Free Republic

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) donated nearly $5.5 million to three non-profit, leftist political groups to beat Republican politicians in Florida, Michigan and Ohio this year. AFSCME gave to Campaign Money Watch, Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority Midwest. AFSCME's role, however, was not well known until now. Detractors say that this shadowy financial support violates the spirit of campaign finance reform and open government. Allowing non-profits to raise and spend unlimited union or corporate funds violates the spirit of laws aimed at curbing special interests in elections, said Meredith McGehee of the non-partisan watchdog Campaign...

CARSON CITY -- Until Saturday afternoon, Yerington resident Laura Tracy never had attended a political rally in her life. But she had a hard time controlling her emotions and her political sign when she and 5,000 others pushed into a park pavilion to scream for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin like she was one of The Beatles. You see, Tracy, like Palin, is a hunter, good enough to have shot a wild turkey for her family's dinner last Thanksgiving. For Palin's first campaign appearance in Nevada, Tracy hoisted a sign that read "Hunter Chick 4 Palin" on one side...

ARVADA — Trina Green said she worries about her lack of health insurance and the price of groceries. On her bookkeeper's salary, she needs cheaper gas to shuttle her baby and her 7-year-old around. She is concerned about the quality of her son's school and the war in Iraq. And vice presidential pick Sarah Palin is making her take a second look at voting for John McCain. "She's not soured; she's not influenced yet," said Green, a registered independent in Jefferson County, a key battlefield where there is a roughly equal measure of independent voters compared with Republicans and Democrats....

Which vice presidential candidate is more qualified to be president should the need arise?

Earlier today, Barack Obama’s campaign released an ad attacking John McCain for not knowing how to send an e-mail. Their crack research team apparently never heard of Google or Lexis-Nexis, but Jonah Goldberg does. He discovers why McCain doesn’t use a keyboard — his torturers made sure he couldn’t. The Boston Globe reported it eight years ago: McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at...

Sarah Palin has the opportunity to be the most beloved polarizing figure seen in politics for a long time. Move over George Bush, move over (dare I say it?) Ronald Reagan. Let's look briefly at her accomplishments: Hockey Mom. Mother of Five, including a "special needs" child. Married to the same guy for 20-some years. She does not talk "family values": she practices them. This infuriates the Democrats for two reasons. First, she does not have to be stage-managed and packaged to 'sell' her: she just has to be.. Second, she is everything that the liberals have pretended that the...

We've been through Obamamania. Now a new phenomenon is sweeping America – Palinmania. Even before Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska had appeared on the stage to introduce Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, the chant went up around the hall: "We want Sarah!" A tear rolled down the cheek of a middle-aged woman volunteer who moments earlier had been barking orders to keep the exits clear. A mother clutched the hand of her 11-year-old daughter, whose face was made up like a clown with stars and the letters P-A-L-I-N painted across her face. Outside, queues which began six hours...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will speak at her son’s Army deployment ceremony on 9/11 and spend two days with ABC News crews later this week as part of a McCain campaign plan to increase Americans’ comfort with her as a strong leader. Campaign and network officials had said on Sunday that her first television interview would be a sit-down with Charles Gibson of ABC’s “World News.” But it turns out that she is spending much of Thursday and Friday with Gibson — at the ceremony in Fairbanks, Alaska, and at her home in Wasilla, Alaska. Campaign aides said the anchorman...

Sarah Palin’s eyeglasses are out of stock due to such a large demand. The Kawasaki 704’s can’t be found in many optical outlets. Since Palin was announced as McCain’s running mate women from all around the nation are imitating her hairstyle. She is admired by many women Democrat and Republican. Who knew this would happen?

MSNBC's announcement that it is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews with David Gregory as anchors for its main political events (the upcoming presidential debates and election) vividly illustrates several long-obvious facts. First, nothing changes the behavior of our media corporations more easily than vocal demands and complaints from the Right, which petrify media executives and cause them to snap into line.

