Free Republic

Republican Charlie Baker has climbed to a 3-point lead over Democrat Martha Coakley in the race for governor, while a push to repeal casinos in Massachusetts appears to be headed for a lopsided defeat, a new Suffolk University-Boston Herald poll shows. Baker's 46-43 percent lead is well within the poll's margin of error but the GOP nominee holds several key advantages over his Democratic opponent heading into the campaign's final few days, according to the Suffolk-Herald poll of 500 likely voters. Just 6 percent of voters say they are undecided.

Yesterday ABC's This Week (10/26/14) profiled George P. Bush, a Texas land commissioner candidate who is a grandson and nephew of the more famous George Bushes.  It was part of This Week's "Closer Look" series, which seems to be intended as a place for upbeat profiles of political heavyweights. But a brief exchange about climate change showed the limits of this kind of journalism. Given its impact on land issues, correspondent Jonathan Karl had good reason to ask Bush about climate change. KARL: As land commissioner, he'll oversee millions of acres of oil and natural gas reserves. But he also...

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee, remains among the most popular of possible 2016 Republican candidates – but just among Republicans. In the latest Economist/YouGov Poll, 75% of Republicans hold a favorable opinion of Romney, far more than say that about nearly all other GOP possibilities. ......................................................... Romney’s popularity with Republicans does not extend to the rest of the population, however. Overall, he is seen unfavorably. And when it comes to whether or not Romney should try again for the Presidency in 2016, Republicans are divided at the moment. The country overall would rather he stay...

Charlie Crist has slightly nudged ahead of Gov. Rick Scott in Quinnipiac University’s latest poll that shows the Democrat picks up 43 percent support from likely voters to the incumbent’s 40 percent. That apparent 3 percentage point lead for Crist is essentially a tie because it’s within the poll’s margin of error, but the poll of 800 likely voters indicates Crist has some momentum on his side. Last week, Quinnipiac surveyed the governor’s race and found it dead even between Crist and Scott, with each getting 42 percent. So the contest has shifted a net 3 percentage points in Crist’s...

M.D. Kittle at Watchdog.org's Wisconsin Reporter scooped everyone covering the Badger State Governor's race on Tuesday when he reported that Democratic candidate Mary Burke's resumé is not what her campaign's web site says it is. Burke's campaign bio claims that she "played a central role in Trek’s expansion as the Director of European Operations." Kittle found "multiple former Trek executives" who told him that, in Kittle's words, she "was fired by her own family following steep overseas financial losses and plummeting morale among Burke’s European sales staff." The real question to me is why it took until a week before...

Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday took a thinly veiled shot at Jeb Bush, saying that Republicans will ensure a Hillary Clinton presidency if they run a more moderate candidate in 2016. Appearing on CNBC, the Texas Republican and tea party favorite was asked about Bush and said that presidential candidates from the party’s establishment wing — like Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2008 and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012 — consistently fail to turn out millions of voters. “[I]f we run another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole [in 1996] or a John McCain or Mitt...

SALISBURY, N.C. – Regardless of who wins, the North Carolina Senate race will go down as the most expensive, likely ugliest contest of the 2014 midterms, with more than $100 million spent and more than 90,000 ads – most of them attacks – aired across the state. Democrat Kay Hagan is fighting for a second term in the Senate. Six years ago, she famously beat Elizabeth Dole to steal the seat. Republicans are determined to win it back this year and have poured millions into the campaign of Thom Tillis, speaker of the North Carolina House. Until recently, Tillis remained...

It’s looking like Florida won’t pass its medical marijuana initiative in November, according to a new poll from Gravis Marketing.... “50 percent of the Florida voters stated they would vote yes on the amendment while 42 percent stated they’d vote no,” the poll’s recap reads. “With only eight days remaining until the election, a powerful eight percent of undecided voters might hold the key to whether or not this ballot initiative passes or fails to receive the mandatory 60 percent support needed to make a change to the State of Florida’s constitution.”

An election integrity watchdog group is suing the state of Maryland, alleging that it has discovered massive and ongoing fraudulent voting by non-U.S. citizens in one county. But because of the way that the non-citizens are able to cast votes in elections, the fraud is likely happening in every single county and subdivision across the state. The group believes that the illegal voting has been happening for years. The group, Virginia Voters Alliance, says that it compared how voters in Frederick County filled out jury duty statements compared with their voting records. The group’s investigation found that thousands of people...

I already got my invitation to Greg Abbott’s victory party for the evening of Nov. 4 as we celebrate his landslide victory over Wendy Davis as the new and well-deserved governor of the Great Republic of Texas. This Texas race is a microcosm of elections across the country. Thank God there are still way more Texans that stand in defiance of the lying, scamming, America-hating, Texas-hating scammers and scoundrels that infest and steer the Wendy Davis campaign of deception.

