Free Republic

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Pat Buchanan predicted Mitt Romney will run for president on this weekend's broadcast of The McLaughlin Group. "There is no doubt Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Mitt Romney are in the establishment category or bracket that are headed for the finals," Buchanan said. "I think Mitt would come out first but I really don't see Bush as really having the drive or inner drive. And I think, then you get Mitt Romney against someone like a Cruz, or someone like that, and I think that would be the finals. And I think that Mitt has got it in his heart...

Gov. Chris Christie, who has long avoided wading into the immigration debate, said Thursday in Mexico City that he won't lay out his position on immigration reform unless he decides to run for president. "Until that time I have no role in the immigration debate, except for how it may affect the individual citizens of New Jersey, which I'll deal with as governor," the New Jersey Republican told reporters. "But I won't have anything to say on immigration unless and until I become a candidate for president of the United States," he continued. "If that happens, then I will articulate...

President Barack Obama’s impotent approach to the international crises proliferating around the globe has resulted in a bipartisan barrage of criticisms directed at him and his administration, and it’s all getting to be just too much to handle for Obama’s remaining supporters. The latest to offend the sensibilities of those for whom the Islamic State is a threat only to our ability to craft convincing moral equivalencies for their abhorrent acts is New Jersey governor and 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie. According to a report from New York Times journalist and Christie tracker Michael Barbaro, the governor had the...

The Koch Brothers think-tank, Americans for Prosperity, handed down a warning to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for not rejecting provisions in the ACA to submit health insurance exchange plans ahead of the health law’s full implementation. Republicans were already furious with Christie for praising President Obama’s rapid response to the super-storm Sandy that ravaged parts of the East Coast last week, and now the Koch Brothers are pressuring him to reject a New Jersey exchange bill to rebuff the ACA’s requirement before a November 16 cutoff date for states to set up health insurance exchanges. If states fail to...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

Second Amendment: An African-American single mom on her way to a birthday party for one of her kids faces 10 years in prison for straying into the Garden State carrying a firearm in her purse licensed in Pennsylvania. Shaneen Allen is less well-known than Michael Brown, the man shot by police in Ferguson, Mo., and it's doubtful Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton will pay her a visit anytime soon. They're busy elsewhere. A mother exercising her Second Amendment right not only to keep but to bear arms to protect her family is of little interest to them. Allen is a...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie joined California Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari.... (snip) in town to raise money as chairman of the Republican Governors Association ,," "Kashkari riled the GOP when he admitted he had voted for Obama in 2008, ..(snip)

John and Scott have commented on the indictment of Gov. Rick Perry. As they note, it fits a pattern of politically motivated indictments of prominent Texas Republicans. The Perry indictment also fits a pattern of harassment via the legal process of prominent Republican governors: Sarah Palin, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and now Perry. What do these four have in common? Why, they all are (or were) potentially viable candidates for the national office. Invocation of the legal process against Christie may well be warranted. (So too with Bob McDonnell, whom I didn’t include in my list because, although once vaguely...

Slip of the tongue? Yesterday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” Hillary Clinton spoke about what she would do about licensing illegal immigrants when she is president again. Watch:

Nicolle Wallace, former adviser to the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign who worked with Steve Schmidt, appeared on The View on Thursday (3/10/2014) and gushed over Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and even Bill Clinton. Predictably, however, she trashed Sarah Palin.

Politicians often are very shrewd investors — with their own money. If Al Gore wanted to move his money around in cash, he’d need a fleet of forklifts. But they’re rotten investors with your money. President Barack Obama had his Solyndra, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie has his casino, Revel, the multibillion-dollar Atlantic City boondoggle that, having declared bankruptcy — twice — just announced that it will be closing its doors and putting its 3,100 employees out of work. Thanks to Governor Christie and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the taxpayers of New Jersey are quasi-partners in this...

TRENTON — For the second time in two years, Gov. Chris Christie has vetoed a bill that would have banned the dumping of fracking waste in New Jersey. Environmentalists and lawmakers from both parties had championed the measure, which would have prohibited companies from treating, discharging, disposing, and storing waste from hydraulic fracturing — the controversial practice of pumping water, sand, and chemicals deep underground to harvest natural gas. Though an increase in fracking in recent years has caused U.S. energy production to spike, critics worry that the practice could pollute drinking water supplies. And while fracking doesn't happen in...

Hot Air Presidential Survey After you click Submit the page may appear blank, but there should be a confirmation message at the top of the page. If you scroll up and see it, your votes have been received... ---snip--- ***** Polls to FReep on candidates for 2016 and issues. Please hurry, they usually close these pretty quickly,

Forgive South Carolina voters if the looming 2016 presidential contest is giving them a strong sense of deja vu. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leading the Democratic pack among this state's voters, according to a new Palmetto Politics poll, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is receiving the most love here on the GOP side. "I think it's hilarious," College of Charleston political scientist Gibbs Knotts said. "This is not 1992 all over again, but we've still got Bush and Clinton. Of course, we're talking about a different Bush and a different Clinton." About one-third of 1,000 likely...

Anyone who believes that Hillary Clinton will not run for President in 2016 should examine her recently-published book, Hard Choices, which in places reads like a campaign manifesto. The 600 pages of text offer much more, but on myriad domestic and international issues readers can readily predict her positions as president, even beyond what she has already indicated as first lady, senator from New York, and Barack Obama’s first secretary of state. With the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza, for example, her chapter on the Middle East indicates in detail how she dealt with key regional leaders in earlier...

A close aide to Gov. Chris Christie sent him text messages related to fallout from the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and later deleted them, she told a legislative committee in Trenton on Thursday. Regina Egea, then the governor's liaison to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the messages discussed testimony...

MARION and DAVENPORT – Anyone who tells you Chris Christie’s presidential aspirations are in trouble might think differently if they saw how Iowa Republicans reacted to the New Jersey governor on Thursday. Locals jam packed a Cedar Rapids-area restaurant in the mid-afternoon just for the chance to shake Christie’s hand. Then he wowed a crowd of 300 in Davenport with a motivational speech that had attendees buzzing. “He sort of rallied the troops for Governor Branstad, which he did a fantastic job of,” said Jeanita McNulty, who lives in rural Scott County. “And then, I think he was here to...

Making his first trip to Iowa in more than 940 days, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared, "I don't care about being loved. I care about being respected." "I tell them what I think and then everyone else will get to decide. They don't go in there and say, "Are you conservative enough? Are you liberal enough? Are you moderate enough?" That's not what people say, " he said. "They say, "Do I trust him? Can I count on him to tell me the truth? Is he somebody who can be a competent steward of our country's future?""

Will Mitt Romney run again for president? The question seems absurd. Aside from a single commanding debate performance against President Barack Obama, he was not a very good candidate in 2012. After failing in his first attempt at gaining the Republican nomination four years earlier, Romney struggled across the finish line against weak, underfunded primary opponents whose best days were mostly behind them. He then promptly lost to Obama in November. In fact, Romney has only won one general election in twenty years of running for office. He will be fourteen years removed from that lone victory in November 2016....

Chris Christie is headed to Iowa today. Whenever any politician heads to Iowa, the media starts buzzing about Presidential prospects. Just in case, the Judicial Crisis Network is going to greet the Governor with advertisements.There are, believe it or not, conservatives who have tried to give Chris Christie the benefit of the doubt on many issues. But one area where even those conservative get the jitters is judicial appointments. The Governor of New Jersey is a relatively powerful governor who makes many more appointments than the average governor. Christie, for example, appointed Stuart Rabner as Chief Justice of the New...