Free Republic

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is launching a new ad Monday that ties Republican-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist with Barack Obama, including a photo of their infamous 2009 embrace. The Republican becomes the first gubernatorial candidate to deploy the clip of the president saying, “I’m not on the ballot this fall, but make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.” “Charlie Crist backed Obama from the start,” a narrator says in the 30-second spot, shared first with POLITICO. “If you liked the last six years of Barack Obama, you’ll love the next four years of Charlie Crist.”...

DES MOINES, Iowa—Marilynn Wadden, a retired elementary school teacher, was smiling as she settled into her seat at a Democratic field office here and began making calls for Senate candidate Bruce Braley. "We love this," Wadden says of the computer system that is doing the dialing for her. "It is just such a joy." Two years ago, when Wadden was making calls as a volunteer for President Obama, she had to punch numbers into the phone herself, write down voters' answers on paper, and then hand off the sheets to a data-entry team. "Now, we're kind of doing the data...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds a steady race, with Kay Hagan leading at 46% to 43% for Thom Tillis and 5% for Sean Haugh. This is the third month in a row that Hagan has held an advantage of either 3 or 4 points. In a two candidate race Hagan still leads Tillis 47/44, indicating that Haugh's potential 'spoiler effect' on the race is waning. Haugh's supporters only say their second choice would be Tillis by a 34/30 spread now, considerably closer than the difference was earlier in the campaign. Both candidates remain unpopular in the closing stretch of...

There is certainly plenty going right for the Iowa GOP in 2014: an unpopular Democratic president, a favorable political climate, and a popular GOP governor cruising to reelection atop the ticket. But as they are in Senate races across the country—Colorado, Alaska, North Carolina, to name a few—Democrats here are hoping smart tactics can offset a national mood that favors Republicans. And in Iowa, fears of the Democratic machine lurk not far below the surface. "Am I confident? Of course," Oman says. "Am I overconfident? Of course not." What the Republicans also have going for them this year is Ernst...

Republicans have the wind at their backs this year. But not every GOP nominee is taking advantage of that dynamic. As usual, some candidates are under-performing, proving once again that candidates and the campaigns they choose to run actually matter. That should come as no surprise to anyone who watched Republican Senate nominees Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana implode in 2012 or Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell and Colorado Republican Ken Buck lose in 2010. But this year, the problem children are not candidates foisted on the party by the Club for Growth or tea party groups....

So Karl Rove was involved in a cover-up. Well, leave it to Karl -- the “boy genius” and the “architect” -- to orchestrate a cover-up that actually hides information exculpatory to his President and his party. He did just that on the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. This is not an outlier either -- this is just Rove being Rove. And ‘Rove being Rove’ has sown the seeds of destruction that gave us Barack Obama in 2008, and again in 2012, and has scattered political germs that still haunt Republicans to this day. This goes back...

House Republicans are on track to make gains this cycle, but two weeks before Election Day, it’s still unclear whether the party will procure a wave of double-digit gains in their quest to extend the majority. Members of Congress and operatives alike note this is a toxic time for Democrats on the ballot that should result in huge losses for the president’s party. But a race-by-race evaluation of the House map shows Republicans are more likely in a position to pick up a net of around six seats this cycle. “After two successful cycles for House Republicans, the playing field...

President George H.W. Bush is displeased that Georgia Democrat Michelle Nunn is using his picture in ads for her Senate campaign. Nunn, who led Bush’s Points of Light Foundation until 2013, is touting her past Bush ties to counter claims by her Republican opponent, David Perdue, that Nunn is an Obama follower. In a new campaign ad, “Familiar,” Nunn highlights her former relationship with Bush, showing off a 2009 picture with the former President, as proof that she is able to work with Republicans and Democrats. But George H.W. Bush officially endorsed Perdue in September and is upset that Nunn...

The political arm for House Republicans says it is making a play for Iowa's 1st and 2nd congressional district seats. The National Republican Congressional Committee said Monday that it's buying $1.3 million in television ad time in the two districts, with spots to begin airing Friday. The purchase, the first for the NRCC in both districts this campaign cycle, is a sign they think they can win both races, officials say. Tyler Houlton, an NRCC spokesman, said more than $900,000 is being spent in the 2nd District, with purchases in the Cedar Rapids and Davenport markets. Another $400,000 is going...

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- The image some conservatives have of Greg Orman, the wealthy businessman running as an independent against veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts here in Kansas, is that Orman is, in the words of a recent Weekly Standard story, a "vacuous cipher." Watching Orman's performance in a recent debate with Roberts before a business group in this large suburb of Kansas City, it's safe to say that image is wrong, or at least incomplete. Calling Orman a cipher suggests he has no positions, or nothing to say. But on some important topics, Orman outlined policies in more detail...

