Free Republic

Erick Erickson reported that Republicans John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and 25 other Congress members will fly to Amelia Island next weekend to meet with a group dedicated to defeating conservatives in Congress. “Main Street Advocacy” is hosting the event at the Ritz Carlton – only the best for these sorts. Steve LaTourette, liberal Republican and former congressman, is the face of the group and a good friend of Boehner’s.

Jeb Bush is thinking about running for president in 2016. Like, really thinking about it. He's the headliner at an event hosted by mega donor Sheldon Adelson in Las Vegas on Thursday. He was actively involved in Rep. David Jolly's special election victory in Florida earlier this month. And he is breaking with his party's orthodoxy on Common Core. So, as Jeb mulls a bid whose advice does he seek? Who does he trust to give him an unvarnished view of what the race might look like? Well, everyone even close to Jeb insists that he largely keeps his own...

Hillary Clinton is probably the last person Sarah Palin wants to see in the Oval Office. Which makes Palin’s near-endorsement of Clinton a bit of a head-scratcher. But Palin, despite the smears back in 2008, is a lot smarter than the left-leaning press has ever been willing to admit. “I would like to see women run for the higher office. I think America certainly is ready for more female candidates at that upper echelon,” Palin told Mario Lopez on “Extra” when he asked about a Clinton run. And the stunned speculation about why Palin would say anything nice about Clinton...

With an eye on 2016, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is stepping up his Super PAC game. The former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations raised over $800,000 in 2013 and is looking to make a big splash in the second quarter of this year when he'll announce endorsements. “We had a very, very good March,” Bolton said in an exclusive interview Monday, referring to fundraising numbers that still aren't public. “We've got criteria and we're evaluating candidates to support,” he added. The hawkish Bolton isn't exactly coy about where this is headed. “I don't rule...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Republican senators may have helped "Russia annex Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula" by blocking legislation containing new sanctions against Russia prior to a March 14th Senate break. In an AP report, GOP Senate aides noted that the House and Senate versions of sanctions differed so much that no bill could have passed before March 14th without "taking up the House legislation" – but Reid refused to allow House legislation to be taken up. Moreover, Reid also didn't mention that the Senate bill includes "reforms of the International Monetary Fund" (IMF) which the administration has been...

On the surface, the recent Texas Republican primaries were a race to the right on nearly every issue. But the underlying strength of every successful federal Republican campaign on March 4 was the ability to run an organized campaign. Texas is so big, so complex, so expensive that for any ambitious Republican, conservatism is important but organization is paramount. “The Republican political electorate is clearly looking for strong conservatives up and down the ballot, but money does matter at the statewide level because it takes so much time and resources to get your message out to the voters,” Texas-based GOP...

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) confirmed on Wednesday evening that he is still unaware of the five-year-old Tea Party movement that has rocked U.S. politics, including the U.S. Senate in which he has served for 36 years. “I said I didn’t know much about the Tea Party, and I didn’t,” Cochran said on WXXV television in Mississippi on Wednesday evening. “I heard...I read newspaper articles about them, and that’s about all I knew. It’s kind of like Will Rogers, you know. He said he knew what was in the papers.” (snip) Cochran’s unawareness of the Tea Party movement comes as he...

The founder of Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, notorious for leading hateful protests against gay rights, is actually a Democrat with long history of endorsing Democratic candidates. On Tuesday, Politico provided some background on Phelps' political history, most of which saw him endorsing Democrat candidates and running for office a number of times as a Democrat. In the 1990's, Phelps ran in three Kansas Democratic primaries for Governor in 1990, 1994, and 1998, receiving only 15% of the vote. He also ran for Senator in 1992, receiving 31% of the vote, and for mayor of Topeka in 1993 and 1997....

Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "Governing America." (CNN) -- ...The weaknesses of both men—Cruz in terms of his style and Paul in terms of his rhetoric—point out how desperate the GOP is to find someone who can build a broad coalition, something that is essential for a presidential victory, particularly when Republicans will likely be facing a formidable candidate. The problems of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have been a huge blow to the party, and there are not many alternatives at...

My good friend is running for the 4th Congressional District in the state of Florida. Ryman Shoaf is a Tea Party conservative who wants to restore our country, and North Florida in particular, to a Constitutional- following Republic. The incumbent is Ander Crenshaw, who has held the seat for many years and has over time lost his conservative creds and has become a RINO. His Heritage Foundation rating for following the Constitution is 45% (overall Republican average is 65% - pathetic, I know, and a topic for another day). Ryman has nearly 1000 petitions signed and needs another 3000 by...