The Republicans are, to swipe a phrase from that other campaign, all fired up and ready to go. They are more fired up than they've been since Ronald Reagan's Morning in America in 1980, only this time their hopes are pinned not on a controversial former California governor but a controversial Alaska governor. The GOP, per its convention, is running a hiding-in-plain sight, anti-incumbent incumbent campaign that essentially has it running against itself, which isn't half as painful as its sounds and which, in many corners of America, may just work. In St. Paul last week, Sarah Palin won the...

Today, top McCain aide Rick Davis indicated the campaign isn't in any hurry to slot Palin for a Sunday show appearance -- and will do so only if he and other strategists determine it serves the ticket's purposes, not because some may view it as a required initiation for a major political player. Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show, Davis said, "I'd never commit to anything in the future. ... Our strategy is in our hands, not the media's. We're going to do what's in our best interests to try to win the election. If we think going on TV...

Gov. Palin is a true outsider, a real maverick. She lacks Washington, D.C. political experience. That’s good. No, that’s excellent. It is her lack of D.C. political experience that is the refreshing outsider change America so desperately needs and wants. Palin made it clear that she is like the rest of us, noting how Fedzilla is bloated, broken, ineffective, and wasteful. Our professional politicians no longer work for us, but instead represent K Street bandit lobbyists. These scoundrels deserve our scorn, anger and contempt, and, quite honestly, a big, old pink slip, and Sarah appears to be the tough leader...

The GOP presidential candidate attracted roughly the same number of viewers to his convention acceptance speech Thursday as Obama did before the Democrats last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. It marked the end of an astonishing run where more than 40 million people watched political speeches on three nights by Obama, McCain and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The Republican convention was the most-watched convention on television ever, beating a standard set by the Democrats a week earlier.

Judging from the number of disrespectful, disingenuous and just plain dumb attacks they have already leveled at her, the Democrats and their media allies are very much afraid of Sarah Palin. And well they should be. John McCain's VP nominee is the liberal establishment's worst nightmare. She's young, smart, successful and female, a combination of virtues that -- according to progressive mythology -- does not come in a conservative package. But Governor Palin is a conservative, and proud of it, which means that her mere existence refutes that carefully crafted liberal fiction. Indeed, now that Palin is on the campaign...

What do you think of Sarah Palin after her speech tonight! I thought she hit a homerun!

Sarah Palin is preparing to take the stage at the Republican convention, and if you believe the chorus in the MSM, the pivotal issue she must deal with is the pregnancy of her teen-age daughter — which in the space of two days has apparently become one of the most burning policy matters of our time. Move over, U.S. economy, world markets, jihadis, oil despotisms, resurgent Russian aggressors, Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I don’t know what Sarah Palin is going to say. But I am trying to imagine the effect it would have if she stood up before...

Never mind the naysayers and inside-the-Beltway snobs who mock John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. This was a brilliant choice. Sure, it's a risk. But as Palin's defenders point out, it's no less a risk than asking the country to take a chance at the top of the ticket on a first-term senator from Illinois who doesn't have much to show in legislative accomplishments or foreign policy expertise. I've defended Barack Obama by urging that we think outside the box and ask whether the world with which McCain is so familiar hasn't changed over...

Joe Biden once got in trouble for plagiarizing a speech and inflating his academic record. So it will not surprise you to find that his famous working-class background turns out to be mythical. But it may surprise you to learn that Biden isn't the one who has trouble with the facts. In his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic convention, Biden referred to "those of us who grew up in middle-class neighborhoods like Scranton and Wilmington." In the video preceding his address, he said that the people he knew as a boy didn't regard themselves as working class but as...

John McCain has just experienced a political Trifecta garnering the coveted conservative base that is absolutely necessary for any Republican to win an election. It is the very oxygen of the party i n much the same way liberals are the core of the Democratic Party. The first win for Senator McCain that shook his slumbering base was the Saddleback Forum where his direct answers that revealed conviction and resolve stood in sharp contrast to Barack’s fumbled, arrogant, non-answer responses. So distraught was the left that=2 0they had to create an immediate spin that McCain had the answers before hand....

CNN's talking head has twice suggested that Gov Palin will either be neglecting her children if she is VP or won't be able to do the VP job because of her children. He especially focused on the Down's Syndrome child because of the child's special needs.

