Free Republic

CEDAR CREEK, Tex. –After four years of grappling with how to appeal to voters, a group of top Republicans believe they’ve found a winning formula for 2010. Call it the McDonnell Strategy. The shorthand: run on economic policy, downplay divisive cultural issues, present an upbeat tone, target independent voters and focus on Democratic-controlled Washington—all without attacking President Barack Obama personally. It’s an approach that elected Bob McDonnell to the Virginia governorship earlier this month. While Republicans posted two hard-fought gubernatorial victories on Nov. 3, McDonnell’s path to victory is the one that most encourages the GOP, a remarkable case of...

AUSTIN – Here's what I did not hear at the annual confab of Republican governors held here this week: The words socialist, extremist, or government takeover. With the focus on jobs, jobs and jobs, the only red meat was the Texas barbecue. And by design, there was no Obama-bashing. [snip] Barbour cautioned Republican candidates to refrain from attacking the president, period: "People want the president to succeed; good Lord, they want the country to succeed, and particularly the first African-American president has a lot of goodwill. . . . We need to be careful, we need to treat the president...

Damon Dunn has captured the attention of the California Republican Party, as well as the conservative, independent and youthful voters of the state; many are starting to label him the “future of the Republican Party”. If Dunn is that future, it is best described as energetic, articulate and extremely passionate – and never has voted. Dunn is the 33-year-old Texas ex-patriot, University of Stanford political graduate and very successful California businessman who has now decided to run for Secretary of State as a conservative Republican. The former Cardinal football star, and employee of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, has a story...

Conservative Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who is emerging as a top contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, is gaining some attention this week for his comments in defense of President Obama. As first reported on the Huffington Post, Huckabee said some of the recent criticisms of Obama have been unfair and even "shameful." Huckabee made the comments to the Hudson Union Society. "When he [Barack Obama] was at Dover the other day, and went there to pay respect for soldiers, I heard a lot of people on the Right say "Aw, that's just a cheap photo-op."...

Health bill could get 34-hour reading in Senate Joseph Curl The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover -- and that's just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor. The Oklahoma Republican has threatened to invoke parliamentary rules to force the Senate clerk (or more likely, a team of clerks) to read the massive bill before the full Senate begins formal debate on the legislation. The move is strictly according to Senate rules, which say any senator can demand a bill be read in its entirety before debate begins. While...

By proposing a health-care bill of their own, Senate Republicans can throw the extraordinary weaknesses of the Democratic bills into stark relief. In the wake of the Congressional Budget Office’s recent scoring of aspects of the House Republican bill, there is now an opening for Republicans to provide a clear contrast with the proposed Democratic overhaul. The Democratic bills are polling badly, even though they’ve been running largely unopposed in the eyes of most Americans. But continuing to let them run without competition would be a major political error, in both the short and long term. Republicans need to show...

It has often been said that today's rank-and-file conservative is "anti-elite." I've always been uncomfortable with that characterization because — in my experience — conservatives are quite respectful of certain kinds of elites, like elite soldiers, elite athletes, and talented musicians and other artists (provided those artists don't believe that their abilities also provide them with unique insight into, say, health-care policy or war strategy). The elite that conservatives tend to disdain is the contemporary intellectual (or academic) elite, not because intellectual excellence isn't obtainable or worth respecting but because we look at what what passes for academic thinking these...

We may not be sure of Sarah Palin’s ability to assume a political office of national scope, but we can be certain she is polarizing. Obviously there is a gap between left and right, but, interestingly, the conservative commentariat itself is deeply divided. Even within the Weekly Standard crowd, Palin inspires vastly diverging reactions. Matthew Continetti has emerged as a Palin stalwart, while both David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer have taken to criticizing her regularly. The standard reproach against Palin is that she is toxic to the GOP’s brand among independents and unfit for higher office. At the same time,...

It’s been a little while since a good confrontation between a birther and a member of Congress, but here’s one from last week: a constituent of Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) asking his congressman why Republicans won’t do anything about the “eligibility issue.” It makes for awkward viewing, as Garrett’s staff clearly wants a change of subject from an audience that seems to be fine with pushing the question. At around 4:40 in the video, the congressman finally engages. “Obviously, there is no political solution to it,” says Garrett. “Even if the entire Republican Party was united on the issue–” He’s...

Asian voters switching to Republicans? ... All this evidence strongly suggests that Republicans made gains and Democrats suffered significant losses among Asian, and specifically among Indian-American voters, in Middlesex County. This upscale group, ready enough to vote for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, seems to have been repelled by New Jersey’s high taxes and big government under Jon Corzine. There should be some lessons here for Republicans generally—and for Democrats as well.

