Free Republic

For the first time in 32 years, Democrats got more than 50 percent of the country to vote for their candidate in a national election, and now they want to lecture the Republican Party on how to win elections. Liberal Republicans have joined them, both groups hoping no one will notice that we just lost this election by running the candidate they chose for us. For years, New York Times columnist David Brooks has been writing mash notes to John McCain. In November 2007, he quoted an allegedly "smart-alecky" political consultant who exclaimed, in private, "You know, there's really only...

McCain needs to learn from the mistakes of another honored war hero who ran for the White House and lost.John McCain has long known what it's like for a teleprompter-challenged Republican senator to go up against a charismatic, made-for-TV Democrat. In 1996, McCain was Bob Dole's right-hand man. He served as one of the Kansas senator's closest traveling companions and top surrogates in the battle to unseat Bill Clinton. It was a race that began as Dole's to lose—Clinton was caught up in the Whitewater scandal. But lose he did. McCain watched as the Democrats successfully transformed the image of...

Bob Dole says Bob Dole is mad at Scott McClellan. The former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential candidate sent a nasty e-mail to McClellan calling him a "miserable creature" for his latest book blasting the Bush administration, FOX News has learned. In the e-mail, Dole basically describes the former White House press secretary as a traitor looking to cash in on the "liberal" media's distaste for President Bush. "There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don't have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," the five-term...

Bob Dole unloads on McClellan Bob Dole yesterday sent a scalding email to Scott McClellan, excoriating the former White House spokesman as a "miserable creature" who greedily betrayed his former patron for a fast buck. In an extraordinary message obtained and authenticated by Politico, Dole uses his trademark biting wit to portray McClellan as a classic Washington opportunist. "There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the...

How can the world's hungriest schoolchildren be denied meals while the farm bill being debated in a House-Senate conference provides millions in subsidies for wealthy farmers? That's what Congress proposes. In all fairness, it should not become law. We are puzzled that Congress wants to increase overall farm bill spending by billions of dollars yet reduce by more than 90 percent the mandatory funding to feed hungry children. The program at issue saves lives and has a proven ability to break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness in poor countries. We are not expressing disagreement because the program, supported by...

WASHINGTON - A great old war hero - arms man gled by battle and known as an acerbic straight shooter - is picked by Republicans to be their nominee to make darned certain that a Clinton doesn't get back into the White House. John McCain? No, Bob Dole in 1996. And it didn't work out very well for Republicans. Dole lost after a campaign vexed by senior moments such as when the nominee fell off a stage, or when he referred to the Los Angeles Dodgers as the Brooklyn Dodgers. All along, President Bill Clinton showed extreme deference to Dole,...

As Hillary Clinton starts to fade away, or so it appears, John McCain faces both new obstacles and opportunities in his quest for the White House. The question is, will he be "helped" in the same way Bob Dole was in 1996? Dole was one of the better nominees the GOP has put forth in modern times. He was (and is) bright, witty, conservative and independent. Oops. Did I say independent? That was his problem. The Republican establishment generally doesn't like independence. President George H.W. Bush could barely stand Newt Gingrich in Gingrich's pre-Speaker years as House GOP Whip. Gingrich...

Bill Clinton in the town hall debates of 1996 and 2000 included physical, non-verbal debate strategies. This paper analyzed these "visual bytes” to see how Clinton used them during the debates. While the impact of “visual bytes” on the audience cannot be measured, this paper discusses the rhetorical implications of their use. -snip On Question One about national unity Clinton challenged Dole's response through aggressive posturing when Dole answered first. The camera shot aired had Clinton looking into the camera as Dole spoke while the shot frequently showed the back of Dole's head. The camera zoomed in for a quick...

I posted a squib on the National Review Web site about a robo call I received from John McCain. (Virginia's primary is Tuesday.) The call stressed that he would, if elected, be a down-the-line limited government conservative who would never raise taxes, would defend life, would enforce immigration laws and would win the war on terror. The candidate is trying, I said, to meet conservatives "more than halfway." The response of readers was, shall we say, emphatic. One lady wrote that she would never vote for him as "He is the most disloyal, ill-tempered man and he brings out the...

