Free Republic

(ACN) The founder of Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, is back in the national spotlight and has found an ingenious and novel way to literally force television stations across the nation to run his hard-hitting and controversial pro-life commercials. His strategy? ... find a cadre of pro-life activists who are willing to run for Congress and "carpet-bomb" pro-life commercials, under the guise of campaign ads, across the nation. The rationale behind Terry's strategy is that television outlets are prohibited by federal law from refusing to run a campaign ad from a candidate for federal office or from asking the candidate to...

President Obama is in trouble. Poll after poll shows Mitt Romney gaining ground almost everywhere, and Gallup even has the governor ahead by two points nationally. Also, reports say there is a low-level panic going on inside the Obama re-election headquarters in Chicago. So it's crunch time for the president. He must perform well in the debate next Tuesday night or begin auditioning for a cable pundit job. Anyone who knows Obama understands that he likes being the underdog and will most likely deliver a rousing performance at Hofstra University. Obama is certainly aware that another emotional no-show will doom...

"Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness." -- Mary Frances Berry, the liberal former Chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights "Liberals claim Republicans speak in racist code words for the simple...

Those were my cheers you heard coming from the Left Coast last Wednesday night. I watched the Romney-Obama debate at my home in L.A., where I could hear the gasps and sobs of the creative community get louder and louder as Mitt came out swinging and never let up. That wasn't a debate. It was "The Great Debacle" -- and everyone who watched it for three minutes knew Kid Romney was winning every round on substance and style. I kept waiting for David Axelrod to throw a towel in the ring or referee Jim Lehrer to step in, wave...

Granted it is rough English to understand, as it is machine translation from the mainstream, non-Chavez "El Universal" newspaper in Caracas, Venezuela today, but it gives the street level tactics the Socialist Community Organizers used in Venezuela to eek out a victory for Communist Hugo Chavez earlier this week. It is provided below in its entirety, with the link to the original Spanish.Of specific interest will be the tactical description of the "double wave" Chavez PSUV strategy on Election Day in polling zones they identified as somewhat sympathetic to the anti-Chavez democratic forces. Pay close attention because these tactics...

Remember when President Obama bragged about Joe Biden's fiscal discipline cred in 2009? "To you, he's Mr. Vice President, but around the White House, we call him the Sheriff," Obama warned government employees. "Because if you're misusing taxpayer money, you'll have to answer to him." Fast-forward to 2012. Call in the search teams. Since being appointed the nation's stimulus spending cop, Sheriff Joe has taken a permanent donut break. He's AWOL on oversight. In fact, he's been bubble-wrapped, boxed and kept completely out of sight. The garrulous gaffe machine hasn't sat down for a national media interview in five months....

New civility: Obama supporters threaten to riot if Romney wins; Update: Deleted tweets (Note: Below are some samples of the Tweets posted by Obama supporters, reported and re-posted on the Twitchy site. Link over to Twitchy to read the rest.) If Romney wins I'm Starting a Riot....Who's WIT ME??? — Facey!™ (@daboifacey) October 08, 2012 Is this what Obama meant when he called for a “more civil” tone in U.S. politics? I Hope The USA Is Well Aware That If In The Event This Character Romney Wins The Election, The People Will Start A Country Wide Riot! #Power— John Kramer...

A top Obama campaign bundler living in Shanghai, China, is an international businessman with ties to the Cayman Islands. Robert W. Roche has lived in China and Japan for the past 27 years, although he maintains a residence in Chicago. He has used his extensive connections to raise money for the Obama campaign, and has pledged to raise $500,000 for the Obama campaign this year, an upgrade from the $100,000-200,000 he agreed to raise four years ago. He donated the maximum $50,000 allowable to Obama’s inauguration fund in 2009. Roche’s wife, Ritsuko Hattori-Roche, along with Roche’s business partner Don Yang,...

Note: The author would like to thank the Psalmist, Switchfoot, and Samwise for inspiring this column.Back in May of 1999, I made a decision to leave the Democratic Party. It was an easy decision. I had been a Democrat for 11 years. I voted for Dukakis when I was a committed leftist. But, later, when I became a pro-life conservative, there was no room for me in the party. So I became a Republican and also joined the NRA. I've been a straight shooter ever since. Excuse me if that last line sounded heterosexist. I’m a work in regress. As...

Twice Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren have faced off in televised debates, and twice the Massachusetts Senate candidates traded blows over Warren's claim to American Indian ancestry within seconds of the opening bell. The Republican incumbent and his Democratic challenger have launched dueling campaign ads calling even more attention to the issue, and there has even been a mini-kerfuffle over the low-rent antics of a few Brown staff members, who were filmed war-whooping and tomahawk-chopping at a campaign event in Dorchester. Plainly the question of Warren's Cherokee heritage isn't going away any time soon. I'll be surprised if she and...

