican presidential primary, Donald J. Trump, will destroy the GOP's chances to win in November if he is not the nominee. Leftist groups are ecstatic over Trump’s "Bush lied, people died," mantra over the Iraq war. Internet trolls for Vladimir Putin are firmly behind Trump, saying he has the right recipe for accommodating Russia. ... How did this happen? Conservatives who should know better went beyond praising his attacks on political correctness to welcoming him as a legitimate conservative candidate for president. Last year, Matt Schlapp, the chairman of...

Trump has exaggerated his supposed opposition to OIF. PolitiFact: Again, Trump said he was against the war from the very beginning. "I'm the only one on this stage that said, 'Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq,' " Trump said. "Nobody else on this stage said that. And I said it loud and strong. And I was in the private sector. I wasn't a politician, fortunately. But I said it, and I said it loud and clear, 'You'll destabilize the Middle East.' " Trump often repeats this line, and we've rated a similar Trump claim Mostly False, because...

Welcome to Infomercial America, or, if you prefer, the United States of Spam. Whenever political conspiracy theories break out into the open, pundits and intellectuals name-check the brilliant but flawed essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter. Under President George W. Bush, the "9/11 Truthers" were the poster boys and girls of the paranoid style. Others hinted that the flooding of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina might have been deliberate. Under President Obama, it was the "Birthers." A related theory was that Obama is a secret Muslim. A generation before that, it was the John Birch Society...

<p>BOSTON (AP) — Two legal scholars squared off in a public debate on Friday to settle whether Republican Ted Cruz is eligible to become president. Spoiler alert: They didn't settle it.</p> <p>But the debate at Harvard Law School underscored that conflicting interpretations of the U.S. Constitution can produce different answers. The question has been in the national spotlight since Republican rival Donald Trump suggested that Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother, isn't legally qualified to be president.</p>

Ted Cruz must long for the day when his three-word memory could suitably summarize his time as a tot in Canada: “It was cold.” He wouldn’t remember, but it was forecast as snowy at -9° C the day he was born, according to the Barometer Betty cartoon on the front of the Calgary Herald for Dec. 22, 1970. ... ... U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz spent weeks with a tidy poll lead ahead of this year’s Iowa Republican caucuses on Feb. 1, the first state contest of party nomination season. Then Donald Trump piped up, threatening to derail or distract,...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is defending a campaign mailer that Iowa's secretary of state says misrepresents election law. The mailer bills itself as a "voting violation" notice and tells the recipient it's been sent due to "low expected voter turnout in your area." It then grades the recipient's voting history and that of several neighbors, citing public records. Cruz told reporters in Sioux City, Iowa, on Saturday that the mailing is "routine." He says he won't apologize

A Tea Party-affiliated congressman has become the latest lawmaker to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination. North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows announced Wednesday night on Fox News that he would throw his support behind Cruz's campaign and join the Texas senator's team in Iowa later this week."We are approaching a historic election that has the potential to fundamentally change our nation as we know it. Ted Cruz is the principled, conservative leader we need in the White House," Rep. Meadows told Greta Van Susteren. "On issue after issue, Cruz has told the truth and done what he said...

Natalie Maines infamously spoke her mind about war and then-President George W. Bush back in 2003, when she told a London crowd that she was “ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” Now, the Dixie Chicks member is bringing that comment back to mind and voicing her opinion on Republican presidential candidate (and fellow Texan) Ted Cruz.

Donald Trump has a fallback option for his main GOP opponent, Ted Cruz, in case the Texas senator comes up short in his bid to capture the Republican nomination for president of the United States: become Canada's prime minister. At least that's what the GOP front-runner tweeted Friday night in his latest swipe at his closest competitor, who was born in Canada. "Cruz did not renounce his Canadian citizenship as a US Senator- only when he started to run for #POTUS. He could be Canadian Prime Minister," Trump tweeted. Trump has repeatedly questioned Cruz's eligibility to be president of the...

... The ad goes on to say that Trump bulldozed the home of an elderly widow in Atlantic City to build a limousine parking lot at his casino. "Trump won't change the system. He's what's wrong with it," it says in the end. Cruz tweeted his ad Friday morning saying "It's time we change the system and break the #WashingtonCartel -- together!" ...

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) said Monday that the birthplace of Sen. Ted Cruz is "fair game," adding to a growing chorus questioning whether the Texas Republican's Canadian birth could affect his ability to secure the GOP presidential nomination. "When you run for president of the United States, any question is fair game. So let the people decide," Branstad told reporters Monday. Cruz, speaking to reporters in Baton Rouge, La., noted that Branstad's son has thrown his support elsewhere, hosting fundraisers for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

And . . . there it is: Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz should be disqualified from the race because he isn't a "natural-born citizen," a fellow Texan claims in a "birther" challenge filed against the senator in a U.S. court. The suit seeks a court definition of the term to clarify whether Cruz - who was born in Canada to an American mother - can or can't serve if elected. "This 229-year question has never been pled, presented to or finally decided by or resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court," Houston attorney Newton B. Schwartz Sr. said in his 28-page...

'He’s pro-choice. He’s pro- gay marriage. He’s against traditional values. He’s New York, and he’s got to talk about that.'

Ted Cruz might say he has a problem with "New York values," but he seems happy to take New York money. The Texas senator's swipe at Donald Trump in Thursday's debate didn't just earn the ire of the New York Daily News (whose front page today showed the Statue of Liberty giving him the finger) and New York Mayor de Blasio (who took to CNN demanding an apology) - it also might alienate the city's donors he has been carefully courting. Cruz's campaign raised $223,750 from New Yorkers, according to finance reports available through September. Robert Mercer, the hedge fund...