Ann Coulter wasn't invited to CPAC this year but she's still giving a speech 50 yards away. The speech is only open to 500 attendees but you can watch it live here -- courtesy of uStream. (VIDEO)

Former Sen. Bob Dole, the failed Republican presidential candidate in 1996, became the focus Tuesday of an increasingly testy exchange between GOP presidential contenders John McCain and Mitt Romney. The tit-for-tat began with Dole coming to the aid of McCain, a fellow war hero and former Senate colleague, in a letter to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. He has relentlessly criticized the front-running Arizona senator as insufficiently conservative.

(CNN) – Mitt Romney is backing away from a statement that seemed to denigrate former GOP presidential candidate Robert Dole, who wrote a letter to Rush Limbaugh yesterday defending the former Massachusetts governor’s main Republican rival, John McCain. In a FOX interview Tuesday morning, Romney had said the former Kansas senator was “probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me.”

Below is the text of a letter former Republican Kansas Sen. Bob Dole sent to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, as obtained by FOX News. Rush, I have not seen you in a long time but I do hear you frequently and I know that you have serious reservations about Senator McCain. Not that many care but I have not been involved in the Republican Primary contest because Elizabeth, a good conservative, is running for reelection in North Carolina where Romney, McCain and Huckabee each enjoy considerable support. I was the Republican Leader from January 1985 until I left...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So by now, if you don't know that Bob Dole sent me a letter yesterday afternoon, then you haven't been paying attention.  Here's the timeline on this.  Senator Dole, for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, sent me an e-mail that I received here at 2:35 p.m. yesterday afternoon.  I assumed that it was a private e-mail and was going to reply to it later in the afternoon when I got home.  By the way, Mike Allen of Politico.com, the headline:  "Dole Scolds Limbaugh," there was no scolding in this letter.  I have it here...

Mitt Romney backpedaled Tuesday after saying former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole is “probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me.” Romney made the remark in response to a letter Dole wrote to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh in defense of John McCain. Romney even tried to call Dole, with no luck, from his plane as he criss-crossed the country on Super Tuesday in last-minute campaigning. “Let me make it very clear. Senator Dole is an American hero, a war hero, a fine man and a great leader for our party,” Romney...

Bob Dole, the former Senate Republican leader, wrote an insistent letter to Rush Limbaugh on Monday and suggested that for the good of the party, the conservative talk-show host should stop his strafing of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). On Monday's show, Limbaugh asserted that McCain has "lied about his reason for opposing the Bush tax cuts," and added: "I think McCain has an animus toward the Republican Party. I think ever since South Carolina 2000 he's had it in for the Republican Party, and one of his objectives is to destroy it and change it." McCain, the front-runner for the...

Stop comparing mean old crazy McCain to good old Bob Dole!

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. With that in mind, if John McCain wins the Republican presidential nomination, it might be appropriate to temporarily designate the site of the 2008 Republican convention an insane asylum. Why? Well, a Republican doesn't need to spend much time on a political analyst's couch before depressing memories of the 1996 presidential election – also known as the Bob Dole debacle – are dredged up. If you're old enough to remember that frightening experience, but still too traumatized to recall it, perhaps...

WASHINGTON -- While public polls show Mike Huckabee leading Mitt Romney in Iowa, a new survey of an oversized sample shows Huckabee slipping and no longer ahead of Romney. A private corporate interest commissioned a phone bank survey of 15,000 Iowans who say they will attend Republican presidential caucuses Jan. 3. It showed Romney with 30 percent and Huckabee at 26 percent. Sen. John McCain was third with 12 percent and Rudy Giuliani fourth at 9 percent. Fred Thompson had only 1 percent, with slightly fewer votes than Rep. Ron Paul (also at 1 percent). Numbers for both Huckabee and...

President Bush met this afternoon in the Rose Garden with Senator Bob Dole and Secretary Donna Shalala on the Commission on Care for Wounded Warriorstranscript President Bush met privately today with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. He will present him tomorrow with Congressional Medal Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continued her meeting in the Middle East. She won public support Tuesday for a Mideast peace conference from a skeptical Egypt, boosting her bid to secure critical Arab backing for pushing Israel and the Palestinians to resume formal negotiations to end their conflict. Enoy your visit to Sanity...