Come for his answer on Common Core ("yes"), stay for his avert-your-eyes inability to answer lighthearted softball questions about books and music -- via John Ekdahl: 10 Questions for Sen. Mark Udall He's got most of the policy stuff nailed: Keep Obamacare? Check. Gun control? Check. Path to citizenship? Check. Opposition to the death penalty? Check. Opposition to the 'personhood' amendment? Check. More regulations on fracking? Check. Was his answer on Common Core an endorsement of the program, or a rejection of it?  Yes. Keep in mind that this is a man running for re-election in a purple state who's still trying...

October 27, 1964. Fifty years ago. It was a Tuesday night, one week from election day. As the Johnson-Goldwater campaign wound to its end, with Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society liberalism he was championing poised to win in a landslide over GOP nominee Senator Barry Goldwater, Americans turned on their television sets to see one last political commercial. They quickly discovered a very familiar face in a very unfamiliar setting.Actor Ronald Reagan, longtime movie and TV star, newly the host and occasional star of Death Valley Days, a weekly TV series based on the old West, was introduced by...

Obama told Al Sharpton that despite Democrats distancing themselves from him in contested states, they still vote with him, support his agenda and are strong allies with him:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7jSTxwMQ_1ASomething tells me that red state folks are going to be seeing excerpts from this interview a lot over the next 15 days.

(CNN) -- In her race to defeat Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Alison Lundergan Grimes has barnstormed Kentucky, talking up her support for raising the minimum wage and criticizing the GOP's so-called war on women. But the restaurant owned by Grimes' family doesn't always practice what she preaches, and Kentucky Republicans have been happy to point that out. .... But minimum wage isn't the only issue dogging Grimes' family business. Hugh Jass Burgers -- say it out loud to get the joke -- has menu items like "Charlotte's Rack, sure to be voted biggest rack" named after Grimes' mom and...

<p>The likelihood of a Republican Senate takeover continues to increase with all three major election models giving the GOP at least a six in ten probability of winning the six seats the party needs to win take back control.</p> <p>The trend lines in both the LEO and FiveThirtyEight models highlight movement over the past week toward Republicans -- with a slight tick back toward Democrats in the last few days."</p>

Kentucky's U.S. Senate race remains a dead heat two weeks before Election Day, with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell regaining the slimmest of leads over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in a new Bluegrass Poll. The poll of 655 likely voters found McConnell leading Grimes 44 percent to 43 percent. Libertarian David Patterson received 5 percent support, drawing voters from across the political spectrum. Eight percent were undecided.

Sen. Mark Begich’s campaign for re-election is running out of gas as Republican candidate Dan Sullivan continues to solidify his lead in the polls. Alaskan voters will put up with a lot, but in 2014, it increasingly appears that membership in President Barack Obama's party is not one of them. Sen. Begich tried early to distance himself from President Obama, as many political observers believed he was one of the strongest Democratic candidates running in a red state. After President Obama’s State of Union address in January, Begich said that he would not welcome him to the state with open...

At an event in Bogalusa, Louisiana Saturday, Mary Landrieu took time out of her stump speech to get something “off my chest” about her $2.5 million D.C. mansion. ... Landrieu lives in a 7,316 square foot D.C. mansion with 5 bathrooms, 4 water heaters, 2 dishwashers, and 82 fire sprinkler heads. Meanwhile, Landrieu does not own any developed property in Louisiana and bunks with her parents on the occasions she visits the state.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, is ratcheting up his anti-White House rhetoric, seeking to put more distance between himself and President Obama’s high disapproval rating in his state. “I think people are disappointed with the president and frustrated,” Begich said in a Politico report published Sunday. “I’m making sure people understand that if you are mad at Obama, he will be gone in two. If you care about Alaska, I’m here for six. When I tell people that, I remind them, they get it,” he added. Begich is scrambling to fend of his Republican challenger, former Attorney General Dan Sullivan. Sullivan...

Hard to hang onto Big Boo Man Status when so many of your observers know that when it comes to Ebola, Obama long ago mounted his girly bike and rode off into the do-nothing sunset. That Americans aren’t caving in to widespread hysteria on the current Ebola outbreak scare is a major headache for propagandist president Barack Hussein Obama. BHO must have been in a real flap when he took to the microphones for his weekly radio address on Saturday: “This is a serious disease,” he said, “but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear, because that only makes...