There were too many GOP Presidential candidates in the 2008 primaries. Some were excellent; some were not. Unfortunately, this large group beat each other up in the debates, weakening the opportunity for any of them to win the presidency.

Sarah Palin certainly turned heads when she made an appearance in springfield just weeks before the 2008 presidential election, and now she's turning pages locally too. Many people in the Ozarks seem to be "Going Rogue. In fact south Springfield's Borders was in the nation's top ten for most copies of Palin's new memoir reserved ahead of Tuesday's release. George Carlin's "Last Words" may very well be forgotten. "Yeah i'm going to get it," one Borders patron says. He's not talking about George, bur rather his shelf-mate- one-time vice presidential hopeful turned best-seller hopeful Sarah Palin's political memoir. "Since we...

1. South Dakota Senator John Thune Like Mitt Romney, the Junior Senator from South Dakota is straight out of central casting for the role of president. Intelligent, articulate, handsome, with a winning smile and an easy going disposition - it's hard to locate anything missing from the prototypical presidential check list. SNIP 2. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels With a resume that includes both political and policy posts at the local, state and national level, Mitch Daniels arguably boasts the strongest experience of any Republican in the country. Re-elected overwhelmingly to a second term in 2008 even as President Obama carried...

There We Go Again Sarah Carlsruh, November 17, 2009 Unlike the current Republican Party, which does not “know what it stands for,” former President Ronald Reagan’s ideals encompassed the Republican party, claimed Craig Shirley, author of Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America. This transformed the Republican Party into a conservative party and made the conservativism of Reagan’s day into the vehicle of change, claimed Shirley Unfortunately, America has no such “father figure today” Shirley said when he introduced his book at The Heritage Foundation’s conservative Blogger’s Briefing on November 10th. In response to critics suggesting...

No force on Earth can stop Sarah Palin from becoming our very own "lite" version of Eva Perón -- a glamorous and tragic legend, minus the tragedy. Eventually, some clever composer will write a blockbuster musical about her life and times. Stage directions will include: "SARAH fires gun. MOOSE dies." It's futile to try to ignore Palin, however noble the effort may be. She's a phenomenon, and it hardly matters that so many people believe she augurs the final dissolution of American politics into a big, frothy bowl of mush. The republic will survive even her. Anyway, she's unlikely ever...

Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss. Jauss is known as the father of critical reception theory. According to Jauss, every book is read in a social context. In his view, the reader's attitudes, beliefs, values and judgments are just as important as the text. Sometimes more. Palin probably didn't set out to write a book that tested Jauss's thesis. But, in so many ways, the reaction to "Going Rogue" is as interesting as its content. Palin's memoir is...

She may be hugely polarizing, but Sarah Palin’s the odds-on favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, thanks to the party’s winner-take-all primary system. The party establishment may not want Palin, but if she can maintain, say, 35% support in a multi-candidate field, she could win a few states and rack up an insurmountable lead early, Walter Shapiro of Politics Daily writes. Normally the GOP counts on South Carolina to weed out fringe candidates, but Palin is mainstream enough to win the conservative state. So if party insiders don’t want another Goldwater on their hands, they’ll either have...

(CNN) -- The Republican fratricide in the Nov. 3 special election in upstate New York may prove just an opening round of an even more spectacular bloodbath in Florida in 2010. In New York, Republican feuding lost the party a seat in the House of Representatives. At stake in Florida is not only a senatorship -- but very possibly Republican hopes for 2012 as well. The battle in Florida pits Gov. Charlie Crist against former Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio. Both men claim to be conservative, pro-life, tax cutters. On the issues, they would seem to agree far...

Republicans in 5 state races may find new fights on their right flanks WASHINGTON— Canyon Clowdus thinks Americans “have less freedom and pay more taxes than ever.” “We need more John Wayne and Jesus in Washington,” the Marble Falls rancher and businessman declares. Clowdus is just the kind of grass-roots activist that national Republican leaders sought to fire up in the Tea Party movement that has spread across Texas in energetic rallies and heated town hall confrontations. Now, the 40-year-old Army veteran is seeking to unseat an incumbent congressman whom he calls a profligate spender. Just one problem: Clowdus, an...

The self-described 'rogue' is anathema to the party establishment but manna from heaven to the grass roots. In a Republican Party hoping to rebound in 2010 on the strength of a newly energized and ideologically aroused conservative grass roots, Sarah Palin's influence is now unparalleled. She was the one who popularized the notion that Democrats advocated "death panels" as part of their healthcare plan, a charge that helped ignite conservative opposition to reform. More recently, in a special congressional election in upstate New York, Palin's endorsement of Doug Hoffman, an unknown, far-right third-party candidate, helped force a popular moderate Republican...

