Free Republic

As America begins the search for a new president in 2016, many people are tired of the status quo and are looking for an authentic conservative, one who can make a difference and who has shown they are determined to make a difference. There aren’t many who fit that description like Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. In fact, there are none in the race so far who can match his record of conservatism. And he’s demonstrated an willingness to do more than just mouth conservative platitudes. When most “Republicans” were busy badmouthing ObamaCare but doing absolutely nothing to stop it,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)DES MOINES, Iowa — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Saturday declared he would aggressively campaign to win the caucuses here, ending any doubt about his participation in the first contest of the GOP primary but also opening himself up to the possibility of a defeat that could severely harm his candidacy. With Bush trying to win here, the more than 100,000 Republicans in his state who are expected to participate in the Iowa caucuses next February will play an even more important role in winnowing a field that will likely include more than a dozen candidates. And wooing Iowa's...

Longtime Republican volunteer Pam Johnson has a conundrum: She’s an avid supporter of Gov. Scott Walker, but she would rather not see him living in the White House. “I hope he doesn’t run” for president, the La Crosse woman said Saturday as she staffed the souvenir/information booth of the Republican Party of Wisconsin at the La Crosse Center. “He’s doing a good job for Wisconsin, and I know he can do more for Wisconsin, and I know he can do good for the nation,” Johnson said. “But I’m not ready to give him up.” Walker, who hugs Johnson whenever he...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The road to the White House goes through downtown Oklahoma City this week as hopefuls in the crowded Republican field audition on a stage ideally suited for their messages about military power, religious liberty and energy independence. Eleven Republicans with presidential aspirations — including some who have not officially declared their candidacy — will speak at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, which begins at the Cox Convention Center on Thursday and ends Saturday with the release of a straw poll. “This is a huge event for Oklahoma City,” said Gov. Mary Fallin, who will address the conference and introduce some...

Reason No. 5: Running for his brother’s “third term” is a losing proposition. After finishing the first draft of this piece I received a late night return phone call from a Florida Republican power player (who asked that his name be withheld). He was responding to a question from me earlier about former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s prospects for winning the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Coincidentally, he had just left a high-dollar local fundraiser for Florida Senator Marco Rubio — the reason he gave for calling so late. Here are some direct quotes from our conservation: “Jeb’s people are now...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)It’s clear that Jeb isn’t a conservative, but it’s mightily kind of him to be honest about it. He could also do what the Mitch McConnells of this world like to do: lie about it until they get elected after which they ‘suddenly’ become as progressive as Nancy Pelosi. That’s what Senator Ted Cruz recently said on Megyn Kelly’s show on Fox News. Well, OK, I admit I added the last part about Mitch McConnell myself, but I’m sure you get my drift. "I’m a fan of Jeb Bush. I’ll give him credit for candor and consistency. He is running...

It’s not just Iraq: Bush repeatedly insists he won’t yield to popular pressure, until he does.After a week of misinterpreting, misspeaking and mismanaging the media over his position on the Iraq war, Jeb Bush’s hoped-for shock-and-awe campaign-in-waiting looked nothing like a political juggernaut. “It’s the Bad News Bears,” quipped Dave Bossie, president of the Citizens United conservative group. “The problem for Jeb Bush is he didn’t look very agile. He didn’t look smart in the sense of a rapid-response communications system that could get him out of the trouble he was in.” More troubling for Bush is that many supporters...

The 2016 clown car can't get much longer -- but the Republican National Committee can't be bothered.The Republican Party has a bit of mess on its hands heading into the 2016 election season. Simply put, too many Republicans want to be president. The field of declared and potential candidates is large and in flux, and this will leave the Republican National Committee with some tough choices to make when debate season starts up. How do they decide who makes the cut for debate invitations? Do they go by polling numbers and risk letting a clown like Donald Trump through while...

A surreal moment passed for me this week with several press reports about presidential candidates heading to Atlanta in August this year. Six years ago in Atlanta, a group of online political activists got together in person. They had been online collaborators among the Republican grassroots for six years without ever having met face to face. In May 2009, I put up a post at RedState.com, where I had taken over the helm as editor-in-chief. "Who wants to get together for a beer in Atlanta?" I asked. More than 500 people said yes. I scrambled. My friend Caleb Howe volunteered...

With oral arguments at the Supreme Court concluded in Obergefell v. Hodges, 2016 candidates are starting to weigh in on how they would handle a potential Supreme Court ruling that leads to nationwide marriage equality. This week, Republican Carly Fiorina said that she would not fight a ruling in favor of marriage equality. Fiorina joins Lindsey Graham, another potential 2016 candidate, who issued a similar statement. On the other side, Ted Cruz, who has been a consistent opponent of LGBT equality, has said he will introduce a constitutional amendment to fight marriage if the Supreme Court rules in favor of...

