Free Republic

Just because things can be put on the same list doesn’t mean they are necessarily similar. My attic contains within it thousands of comic books, an inflatable bed, a few jigsaw puzzles, some family pictures, and a Frampton Comes Alive! album. These things are, roughly speaking, in the same location, but they’re hardly of equal value, importance, or utility. I bring this up for the simple reason that we’re hearing a lot about how the GOP must deal with “abortion and gay marriage” as if they are almost the same issue. Well, in my house, I hear about my dog...

Proponents of gay marriage, as they eagerly anticipate the Supreme CourtÂ’s examination of the issue next week, are chortling over recent polls that suggest the American publicÂ’s resistance to it is fast eroding. They pointed this week to a Washington Post-ABC News poll in which 58 percent of Americans support gay marriage and 37 percent oppose it. This is an almost exact reversal from a decade ago, they say, when polls then showed 55 percent of Americans opposed gay marriage and 37 percent supported it.Meanwhile, establishment Republicans, who have always been ambivalent about the issue, appear ready to wave the...

A respected Republican senator has announced he is reversing his stance against gay marriage after his 21-year-old son came out to him and his wife. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican considered as a running mate by the Romney campaign, said the discovery that his son Will, 21, was gay had given him a 'new perspective' and understanding of why equal opportunities matter. Will, a junior at Yale University, came out to his politician father and mother, Jane, two years ago, The Plain Dealer reports. Portman, who backed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, says since his son's announcement he has...

When Ron Paul starts winning straw polls, you know there's a problem on the Republican side. If you want to declare a winner from CPAC, the annual conservative convention that wrapped up over the weekend, a good case could be made for Barack Obama, mainly because the proceedings underscored the degree to which every likely GOP presidential candidate has serious deficiencies. Mitt Romney, in typical style, stuffed all the red meat he could find into a speech excoriating the president, but still ended up finishing second in the straw poll to Ron Paul. Granted, this says as much about the...

Liberal GOP congressman Ron Paul has become the surprise choice by conservative Republicans to be the party’s presidential candidate for next year’s elections. The Texan took 30 per cent of the votes cast by the American Conservative Union, beating Mitt Romney into second place on 23 per cent. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich got a mere five per cent - but that was more than Sarah Palin, who managed just three per cent of the ballots. It was the second year in a row that Mr Paul had topped the CPAC vote, suggesting that support for him could be building...

Khan is on the board of directors of the American Conservative Union, the ACU hosts and directs the annual conference for the Conservative Political Action Committee. He has come under fire for his alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood and has now flatly denied the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States during the CPAC convention in Washington DC.

There is a lot of buzz in the conservative air this week, over what may be considered either corruptive or divisive in the ranks, at the current CPAC conference. From any moment to the next, it may be about one group’s promotion of homosexuality, or another man’s, Grover Norquist’s, apparent Islamist activism, in conjunction with his Muslim wife. Norquist has done much good, but his aims and influence are exemplary of what is has been harmful and corruptive in conservatism for a very long while. That is not because of his marital relations, but because he is married to unbalanced...

Two of the nation's premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited. "We've been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization's financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles," said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRC Action.

Today, President Obama's honored Sarah Palin's short and tweet advice following the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt. That's another a testament to her fans belief that Palin has a keen presidential mastery of common sense policy directives. In a mere 140 word Tweet, Sarah Palin challenged both the sitting American president, Barack Hussein Obama and the national media. Certainly, Palin has demonstrated the executive power of the value of just a very few words, well placed - from her tweet to the president's ear. A transcript of events follows. From Sarah, short and tweet to Obama: SarahPalinUSA Sarah Palin Media:...

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has won the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2012 presidential preference straw poll of 3,742 activists, the chairman of the huge annual gathering of conservative activists announced on Saturday.

There more things change the more things change the same. For the second year in a row, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex., emerged as the potential presidential candidate that an active group of conservative activists want to see at the top of the Republican ticket in 2012. Paul won this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll by a healthy margin, getting 30 percent of the vote. His nearest competitor was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won 23 percent of the vote. Most of the other possible candidates wound up in the low single digits. Still, Romney's finish was relatively...

