Free Republic

The battleground was different in 2010, when Dannel P. Malloy and Tom Foley first fought to become governor. Linda McMahon and Richard Blumenthal were slugging it out in a high-finance senate race that drew a lot of attention. The economy was sputtering badly. Tom Foley's running mate was popular Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton. Sandy Hook -- and the gun control legislation that came out of it -- was more than two years away.

By BILL BARROW Associated Press October 9, 2014 ATLANTA (AP) -- With the walloping Republicans gave Democrats in the midterm elections, the GOP stands one Louisiana Senate runoff away from completely controlling Southern politics from the Carolinas to Texas. Only a handful of Democrats hold statewide office in the rest of the Old Confederacy. The results put Southern Republicans at the forefront in Washington - from Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to a host of new committee chairmen. Those leaders and the rank-and-file behind them will set the Capitol Hill agenda and continue molding the GOP's identity heading...

WASHINGTON — As most Republicans were taking a victory lap the morning after the elections, a group of conservatives huddled anxiously in a conference room not far from Capitol Hill and agreed that now is the time for confrontation, not compromise and conciliation. Despite Republicans’ ascension to Senate control and an expanded House majority, many conservatives from the party’s activist wing fear that congressional leaders are already being too timid with President Obama. They do not want to hear that government shutdowns are off the table or that repealing the Affordable Care Act is impossible — two things Republican leaders...

The showdown is coming and Republicans have to prepare their response. An immense battle is brewing that will have major consequences for our country The mid-term election should have been a resounding wake-up call to President Obama to change from his liberal agenda and start working with an emboldened Republican Party. On Tuesday, the GOP took over control of the U.S. Senate, expanded its majority in the House and gained governorships in such blue states as Maryland and Illinois. The voters delivered a clear repudiation of the Obama presidency and his quest to remake America. Amazingly, the tone deaf President...

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, announced Saturday that the party will conduct a full review of its poor performance in recent midterm elections. In a video posted to YouTube, Wasserman Schultz said Democrats need to examine why their party suffered significant losses this year, costing them control of the Senate, and in 2010, when they lost control of the House. At the same time, Democrats have fared well in presidential election years, winning the White House and making gains in both chambers in 2008 and 2012. “The electoral success we have when our presidential nominee...

To call the grotesque drubbing suffered by the Democratic Party in the midterms monumental, is like referring to the surface of the sun as warm. The scene was so grisly, acutely sensitive Democrats (most of them) were forced to avert their eyes or risk anaphylactic shock. If you ever wanted to see numbers bleed, this was your night. Surprised no referee jumped onto the CNN set, rang a bell, and raised the Koch Brothers' hands triumphantly in the air. The big question is how much the FCC will fine the networks for airing the election returns, thereby exposing young viewers...

Candy and I enjoyed a double date with Bill and Laura Cassidy tonight at Ye Olde College Inn in New Orleans. Thanks to the Blancher family for hosting us and to Jimmy and the staff for a great New Orleans meal! Congressman Cassidy and I had a positive discussion concerning our shared love for our country and for Louisiana. We also spoke about important points of public policy including the ongoing situation in Bayou Corne, the REDEEM Act, and Sen. Lee's Conservative Reform Agenda... I even encouraged Bill to take a look at our Contract with Louisiana and to hop...

Contributions from Celebrities to Obama, Barack (D) [Return to summary] Contributor Description Total Kauffman, Marta Producer $7,500 Landau, Jon Producer/Manager $7,500 Forman, Milos Director $5,800 Crowe, Cameron Director/Writer $5,750 Haysbert, Dennis Actor $5,500 Hathaway, Anne Actor $5,000 Henley, Donald H Singer/Songwriter $5,000 Howard, Cheryl Actor/Celebrity Spouse $5,000 Howard, Ronald Director/Actor/Producer $5,000 Jones, Quincy Record Producer $5,000 Kanal, Tony Member of 'No Doubt' $5,000 Johansson, Scarlett Actor $5,000 Johnson, Don Actor $5,000 Johnson, Earvin "Magic" Former NBA Player $5,000 Ferrell, Will Actor $5,000 Gregory, Tom Producer/Writer $5,000 Grenier, Adrian Actor $5,000 Griffith, Melanie Actor $5,000 Hall, Deidre Actor $5,000 Handler, Daniel...