It's an election time of year so we're reviving the Political Tidbits to better guide you to your election choices. This week we discuss, but of course, John Edwards who was almost our VP oncit and almost the Dem nominee this year. What a stellar, stand-up guy this DEMOCRAT turned out to be, huh? Also, let's talk about this upcoming Dem convention and just why the Clintons have consumed almost three full nights of the festivities. Much more.

First Congressional District candidate Joel Haugen (R-Scappoose), who is battling Republican officials in that district, called support from Oregon Republican Party officials a farce after they refused to rectify a situation where local county officials would not support his candidacy. “ORGOP's help is likely to be of the order of holding our jewelry while we get water boarded,” Haugen said in an email to PolitickerOR.com sent from Minnesota, where he was attending a wedding. Haugen’s anger comes after Republican Party Chairman Vance Day issued a letter saying that ORGOP would support Haugen no matter who he has endorsed in the...

A once-promising House target is looking more and more jeopardized for Republicans thanks to a maverick candidate. The GOP nominee to challenge first-term Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) said he has suspended his campaign until half of the counties in the 11th district sign on to his list of “core principles” of the Republican Party. Read whole article here.... http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/shuler-opponent-on-hiatus-2008-07-14.html

You've probably heard the story about the tycoon who wanted to bring out a new kind of dog food. He spent lavishly. He hired the best marketing person, the top PR firm, the best ad agency, the No. 1 packaging expert, the most powerful distributor -- but the sales were flat after six months. He summoned his consultants to a meeting and asked why the food wasn't selling. "The dogs won't eat it," was the answer that came back. And so it is with Mitt Romney. Despite outspending his rivals by huge margins throughout the primaries, the dogs won't eat...

The big winner in all of this will be Jesse Jackson. As Obama fails to live up to his teleprompter image and the media can't protect the legend in the making that they've tried to build, he will end up losing the election. When that happens the democrats will go into their normal recount or litigate mode and the inevitable chant will be RACISM, RACISM. At that point Jesse and Al, the justice brothers will step forward to proclaim a full time enduring state of victimhood, demand reparations and widen the dividing of the country on racial lines. At that...

Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When Election Day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home. This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world - Iran - is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb. They're getting that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran's nuclear bomb will be...

As former Rep. Doug Ose and State Senator Tom McClintock battle it out for the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Rep. John Doolittle today, a new survey for their soon-to-be Democratic rival shows what is likely to be a second difficult race for anyone campaigning in the suburban Sacramento district. The poll, conducted by Benenson Strategy Group for former Air Force pilot Charlie Brown's campaign, was taken 5/14-15 and surveyed 400 likely general election voters for a margin of error of +/- 5%. Brown, Ose and McClintock were tested.

Americans Are "Sick and Tired" of War, McCain Says, But Vows to Succeed Posted by John Bentley| Comments1 (CBS) From CBS News’ John Bentley: Retired Navy officer and former POW John McCain acknowledged on Memorial Day that “the American people have grown sick and tired of the war in Iraq,” but maintained that pulling the U.S. military out of the country now would be “a mistake of colossal historical proportions.” “Our defeat in Iraq would be catastrophic, not just for Iraq, but for us. I cannot be complicit in it. I will do whatever I can, whether I am effective...

It should be obvious to everyone in the country now who the real racists are. When a preacher who preaches Afrocentrism and hatred of America is cheered by blacks both in all-black churches and by blacks on TV, we see who they are. when a black candidate for president is voted for by 90% of black people simply because of his skin color, we see who they are. This same candidate was getting fully half of the votes of those of us who are white, oriental and Hispanic. That’s been changing with the changing view. When we look at Obama...

With Richardson now backing Obama, I was just wondering what the over/under is on a new scandal in terms of days or months that involve him.. Any ideas?

Folks, Fred will be on Bill's Show Today, later in the show

Barack Obama gave a speech today that was designed to stir up the masses. In mimicking the oratory stylings of Martin Luther King Jr., he ended his string on non specific platitudes by hearkening back to such efforts as putting a man on the moon and the civil rights act and then ended his speech with a repeated chant for hope saying, YES WE CAN - YES WE CAN!

