Free Republic

We recently published a forecast that described the GOP as more likely than not to win the U.S. Senate in November. But our analysis was less bullish on Republicans’ prospects of flipping the seat in Iowa currently held by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, who is retiring. There, Democrats appeared to have a strong candidate in Rep. Bruce Braley, who has cleared his primary field. Republicans, meanwhile, face a contentious primary with a number of candidates who have never won races for statewide or federal office. After we published our forecast, the Republican PAC America Rising released a video of Braley,...

With Chris Christie in deep trouble, Republican poobahs are reportedly looking to Jeb Bush to save their party in 2016. The former two-term governor of Florida speaks fluent Spanish, is a convert to Catholicism, and has high name recognition. Jeb could raise millions of dollars over night by just saying “yes” to running. Despite all this, there are strong reasons Republicans should say no to him. 1. His last name is poison. Let’s face it, if Jeb Bush had the last name of Something Else he would have already run for president in 2008 or 2012. According to a recent...

Nothing surprising here but the quotes are oh so tasty. Including one that comes, secondhand, from Paul himself. Is that what the last month of Russia-bashing and Tomahawk-praising was all about? Is Rand … “evolving” on foreign policy? The [Republican Jewish Coalition] conference brings together some of the biggest names — and wallets — in Republican politics, most notably billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. At a private dinner for VIP donors in an Adelson-owned aircraft hangar holding one of his pair of Boeing 747s, Bush was asked about the growing isolationist wing of the Republican Party and replied there was...

Sarah Palin: Ex-veep nominee backs three Dixie Senate hopefuls. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R), whose support often helps propel underdog conservatives into the winner’s circle, has now endorsed three Republican US candidates who are challenging establishment-backed contenders. The latest is in Mississippi, where Palin has given her imprimatur to state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) in his challenge to six-term US Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS). Before that, Palin endorsed Oklahoma House Speaker T. W. Shannon (R) over US Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), and Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel (R) in a multi-candidate field to succeed US Sen. Johnny Isakson...

Joe Biden To Me Today at 10:45 AM Xxxx, I've been in this business a long time, and I've seen a lot of deadlines come and go. But let me tell you why the deadline tomorrow is among the most important: If we wake up on Tuesday and find out we came up short, we're in bad shape for November -- that is not hyperbole. That's why we're asking 33 Democrats like you from Des Moines to chip in to keep your region's support strong Losing will mean more senators like Ted Cruz, and more Tea Party Republicans in the...

Vice President Joe Biden said Congress should raise the minimum wage because it’s good for people, business, women, and the economy. He thinks you ought to call your do-nothing representative and ask why they’re not passing a raise for the people. Smokin’ Joe also burned a certain Speaker by saying that Congress ought to do it because it’s what the people want. But I’m sure Joe knows that Speaker Boehner (R-OH) can’t be bothered with what the people want. After all, he’s got an itty bitty circus tent full of extremists’ egos to stroke in an election year, since they’re...

New York state Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney announced a primary challenge to Republican Rep. Richard Hanna Wednesday morning, hitting her opponent from the right. Tenney, a second-term conservative Republican and “lifelong resident of New Hartford,” launched the challenge to the two-term congressman at 9 a.m.

In the beginning, over there where you can see Russia, there was former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska). And now there is Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). What I saw in the now-famous campaign clip for her Senate run in Iowa — in which she promised to "make them squeal" in Washington and said her Washington skills would include castrating pigs — was confidence and fearlessness. It was a clever ad, and amusing. But with the kind of heartland self-assurance and righteous country confidence that you find in a mountain preacher like Billy Graham or in Johnny Cash and June and Mother Carter:...

A bon mot from his speech last night to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, preserved for posterity on Twitter by Benny Johnson of BuzzFeed. ItÂ’s a testament to MaverickÂ’s eagerness to pander to his audience that heÂ’d say something like this, knowing that House Republicans are already nervous about how amnesty will be received by conservative voters. In fact, a right-wing friend mine of who works in politics saw JohnsonÂ’s tweet and assumed McCain must have been joking. Surely, with immigration reform already imperiled by righty opposition, a GOPer already loathed by tea partiers wouldnÂ’t offer up the effort as...

How do political movements end? And how do we assess the impact they had on the political sphere? In the case of the Tea Party, it seems to me that some smart analysts are focusing too much on horserace politics, and less on the bigger picture of how public policy is made. More than one smart journalist is writing this spring that the less aggressive approach of grassroots groups in this year’s Senate and House primaries means that the Tea Party movement is essentially coming to an end. In a piece at National Journal titled “The Tea Party’s Over”, Josh...

Sarah Palin, who announced a number of midterm endorsements recently, signaled a spring awakening for fellow mamma grizzlies this week, throwing her support behind three female House and Senate candidates on Thursday after backing Iowa’s Joni Ernst the day before. The latest Republican recipients of the Tea Party star’s coveted imprimatur are Florida Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benacquisto, who’s running in her state’s 19th Congressional District; and former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel and Minnesota state Sen. Julianne Ortman, both of whom are U.S. Senate candidates. All three endorsements were announced on the former Alaska governor’s Facebook page, and...

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...