With very high prospects of the GOP taking the Senate come November,in the meantime we will be debating who will be the Senate Majority Leader.With Cruz and Paul as the clear leaders for 2016,would we want either candidate to head the senate in the meantime?,This would give Paul or Cruz a head start to taking the Presidency in 2016.Can you just imagine all of the media press,the day it's announced:Our Top Story This Evening on Fox News,Ted Cruz has been elected the New Leader Of The Senate.Now how would CNN/MSNBC cover the story,or, "Will They Even Cover The Big Story"?

On MSNBC's "The Ed Show" on Wednesday, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said Rep-Elect David Jolly (R-FL) defeat of Democrat Alex Sink in Tuesday's special election for the House seat In Florida's 13th District was not a referendum against ObamaCare.

The “Ron Paul Revolution,” as it is sometimes called, is a self-described Libertarian movement that preaches individual liberty, limited government, and – above all else – personal freedoms. Such freedoms include, apparently, racial segregation at private institutions (they call this property rights) and recreational narcotics usage. Ron Paul is proud of his friendship with the late Murray Rothbard, an economist of the “Austrian” school (which dates back to Carl Menger, and was developed fully by Ludwig von Mises, both Austrian). Paul and Rothbard shared an affinity for sound money (i.e., gold) and a disdain for the Federal Reserve System, which...

Considering the lies,arrogance and hidden anger of Harry Reid we have been seeing lately,can you just imagine if a reporter were to ask him what his theory/explanation/opinion is of flight 370?,It would be beyond obvious what he would likely say.Just like when Liberals were blaming the GOP and Sarah Palin for all of the mass shootings since 2009.Rush made a comical comment that the Kock Brothers hijacked the plane.Although it is a little odd that the far left hasn't said anything yet regarding the tragedy being they are always the first ones to blame all tragic events on the GOP&Conservatives.

Though Karl Rove, Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater weren’t in attendance at the 2014 edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, the contrasting visions each had for the Republican Party were well represented. Championing Rove’s cynical realpolitik wing that believes in winning simply for winning’s sake was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who essentially told the CPAC audience the GOP should keep doing what lost the last two presidential elections — but do it even worse. Showing he’s either out-of-touch with reality or really just a liberal, Christie even said Republicans have lost because they’ve been nominating candidates...

African American voters are ready to vote Republican. So says Oklahoma state representative and senate hopeful T.W. Shannon. Shannon, a black Republican, believes that African Americans in increasing numbers are ready to vote Republican and believes he can “move the needle” in swaying significantly more blacks to join. Shannon says that “blacks are ready to hear the conservative message that the onslaught of government dependency robs you of your dignity. The message is that conservative principles are what actually lead to prosperity, and we people that can articulate how that's been done, how they've seen it in their own lives,...

In a Breitbart column insisting that Ronald Reagan was not as assertive as commonly believed on military and foreign policy issues, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) mentions, in passing, “I met Ronald Reagan as a teenager when my father was a Reagan delegate in 1976.” . But his father, Ron Paul, is hardly a Reaganite today. Indeed, he is now claiming that Crimea has a right to leave Ukraine and join Russia, and that U.S. sanctions against the Russian regime are “criminal.” “That’s just people looking to start a war,” Paul said. “This is criminal, it’s stealing and will just aggravate...

What does that even mean? That some shall-remain-unnamed Republican colleague literally told her, presumably when asked why he supported the one percent budget cut to the federal food stamp program recently passed in the farm bill or why he did not support extending unemployment benefits or something, that his entire party’s policy platform is based off of its collective and utter indifference to the plight of families in poverty? …Why do I feel skeptical? Via RCP:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) "I asked a Republican friend why his party remains so opposed to extending the vital lifelines for struggling families and really hungry children. This...

There is another roadblock on the Democrats' plan to turn Texas blue. On Monday Michael Barone belatedly noted the unexpected showing of Ray Madrigal indicates possible dissatisfaction by Hispanics with the pro-abortion feminists beloved by Democratic Party leadership. What hasn't earned more than a couple of brief mentions, however, is the unexpected development in the US Senate race in Texas. The Democrat plan was to have an attractive, well financed candidate ready for after the Republicans pulled themselves apart in a battle between the establishment and the Tea Party. The reality is the Republican primary was tame but there is...

You have probably seen all of the ridiculous speculating about the GOP nomination in 2016. This is still speculating, but my sincere hope is you don’t think it’s ridiculous too. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is laying the foundation for his presidential bid in concrete and steel. First, forget about Jeb Bush unless you want to hand Hillary eight years in the White House. The latest Rasmussen poll shows her leading Jeb in a general election 47 percent to 33. His name is Bush and to the general public the specifics of how smart he is doesn’t matter one iota. Then...