He tried ignoring his base in the primary when it was rallying behind marriage in North Carolina and rallying behind Chick-fil-a when it was under attack, and that didn’t work. Then he tried just scaring people into voting against Obama, and that didn’t work. Finally, Mitt Romney tried conservatism at Wednesday night’s debate—and that did. The result was Romney – that’s right, the guy that was once named the No.8 RINO in the country by Human Events – provided the country the most teachable moment on the differences between Republicans and Democrats in a presidential election since before Al Gore...

Romney's stated policies in business during the first presidential debate: champion the growth and development for the middle class. Until now, Romney's position was widely perceived as one of the biggest enemies to the middle class. One of his most powerful moments during the debate was the contrast he illustrated between the president’s decision to finance the five big banks, while allowing small banks to fail across America. Some credit should be given to the president, however, for his short-term policies to save the banks, and the wise business decision to make interest from the banks that were save through...

The worst gaffe a politician can make, it's been said, is not the mistakes he makes on the campaign trail but when he tells the truth. The vice president of the United States, who's a kind of genius at embarrassing himself, did it again the other day when, almost in passing, he mentioned the hallmark of this president's stewardship of the American economy, "the middle class that has been buried these past four years." Oops. Even a blind hog will stumble across an acorn now and then, but this time the vice president had hit on an essential truth, one...

Mitt Romney was 13 years old and Barack Obama had not been born when an energetic-looking John Kennedy, 43, and a tired-looking Richard Nixon, 47, walked into the WBBM-TV studio in Chicago for the first general election debate between presidential candidates. It is generally held that television viewers felt Kennedy won the first debate, while those listening on radio, unaware of Nixon's improvised makeup, felt Nixon won. That's probably overstated. Contemporary accounts suggest most viewers felt both candidates did well, while the single poll of radio listeners had a small sample possibly tilted toward pro-Nixon rural areas lacking TV reception....

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, you just might be a liberal if... 1) You get extremely upset about the idea of the government coming into our bedrooms unless it's to give everyone free birth control. 2) You believe that people who hold the exact same position on gay marriage that Barack Obama did last year are horrible bigots who are unfit to hold office. 3) You think that Mitt Romney, who has raked leaves for old people, helped a dying child with his will, and paid for college educations for kids who became quadriplegics in a car wreck, is less...

As a recovering pollster (I worked for Democratic pollster Peter Hart from 1974 to 1981), let me weigh in on the controversy over whether the polls are accurate. Many conservatives are claiming that multiple polls have overly Democratic samples, and some charge that media pollsters are trying to discourage Republican voters. First, some points about the limits of polls. Random sample polling is an imprecise instrument. There's an error margin of 3 or 4 percent, and polling theory tells us that one out of 20 polls is wrong, with results outside the margin of error. Sometimes it's easy to spot...

As a pollster, I understand how polling numbers can lead to the misimpression that televised debates never decide presidential elections. But I first got involved in competitive debate at age 14, and I was coaching state and national politicians in debate starting at age 20. My experience taught me that debates can be the difference. The key to winning televised presidential debates, and ultimately the election, is for a candidate to come across as being the "aggressor," rather than being "aggressive." It's an important distinction. The "aggressor" is the candidate who answers questions with forceful language and a laser focus...

Did anyone think the release of Mitt Romney's tax returns would satisfy Democrats and make them focus on the real issues in this campaign, including President Obama's failed domestic and foreign policy record and approaching massive tax increases? If so, please call me for a great deal on Arizona swampland. The Obama campaign's deputy manager, Stephanie Cutter, accused Romney of taking advantage of lower tax rates for capital gains available only to "those at the top." Is Cutter saying Romney is wrong to obey tax law? The tax code is a mess. It, not Romney, should be the object of...

All the pundits and self-described strategists weighing in on Mitt Romney’s 47-percent comments are missing the point. Indeed, most are so immersed in Washington’s corrupting culture that they cannot imagine a political system that creates anything other than ever-increasing government dependence. No one likes to admit it, but most career politicians want you to be dependent upon government. Politicians of all stripes campaign on what they have done for their constituents. That’s what made earmarks so popular with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. They could fire off a press release touting a new bike path or attend a...

At a time when 23 million Americans are unemployed and unemployed, the national debt is exploding, and poverty rates are the highest they’ve ever been, the national media should be focused on issues of paramount importance. That didn’t happen on Friday. Instead, at a “Meet the Candidate” event in Florida sponsored by Univision, a bunch of Lefty bloggers accused Governor Romney of “darkening his skin” in order to curry favor with Latino voters. Appalling: Mitt Romney appeared on Univision's "Meet the Candidate" event on Wednesday evening to talk about issues of importance to Latino voters, including immigration, education and foreign...