In the midst of furious campaigning, The Associated Press asked presidential candidates to reflect on what they like to do on a lazy day. Their answers: DEMOCRATS: New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: "Reading, crossword puzzles, going to the movies, spending time with family, playing cards." Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: "Reading, hanging around the house with family." Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: "Loafing with my kids on the couch listening to them tell stories — did it over Thanksgiving." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: "Horse-riding." REPUBLICANS: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: "Golf or reading, depending on the weather."...

Standing inside the Mississippi State Capitol Rotunda, a cluster of conservative Christian leaders voiced their support for Republican candidate Fred Thompson, praising his “fortitude” of character. “[Former] Senator Thompson’s pursuit of the presidency is not ego-driven … and [he] does not attempt to re-invent himself or change his language depending on his audience,” Reverend Phillip Knight said, adding, “It appears to me, the only candidate that can act, isn’t.” Knight and Dr. Benny Tate, founders of the Wesleyan Center for Strategic Studies, promise the endorsements of 100 conservative Methodist pastors in the coming days. They also say they have been...

A few days after Thanksgiving, I asked Mike Huckabee what had surprised him about voters over the past six months of campaigning. "The intensity of the immigration issue," he said immediately, and then added, "I honestly don't know why it's gotten so hot." Huckabee gets points for candor: most of the presidential candidates I've spoken with in recent months feel the same way but aren't about to say so. It is difficult to spend a day on the trail and not see the anger explode.This is especially true in the Republican Party. John McCain, the sponsor of immigration-reform legislation, has...

The latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of 1,000 likely New Hampshire voters came out today, based on interviews conducted as recently as last night. Here are the numbers: 1. Mitt Romney 29% 2. John McCain 21 3. Rudy Giuliani 19 4. Mike Huckabee 7 5. Ron Paul 4 6. Fred Thompson 4 7. Duncan Hunter 1 8. Tom Tancredo - 9. (Other) 1 10 Don't Know 14 With a margin of error of plus or minus four points and fourteen percent undecided, the race remains wide open. Still, two points stand out. The first is that Fred Thompson has essentially...

There they go again. The “Stop Huckabee” campaign sponsored by the Club for Growth, has launched yet another “fact-check” on Mike Huckabee’s record, similar in both style and rhetoric to most any Pat Toomey-led campaign. Like any good sleight of hand artist, Toomey’s attacks are designed to distract the audience just long enough for the illusion to be successful. So it is with this one as well. The current Club for Growth strategy even has some Arkansas flavoring in the mix. Salon reports on “a spin-off group called Club for Growth.net, which files regular disclosures through the Internal Revenue Service....

WASHINGTON - Ron Paul, the Texas congressman running a long-shot campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, raised $2.4 million from April through June and ended the quarter with a similar amount in the bank, according to financial reports filed Sunday. The total is a remarkable showing for Paul, putting him ahead of Arizona Sen. John McCain in cash on hand. While Paul has raised far less than McCain or the other leading Republicans, his libertarian views and opposition to the war in Iraq have lit a fire among nontraditional contributors, particularly on the Internet. About half of his total came...

Bloomberg's secret White House bid By Toby Harnden, US Editor, in Washington  Last Updated: 9:25pm BST 11/05/2007 Toby Harnden's blog: President Bloomberg's plan Profile: Michael BloombergMichael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman and mayor of New York, is secretly building the financial and organisational foundations of an audacious third-party presidential candidacy that would transform the 2008 race for the White House.   A recent poll gave Mr Bloomberg a 73 per cent approval rating among New Yorkers “He wants to do this, he thinks he could win it and he thinks he could be a great president,” said a source closely connected...

We are all very well aware of the fact that we have an illegal-immigration problem in this country. As usual, we avoided the problem for as long as we could and when we couldn’t avoid it any longer we were told that, indeed, somewhere between 12 and 20 million people had somehow come into this country unnoticed. It’s like we went overnight from “no problem” to a problem so big that it now defies a good solution. It’s become one of those “there are no good choices only less bad choices” that Americans are becoming all too familiar with. We...

