Free Republic

As conservatives look over the field of candidates we have been provided this election cycle, one thing becomes abundantly clear: most of these candidates will lose to Obama in 2012. But Rick Perry is the only guy that can show why he is the one you want to have a beer with while Obama is the one upset that the price of arugula is has risen at Wholefoods. If you’re reading this, you may not care who the most likable presidential candidate is, but the voters who decide elections do. The simple truth is that Perry is likable, Romney and...

Rick Perry may be stuck near the bottom of the polls among those vying to become the Republican nominee for president, but he might still enjoy a second act, according to veteran journalist Cokie Roberts. “He’s got the resources and nobody else does,” she said during a press conference before the “A Conversation with a Legend” fundraiser for the MD Anderson fundraiser in San Antonio Tuesday. “If we do see Newt Gingrich self-destruct, which I think is highly likely, and Romney continue to sit there at 23, 25 percent, then people will start looking around again. Roberts, a political commentator...

DERRY — Texas Gov. Rick Perry may be dropping in the polls, but some New Hampshire voters are confident he'll still be a viable candidate in the presidential primary Jan. 10... Voters who listened to Perry speak at the Greater Salem Chamber of Commerce event last night said they were impressed with what they heard. The voters, who came from across the state, also said they think Perry can weather the criticism his candidacy has received and still play a vital role in the first-in-the-nation primary. Those in the crowd included Salem Selectman Michael Lyons and Salem Budget Committee member...

Colin Powell on Sunday blamed the media as well as the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington. Not surprisingly, neither the class warfare stoked by President Obama and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned during this seven minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: What about this tone in the country right now? It's still very divisive. It's still very sort of brash, some say poisonous. I mean, you can barely get anything done on Capitol Hill, just behind me there....

First Thoughts: Romney's Clear Path By NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Brooke Brower *** Romney’s clear path: After Herman Cain’s defiant news conference on Tuesday and after Rick Perry’s brain freeze at Wednesday night’s CNBC debate, Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP presidential nomination is now WIDE open. In fact, not since Bob Dole in 1996 has a candidate been such a clear front-runner right before the primaries and caucuses begin. The ’96 comparison is also instructive: Dole still lost New Hampshire to Pat Buchanan. What this all means: While Romney looks to be on his way...

Numerous preemptive obituaries are being written for Governor Rick Perry’s campaign. These efforts are premature because they fail to understand and appreciate the fickle winds of political fortune. Governor Perry has substantial political assets that make him a potent candidate and that will give him another chance to prove himself to Republican voters. Each candidate brings their own set of positives and negatives to the game: Mitt Romney has money to burn, establishment support, business experience, and passable debating skills. He also has a record far to the left of the majority of Republicans, a history of changing his position...

In an exclusive interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper, Obama essentially said that, if he could redo the first few years of his presidency, he wouldn’t have made a single decision differently. “I guarantee it’s going to be a close election [in 2012] because the economy is not where it wants to be and, even though I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones, we’re still going through difficult circumstances,” the president said. Sheesh. More power to a person for confidence and conviction, but no doubts? No second guesses? No mistakes to regret or amend? Must be...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Drawing a bright line with congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan, according to senior administration officials. The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes repeal of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending, $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said. The plan includes no changes in Social Security and does not include an...

Just days after the Labor Department announced zero job growth for the month of August, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said that the economy is “continuing on the upswing" and that every economist "worth their salt" acknowledges that this is the result of the economic stimulus signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009. When Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February of that year, the national unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week, the national unemployment rate was 9.1 percent this...

Dear Glenn, Even the mainstream media is starting to notice that Newt Gingrich is making a comeback. Check out this article in US News and World Report labeling Newt the next 'comeback kid.' "The big-thinking Republican, his supporters, and presidential political experts sense that Gingrich...is on the way back. The reason for the emerging Newt 2.0? His effective performance in the last debate that inspired supporters to boost online donations after he assailed the deficit "super committee" while spelling out detailed solutions to fixing the economy." This article is more evidence that our campaign's strategy is working. While other candidates...