Police in Middletown, Delaware, issued an arrest warrantfor the husband of state Sen. Bethany Hall-Long on Wednesday after he was caught on video allegedly stealing campaign signs put up by Republicans. The suspect, identified as Dana Armon Long, has been charged with a Class A misdemeanor for theft under $1,500. He faces up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $2,300. On Wednesday, Republican campaign volunteers reportedly set up a camera at the location in Middletown where dozens of their political signs kept disappearing. Some of the signs apparently read, “Fix the Economy! Vote Republican.” “We got...

Apologize in advance for not having a better source. The topic is about a robocall I received last night. The jist of the call was that I need to vote next Tuesday or else.. "Voting records are public and we will check to ensure you voted after the election." There was no CallerID and the call did not say who was calling. The implication seemed clear to me. Go vote or there will be a consequence. Might be effective for the gizmedats. Not sure why they called my zipcode. Jesse Jackson could probably win in my precinct if he ran...

Do bothersome facts matter anymore? Not really. This is an age when Americans were assured that the Affordable Care Act lowered our premiums. It cut deductibles. Obamacare allowed us to keep our doctors and health plans, and lowered the deficit. Those fantasies were both demonstrably untrue and did not matter, given the supposedly noble aims of health care reform. The Islamic State is at times dubbed jayvee, a manageable problem, and a dangerous enemy -- or anything the administration wishes it to be, depending on the political climate of any given week. Some days Americans are told there is no...

<p>Facts now pale in comparison with the higher truths of progressivism.</p> <p>Do bothersome facts matter anymore?</p> <p>Not really. This is an age when Americans were assured that the Affordable Care Act lowered our premiums. It cut deductibles. Obamacare allowed us to keep our doctors and health plans, and lowered the deficit. Those fantasies were both demonstrably untrue and did not matter, given the supposedly noble aims of health care reform.</p>

Prognosticators are predicting a Republican takeover of the United States Senate, and a pickup of a few seats in the House of Representatives. Driven in large part by the unpopularity of President Barack Obama (latest Gallup poll 42 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove of Obama), this potential change in control provides both an opportunity and a risk for Republicans. The Republicans have an opportunity to set out a clear agenda and provide 2016 voters with a clear contrast between themselves and the Democrats. But they also face a risk: that they will battle among themselves or overreach and fail in...

In a stunning turnaround, likely voters in the so-called millennial generation prefer a Republican-led Congress after next week's elections, and young Hispanics are turning sharply against President Obama. A new national poll of 18-to-29-year-olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics shows that young Americans are leaving the new Democratic coalition that twice elected Obama. The news is little better for the GOP: These voters, who more than any other voting bloc represent the future of the American electorate, generally hold Republicans in the lowest regard. The long-view IOP findings suggest that neither party is poised to win the largest generation in...

A jump in support from independent likely voters in the Florida governor's race leaves Democrat Charlie Crist with 43 percent, inches ahead of Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Scott with 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Libertarian candidate Adrian Wyllie has 8 percent, with 9 percent undecided. This compares to results of an October 22 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University, showing Gov. Scott and Crist tied 42 - 42 percent, with Wyllie at 7 percent. With Wyllie out of the race, Crist gets 45 percent to Scott's 42 percent. Men and women remain divided...

The left insists that those who do not buy into its agenda regarding global warming are “deniers” – ignoramuses who refuse to acknowledge facts thanks to a political agenda. But when it comes to voter fraud, it is the left that lives in the realm of fantasy.

Republican David Perdue h as surged ahead of Democrat Michelle Nunn in the race to fill the senate seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, according to the latest poll by SurveyUSA conducted for Atlanta Business Chronicle broadcast partner WXIA-TV. With less than a week to go before the election, Perdue has 48 percent of the vote. Nunn has 45 percent. In a SurveyUSA poll last week, Nunn held 46 percent of the vote and Perdue had 44 percent. Libertarian Senate candidate Amanda Swafford polled at 3 percent. Five percent of voters are undecided. Perdue's gain is credited...

....Obama administration officials have called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu "chickenshit" and other impolite words has raised eyebrows at home and abroad. President Obama — who is much too diplomatic to use those terms himself, even if he was really thinking them — has endured a day full of jabs about his loose-lipped underlings.... .....Not that Bibi will admit to those charges. "Our supreme interests, chiefly the security and unity of Jerusalem, are not the main concern of those anonymous officials who attack us and me personally, as the assault on me comes only because I defend the State of...