Ron Paul has pulled off a reapeat, winning the CPAC presidential straw poll once again with 30 percent of the vote. Mitt Romney finished second with 23 percent ... Newt Gingrich at 5 percent; Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann and Mitch Daniels at 4 percent, Sarah Palin at 3 percent, and everybody else at 2 percent or less.

An amazing clip considering Romney finished second, way ahead of the rest of the major GOP candidates (but behind predictable winner Ron Paul), in the CPAC straw poll. Plenty of grassroots righties would agree with the second part of Coulter’s statement (and some with the first part too), but for someone of her “true conservative” stature to drop it on a frontrunner at CPAC is shocking. And Mitt gets off relatively easy here, I think: Remember who it was who wrote the piece at Human Events in 2008 crowning Palin “conservative of the year”? Sarahcuda’s an afterthought in her formulation....

The party staged by Andrew Breitbart for GOProud — the gay Republican and conservative group — was as close to a game changer as things get and the most interesting event at CPAC by far, at least to this point — and that’s meant as no insult to CPAC. With sexy Sophie B. Hawkins singing to a boisterous, supportive crowd, the party almost obliterated in one night the conception that Republicans are anti-gay and gave the impression that young libertarians — and some not so young — are taking over the GOP. Pretty soon it may be cool to be...

The presidential field may be wide open, but one candidate is playing the role of the inevitable front-runner, as his performance at the Conservative Political Action Committee Conference this weekend shows. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney brought with him to the event a large entourage that stayed for several days, while most other potential candidates dropped in and out of the conference to make their speeches and headline a reception or two. Other serious contenders brought just a few key staffers, but many didn't even have their top political aide in tow. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas...

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/11/mitt-romney-supporters-anti-sarah-palin_n_821957.html

Lists 15 names: Thinking ahead to the 2012 Presidential election, who would you vote for as your FIRST CHOICE to be the next Republican nominee for President? 1. Michele Bachmann, MN Representative 2. Haley Barbour, MS Governor 3. Herman Cain, Former Godfather Pizza CEO 4. Chris Christie, NJ Governor 5. Mitch Daniels, IN Governor 6. Newt Gingrich, Former House Speaker 7. Mike Huckabee, Former AR Governor 8. Jon Huntsman, Former UT Governor 9. Gary Johnson, Former NM Governor 10. Sarah Palin, Former AK Governor 11. Ron Paul, TX Representative 12. Tim Pawlenty, Former MN Governor 13. Mitt Romney, Former MA...

Next Thursday marks the start of the Conservative Political Action Conference, commonly known as CPAC, where conservative activists gather every year in Northwest Washington, D.C. It's a chance for bigwigs to make speeches to a ballroom full of influential types, which makes it a particularly choice venue for Republican presidential aspirants, which speak there regularly. It's a packed three-day schedule from Thursday through Saturday, so there's room enough for most of them. Tea party hero Michele Bachmann, whose office indicated in January that she's considering a 2012 run, will be the first of the 2012ers to speak. Bachmann, many will...

WASHINGTON -- Allegations of a pro-gay takeover, boycotts, embezzlement and terrorist-loving board members. Sounds like a Hollywood version of a conspiracy thriller, but it's not. It's the buzz around this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, the nation's single largest annual congregation of conservative leaders. Conservatives riding a new wave of momentum thanks to the strength of the Tea Party movement and big wins in the November midterm election should be riding high ahead of this year's CPAC,scheduled to take place in Washington on Feb. 10-13. But the conference, which has met for 38 years, has found itself beset by conflict...

For those of you that don’t know, Ryan Sorba is the pompous genius who decided to wreck his big debut at CPAC by getting himself booed off stage. Watch the video below: ... What a likeable guy. “Bring it, I love it, I love it!” It’s pretty ironic that this guy who likes to show off his toughness is making a career out of attacking homosexuals. He even said to gay Republican Alex Knepper (who, in all fairness, didn’t exactly confront him politely—only click the link if you are ready for some crude remarks) that he’d fight him if his...