The axiom is as old as human striving: The perfect is the enemy of the good. In politics this means that insisting on perfection in a candidate interferes with selecting a satisfactory one. Which is why the mood of many of the 6,300 people, lots of them college age, who registered at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference here, was unreasonably morose. Sponsored annually by the American Conservative Union, CPAC is the conservative movement's moveable feast. Many at CPAC seemed depressed by the fact, as they see it, that the top three Republican candidates — John McCain, Mitt Romney and...

Keeping tabs on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president ... # FROSTY WELCOME: Richardson arrived in snow-blown Iowa on Friday for his first foray as a Democratic presidential candidate and told the Des Moines Register his trip was "a little dicey. Like, zero visibility and 40 mile-per-hour winds."— L.L. # ALL SMILES: A new Time Magazine column entitled "Why Republicans are Smiling" says the GOP has several things to cheer about these days— one of them being the field of 2008 Democratic presidential contenders. The column by conservative William Kristol said Hillary Clinton...

Keeping tabs on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president ... RISING: A new ABC News-Washington Post poll of Democrats and those who lean Democratic had Richardson at 3 percent. He trailed Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore [hasn't announced] and John Edwards. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain led Republicans. The national telephone survey took place last week. PITCHING WOO: Richardson played Hardball with MSNBC's Chris Matthews for eight minutes on Monday but fielded only softballs. Matthews told Richardson: "You know more about foreign policy than I do;" put him in fourth place in...

"Prez on the Rez"— the first presidential candidate forum to take place on reservation land— will not be coming to Sandia Pueblo. Sandia, which is just north of Albuquerque, was a finalist to host the historic event for Democratic White House hopefuls to gather with tribal leaders to share their views on Indian Country. But the event will instead take place Aug. 23 at the Morongo band of Mission Indians reservation outside Palm Springs, Calif., according to organizer Kalyn Free. Free is founder and president of INDN's List, an Oklahoma-based organization dedicated to getting Native Americans elected to political office....

SANTA FE— A few days after the November election in 2004, Gov. Bill Richardson and top aide Dave Contarino sat in Richardson's fourth-floor office at the Capitol and chewed over the results. The governor and Contarino had worked hard for Sen. John Kerry, hoping to deliver New Mexico's five electoral votes to the Massachusetts Democrat and help deny President Bush a second term. In the end, Kerry lost New Mexico and the election. That meant four more years of Bush but an opportunity for another Democrat to be the party's nominee for the White House in 2008. "Maybe next time...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has hired the executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party to run his primary campaign here, the state party said today, a move aimed at jump-starting a second-tier campaign in this early voting state. Lachlan McIntosh will head the South Carolina arm of Richardson's bid to become the nation's first Hispanic president. ''I think Bill Richardson has the life experience and work experience to be a truly great president,'' McIntosh told The Associated Press. ''America could use a great president about now.'' He said he will start working for Richardson on...

If Gov. Ted Strickland had his druthers, the United States would be under the steady hand of President Vilsack come 2009. Although the former governor of Iowa isn’t yet a household name, Strickland said he’d make a fine chief executive. Following a speech at the Ohio Newspaper Association, Strickland expressed mild annoyance last Thursday about speculation in The Other Paper that he might be inclined to support former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. “I like John Edwards,” Strickland said. “He’s not my candidate.” Who is the governor’s candidate? Strickland doesn’t have one, and he doesn’t expect he’ll need to....

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. The reception you have given me and Lynne warms our hearts. The genius of the founding fathers is that they put together a government that can be run by ordinary people. I’m a very ordinary guy, but folks, I have a very extraordinary family. I had a very average tour of duty in the military and didn’t do anything special, but my son, Duncan, quit his job and joined the Marines after 9-11 and served two tours in Iraq. I was a less than average student, but my brothers Bobby and John are world class...

Keeping tabs on Gov. Bill Richardson as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president … Time magazine, in a Feb. 5 cover story with the migraineinducing headline, “Only 648 days until the next election!” disses Richardson by not including his photo among the eight candidate mugs on the cover, mentioning his name only once in the story and not featuring him among 11 candidates in a “guide to a crowded field” graphic. Good news and bad news for Richardson in Time’s Election Index, which polls on primary popularity. He gets 4 percent, far short of Hillary Clinton’s 40 percent but...