A Florida Republican Becomes a Right-Wing Target By KATE ZERNIKE November 15, 2009 NEWBERRY, Fla. — In retrospect, even Charlie Crist admits that “the optics” of The Hug are not great. President Barack Obama with Charlie Crist, governor of Florida, at a town hall meeting in Fort Myers, Fla., in February. Chip Litherland for the New York Times Gov. Charlie Crist, with his wife, Carole, drew protests at a Republican barbecue this month. It was in the glow of a new day in politics last February when Mr. Crist, this state’s popular Republican governor, took the stage with President Obama...

Liz Cheney suggests Cheney/Palin ticket...

Thousands of radical conservatives crowded on to the steps of the Capitol yesterday to voice their anger over Democrat spending plans and yearning for the presence of the one person they really wished was there, but wasn’t: Sarah Palin. The former Governor of Alaska has emerged from Tuesday’s off-year elections as a front runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and the embodiment of grassroots social conservatism in most of the “lower 48” states, as well as her own. The trouble for her supporters is that, for the time being, she is available only as a disembodied presence on her...

Sarah Palin's Going Rogue: An American Life (HarperCollins) is being pitched by her publisher as "one ordinary citizen's extraordinary journey." That's about right. Palin is ordinary -- remarkably, overwhelmingly, mind-numbingly ordinary. Back in the day, it seemed as if she might be extraordinary. When I started writing about her in 2006, the year that Palin took on the good old boys of Alaskan Republican politics, she seemed intriguing -- even a little, dare we say it, rogue. The story of a small-town mayor mounting a primary challenge to a sitting governor of her own party -- who also happened to...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivered a scathing criticism of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy Friday night, accusing the president of delivering rhetoric and not action in the war-torn country. Quoting from a speech Obama delivered in March, Romney agreed with the president "that 'we are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies."' Romney continued on seconding the president: "I believe 'that to succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban's gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.'"

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Sunday that he has been in rooms with white Republicans who are “scared” of him. Responding during a interview to TV One’s Roland Martin, who said that “white Republicans have been scared of black folks,” Steele replied: “You’re absolutely right.”

Glenview resident Phil Collins is running for the 17th District's State Rep seat (District Map) and he's racked up some great endorsements so far for a first time run for office. Collins has been endorsed by Tony Castrogiovanni, the vice chairman of the Cook Co. Republican Party; Eric Wallace, a co-chairman of the Cook Co. Republican Party; Ken Arnold, a former 3rd vice chairman of the Lake Co. Republican Central Committee and 8th Dist. congressional candidate in 2006 and '08; Peter Karlovics, a former chairman of the Warren Township, Lake Co. Republican Party; Liz Eilers, the secretary of the Illinois...

Let’s keep this simple. Word got out today via Politico that the RNC’s health care package for their employees covers abortions. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, if you at any time have donated to the RNC since 1991 (when this policy apparently took place), some incremental portion of your donation went to the administrative costs of running the RNC, including employee salaries and benefits packages. Part of “benefits packages” in this context is apparently a health care package that pays for abortions. For thirty years, we have fought tooth and nail to prevent our tax money from being...

Firebrand conservative commentator Ann Coulter says she hopes Sarah Palin uses her forthcoming book to get "payback" against the McCain campaign for the way it treated Palin, McCain's running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Associated Press, which bought a copy of the book, reports that, in it, Palin confirms reports of tension between her aides and McCain's, and that she writes about the "jaded aura" of professional campaign aides, and how McCain's entourage limited her access to the media-- leading many to think that she was avoiding reporters. Coulter made her remark on "The Early Show" Friday --...

The Republican National Committee will no longer offer employees an insurance plan that covers abortion after POLITICO reported Thursday that the anti-abortion RNC's policy has covered the procedure since 1991. "Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose," Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled." Steele has told the committee's director of administration to opt out of coverage for elective abortion in the policy it uses from Cigna. Federal Election Commission Records show the...

An internal memo from the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee claims that ACORN has serious financial problems and may be “ready to file for bankruptcy.” But ACORN officials are dismissing the memo as a partisan slap, asserting that the housing and community organizing group remains fully operational. Brian Kettenring, the Deputy Director of National Operations for ACORN, says the bankruptcy claims by Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the committee, are inaccurate.

To regain its strength, an out-of-power party like the Republicans needs ideas to fuel its recovery and leaders to promote and deliver them. In this war of ideas, those committed to presenting a sensible, philosophically grounded conservative case to Americans play a special role. Because conservatives are distrustful of concentrated power, it is awkward to select just seven Washington power players, but here are my picks...