A Texas-based conservative activist has a prediction for who will be left standing among the crowded field of Republicans seeking the White House. "Everything I'm seeing is a Cruz-Walker race at this point," observes Cathie Adams, a longtime Republican activist and currently the president of Texas Eagle Forum. It's still early in the presidential election and the crowd of declared GOP candidates is already lengthy. There are also the undeclared, including Gov. Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. Adams says Republican Party "kingmakers" are behind Bush, and Cruz and Walker are the conservatives most likely to defeat him in the primary....

Release dull, ultra-sanitized, uncontroversial autobiography that folks will own but never read. Check. Buy and memorize The Quotable Ronald Reagan. Check.Lose the beer gut. Camouflage the bald spot. Hire writers to concoct explanation for all that weed smoked in high school? Check. Check. Check.It is now safe to enter the Republican primary. But there is still one major problem left: the current state of the Republican party. Tea Partiers, evangelicals, establishment RINOs, Libertarians, neocon foreign policy hawks, and moderates. According to Dr. Stella Rouse, associate professor and Director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of...

"Nothing the Republican Party does, even nominating African-American GOP candidates, works to win them over."(snip) In my encounters with radical black activists, my skin color has commanded no respect. Blackness, it would seem, means how you think, not how you look. A new study seems to confirm this. The Washington Examiner reports: The study… searched through the demographic details of 3,300 African-American voters in the 2010 election, when the GOP had nearly three dozen black House candidates running, part of the Republican Party’s push to attract minority voters. But the authors, political scientists from Washington University in St. Louis and...

Candidates of the left, right and center have something in common: They all want to be seen as populists. Hillary Clinton attacks income inequality and issues booklets showing how well she stacks up, even against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, as a booster for the embattled middle class; Sen. Marco Rubio invokes the American dream; Mike Huckabee and putative libertarian Sen. Rand Paul are against giving President Obama a free hand to negotiate the Pacific trade pact. Meanwhile, pundits and journalists prowl for populists everywhere: Sen. Ted Cruz is a “populist egghead.” Rubio showcases “populist themes” of up-by-the-bootstraps success. Huckabee is going...

On April 17, New Hampshire hosted a Republican Leadership Summit, which drew GOP presidential hopefuls and over 500 Republican activists. The horse-and-buggy show highlighted and defined the 2016 Republican field. Covering all 19 prospective candidates was a stretch, but I will share my insights on a few here. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: My Wisconsin skeet-shooter friend Margaret claims Walker is a "good man." Is that enough though to win the presidency? Billionaire election investor David Koch seems to think Walker will be the nominee. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) almost ruined the governor's reputation by saying, "I don't...

The field for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is as flat as any in modern memory—pretty remarkable for a party that usually has a fight but almost invariably ends up nominating whoever's turn it is. While nomination trial-heat polling tells us very little this early, there are some poll questions that are better measurements of at least where these candidates are starting out, before the campaigning, debates, and advertising begin in earnest.An April 26 to April 30 NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll asked Republican primary voters whether they could or could not see themselves voting for each of 10 different...

The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.. But the size of the crowd isn't terribly surprising; if anything I thought it might be even larger. The barriers to entry are low, and all a candidate needs to keep going, at...

It's not just Gail Collins of the New York Times who's noticed that Jeb Bush is making a mess on the campaign trail or whatever trail he's on. That's despite the fact he's always been considered competent (compared to his brother, of course). As a humorist, Collins is having fun picking him apart, though she does seem honestly surprised. But even fellow Republicans like Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio have attacked him for saying he would have gone to war in Iraq in 2003 even if had known the intelligence was faulty, and they've watched him...

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton announced today that he will not seek the GOP nomination for president in 2016, effectively leaving the foreign policy hawk’s top super PAC donors to look elsewhere for someone to back. Some have already found their candidate — or maybe more than one — though in many cases we don’t yet know whom they’ve anointed. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the only White House aspirant whose campaign has reported donors at this point. (Mid-July, when the reports will come due, will likely be full of surprises.) Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens seems to have...

Ask around and you’ll hear a consistent theme from political strategists in the Republican party: The 2016 primary is wide open. “It is by far the most interesting presidential year since I’ve been involved [in Republican politics],” says Steve Munisteri, a senior adviser to Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.). How interesting? Top-tier presidential campaigns are preparing for the still-unlikely scenario that the nomination fight goes all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention. There hasn’t been a brokered convention since 1976, but the strength of the GOP field, when coupled with the proliferation of super PACs, increases the chances...