Hurricane Irene, at this moment, is ravaging the East Coast and will continue to do so for the next few days. It is a hurricane, a natural disaster; it was created by the weather on earth. It has been that way for thousands of years. The previous paragraph was common sense. Unless, that is, you are a liberal. In that case you might, as unbelievable as it may sound, blame Republicans for causing a storm. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself: liberals are actually blaming a hurricane on Republicans. Take this one, for example, which states outright that...

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and perennial third-party presidential candidate, announced last month that he would work to find a Democrat to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012. Nader now says that a primary challenge is a near certainty. “What [Obama] did this week is just going to energize that effort,” Nader promised in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent.” The only question, he said, is the stature of that opponent and whether it will be either “an ex-senator or...

We’ve seen a lot of advancements in automotive design and technology in the past 14 years, so what’s to come in the next 14 years? We’ve all heard of autonomous cars in the making, and we’ve seen the evolution of hybrids, electrics, navigation, Bluetooth connectivity, and advanced safety features that are capable of stopping a vehicle in its tracks. Imajerk17 asks us to look into the future to 2025, and debate what things automotive will be phased out in the cars of the future. He thinks steering wheels will be phased out and may possibly be replaced with a joystick,...

Obama : "You have 80% of the American people who support a balanced approach. 80% of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."

President Obama on Friday pointed to polls to argue that his proposal of a "balanced approach" on a debt deal - one that includes revenue increases as well as spending cuts - is what the American people want. "My Republican friends have said that they're not willing to do revenues, and they have repeated that on several occasions," he told reporters at a news conference in Washington. "My hope, though, is that they're listening not just to lobbyists or special interests here in Washington, but they're also listening to the American people. Because it turns out, poll after poll, many...

Still more hubris from the Manchurian Moonbat at a fundraiser in Philly: "And, Philadelphia, I know there are some of you who are frustrated because we haven't gotten everything done that we said we were going to do in two and a half years. It's only been two and a half years. I got five and a half years more to go." America would not survive another 5 1/2 years of deliberately profligate spending, treasonous foreign policy, and packing the judiciary top to bottom with ultra-radical screwballs. Fortunately, this is becoming clear to most Americans even through the wall...

Of the early potential Democratic contenders, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley says he supports gay marriage but stopped short of making a major push for the legislation earlier in the year, while Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is opposed. Hillary Clinton, if she runs, would still have her commitment to civil unions but not gay marriage from the 2008 race hanging over her — and at least until the end of next year, when she’s said she’ll be done at the State Department, she won’t be able to make any new comments on the issue. “It gives him an authenticity and a...

A YouTube video of Minister Louis Farrakhan taking President Obama to task over the war in Afghanistan and the bombing of Libya is making its way around the web. In the video, Farrakhan admonishes the president for turning into someone else. Farrakhan says, "We voted for our brother Barack, a beautiful human being with a sweet heart and now he's an assassin. They turned him into them."

It was about three weeks ago that Jerome Corsi, author of "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President," called me with some disturbing news. In response to the success of his book (No. 1 at Amazon in pre-release stage) and the elevation of the eligibility issue because of Donald Trump's big megaphone, his sources in Hawaii were telling him that Barack Obama was about to release a fraudulent birth certificate. Corsi urged that WND report the story. But because of the nature of the warnings, I didn't think it would be meaningful....

Obama predicts: 'American people will feel that I deserve a second term' By Michael O'Brien - 04/15/11 02:59 PM ET President Obama said Friday that he's convinced that voters will come to see him as the candidate best prepared to serve as president by next fall's elections. The president said he thinks that he can make the case for a second term, though he acknowledged that the state of the economy could be his biggest hurdle to clear in winning reelection. "I think the economy's going to continue to improve, and I think I'm going to be able to make...