A former Navy chaplain who made headlines for being court martialed for praying in Jesus’ name has been elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives. Former Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, nicknamed “Chaps,” won the seat Tuesday in Colorado House District 15 with more than 70 percent of the vote. His work will begin in January.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are planning an extensive review of what went wrong in the 2014 and 2010 elections, hoping to find ways to translate success in presidential campaigns into future midterm contests. A party committee will conduct a "top-to-bottom assessment" of the Democrats' performance in recent midterm elections and try to determine why they have struggled to turn out its core voters in nonpresidential elections. "It's apparent that there are increasingly two separate electorates: a midterm electorate and a presidential electorate. We win one and we don't seem to be able to win the other,"

-- Republican Ed Gillespie conceded the Virginia Senate race Friday to incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. Gillespie said at a Friday afternoon news conference that he had called Warner "congratulating him on his re-election" in a race that turned out to be one of the midterm election's biggest surprises. Polls had shown Warner, a popular former governor who'd been endorsed by his Republican predecessor, ex-Sen. John Warner, with a hefty lead. But Gillespie led Warner for much of the night as returns trickled in Tuesday -- and ultimately ended up trailing by less than one percentage point. Get ready: 2016...

I was prepared to offer a sympathetic interpretation of the White House’s preemptive attempts to assuage liberal anxiety ahead of the midterms by dismissing them as mere bravado. The administration’s claim that it would mount a “counter offensive” in the wake of likely midterm losses struck me as posturing – the president, I reasoned, surely could not be so self-absorbed that he believes he will poses enough political capital after the midterms to press for, much less enact, his agenda. This was surely a message aimed at a particularly narrow audience. But the president’s post-shellacking presser on Wednesday was a...

Politically, are labor unions finished? It appears that might be the case. Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker once again humiliated organized labor with his comfortable re-election last Tuesday. While polls showed a close race, Walker beat his Democratic opponent, Mary Burke, by a 6-point margin 52/46. Labor unions had put Walker in the cross hairs ever since his 2010 gubernatorial victory, failed to oust him in the 2012 recall (Walker received more votes in this election than in the 2010 race), and came up short again in this contest. Walker is now a definite 2016 contender, with a reputation...

President Barack Obama’s promise to roll back parts of the nation’s immigration laws is a constitutional “nuclear threat,” Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus said Friday. Obama “is just throwing a barrel of kerosene on a fire if he signs an amnesty order,” Priebus told reporters at a Friday breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, also shifted the GOP’s public policy on immigration by downplaying the support for comprehensive immigration reform that it adopted after the 2012 presidential loss. Obama’s failure to guard the border against Central American migrants this summer, he...

Obama met with Republican leaders today at the White House for a “bipartisan lunch.” This was his first meeting with Republican leaders after Democrats were shellacked in the midterm elections. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HxyrML3WkwwObama lashed out at Republicans when the cameras were turned off. The AP reported: Republicans attending the postelection lunch at Obama’s invitation said they asked him for more time to work on legislation, but the president said his patience was running out. He reiterated his intent to act on his own by the end of the year if they don’t approve legislation to ease deportations before then and send it...

It’s official: in January, Jody Hice will be sworn in as the next Congressman from Georgia’s 10th District. This is a man who has called Islam, the second-largest religion in the world, “a totalitarian way of life with a religious component” that “does not deserve First Amendment protection.” In his book he calls legal abortion “worse than Hitler’s six million Jews or Mussolini’s three hundred thousand,” adding that “the genocide in America is inexcusable!” In 2004, he told the Athens Banner-Herald that he doesn’t “see a problem” with women running for office “if the woman’s within the authority of her...

If you were observing American elections from the outside, you might be asking yourself the following: Can't these people make up their minds? Four out of the last five elections (2006, 2008, 2010 and now 2014) were "wave" elections in which one party won a sweeping victory. They elect a president of one party, then two years later almost inevitably give the other party a huge victory in the midterm election. Why do they expect things to change? Good question. It's always dangerous to speak of a country of 319 million as having a singular will, or of an election...

**SNIP** Putting his own spin on the election results that saw gains for conservative candidates throughout much of the nation, state NAACP President Rev. William Barber said Tillis' "narrow victory" was a repudiation of his policies, not a validation of them. Barber said there were widespread reports of voting problems – the State Board of Elections said the election ran rather smoothly – and the shortened early-voting period and the elimination of same-day registration affected thousands of North Carolina voters. "The magnitude of the problem may not be far from the margin of victory (for Tillis)," he said. The NAACP...

Mia Love made history on Tuesday, becoming the first black female Republican to be elected to Congress. However, although she is proud of her accomplishment, Love has tried to take the focus off her race and gender, saying on CNN Wednesday, “This has nothing to do with race. Understand that Utahans have made a statement that they’re not interested in dividing Americans based on race or gender, that they want to make sure that they are electing people who are honest and who have integrity. That’s really what made history here. It’s that race and gender had nothing to do...

Pat Buchanan in The Kumbaya Temptation said, "Had a British prime minister received a vote like this, he would have resigned by now." Of course the supreme narcissist will never entertain such a thought. In fact, the magnitude of the smack down probably hasn't even registered with him yet, or if it has, he's in so much denial he will never realize it was all about him. Nixon resigned after a cover-up of a third rate burglary. This guy has: Benghazigate, IRSgate, VA scandals, Fast and Furious, Holder crimes, NSA spying, outrageous government spending, trillions in national debt, 100 Trillion...