Madison — Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is among the Republicans lining up for an endorsement from Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor. Walker sought help in his run for governor Friday in a half-hour meeting with Palin after her invitation-only Wisconsin Right to Life event. Time magazine's Web site first reported on the meeting Wednesday, and Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader confirmed it was accurate. "Sarah Palin is one of many national political figures we're reaching out to help on the campaign trail to be part of Scott's effort," Bader said. She said Walker will...

Who is Dede Scozzfava? ... "This is my party, too," she insisted. "There are a lot of moderate people - Republicans, like me - and I'm hearing from an awful lot of them. And I think the Republican Party needs to know if they don't have room for us and they don't want us working with them, we're going to find a way to work against them." She acknowledged that many in the GOP would differ with her support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But she maintained that she approached those views from a conservative vantage point - a...

Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican with a maverick streak, has been censured by local Republican Party officials in his home state of South Carolina. The executive committee of the Charleston County Republican Party voted unanimously on Monday to rebuke Mr. Graham “for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina, such as: passing a ‘cap and trade’ energy bill, bailing out banks and granting amnesty for illegal aliens.” Lin Bennett, the chairwoman of the local party, told the Charleston Post and Courier that party leaders were “fed up.”

Looking for a scapegoat for her poor showing in New York’s 23rd Congressional race, Dede Scozzafava has chosen every liberals favorite, Sarah Palin. Scozzafava in an interview slammed Sarah Palin for “attacking” her, when in reality Palin only endorsed her opponent Doug Hoffman. But then again to liberals if you don’t support them you’re attacking them. I love the way the media is describing Dede Scozzafava even now; they say she’s a “moderate” Republican. CNN describes her as the “face of moderate republicanism”; refusing to call Scozzafava what she is, a liberal. Sarah Palin simply chose principle over party; Dede...

With memories of NY-23 fresh in the minds of conservative activists, the fight over California’s GOP Senate nominee to potentially unseat Barbara Boxer has turned into a game of “who is conservative enough?” Carly Fiorina is playing defense. “I've been called all sorts of things, so I prefer to just tell you what I am,” said Fiorina, in a recent interview with Flash Report. “I am a fiscal conservative. I hold conservative values…I believe that life begins at conception.” That would seem pretty straightforward – until you talk to Chuck DeVore. “She is a big government Republican. Pure and simple....

"The key thing to understand about that( conservative ) rally is that it wasn’t a fringe event....this shows is that the G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit....catering mostly took the form of empty symbolism. Once elections were won, the issues that fired up the base almost always took a back seat to the economic concerns of the elite. Thus in 2004 George W. Bush ran on antiterrorism and “values,” only to announce, as soon as the election was behind him, that his first priority was changing Social Security."

The race to become Tulsa's new Mayor ended less than an hour after the polls closed Tuesday evening when Democrat Tom Adelson conceded to his Republican foe, Dewey Bartlett, Jr. The office of the city's chief executive was up for grabs because incumbent mayor Kathy Taylor (D) announced in June that she would not run for re-election so she could concentrate on the city's financial stability. Mark Perkins, an independent candidate, also conceded to Bartlett about 8:15 p.m. The other independent in the race, Lawrence Kirkpatrick, has not issued a statement at the time of this writing. Bartlett, a business...

Republicans are looking to resurrect the angry town halls of August in the last few weeks of November. Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander said Republicans are “quietly” planning some 50 in-person and telephone town hall gatherings over the next three weeks to drum up opposition to Democratic health care bills. Republicans believe this effort will pick up new urgency once Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) releases his long-awaited bill — possibly next week. There may be more town hall events in December, but they would become harder to schedule if the Senate stays in session six days a week...

Matthew Continetti has a piece in this weekend’s Weekly Standard hailing Sarah Palin as the ideal leader of a new populist uprising. One obvious objection to his thesis: The populist Sarah is in fact one of the most unpopular figures in American life. According to Gallup, 63% of Americans say they would never consider voting for her. By a margin of 62%-31% Americans rate Palin “unqualified” to serve as president – by far the worst score for any leading Republican. In comparison, only 51% of Americans say they would never consider voting for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee – and...

When Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao won a stunning victory in a heavily Democratic district in New Orleans last December, the GOP was so thrilled that House Minority Leader John A. Boehner sent a memo to his colleagues headlined "The Future is Cao." But on health care, Cao had for months considered bucking the party that embraced him, while the White House wooed his vote. And this weekend, as a group of Democrats gained momentum in an effort to limit abortion in the health-care reform bill, Cao, a staunch opponent of abortion, dialed up the White House. He said he might...

I read an October 28, 2009 article by JB Williams over at Canada Free Press titled “Tangible Tea Party Tactics” in which Williams argues that a primary tactic should be to take over the GOP. Williams frames these tactics as tangible and at first glance, he would seem to be correct and perhaps even plausible. But, is that really the point of the Tea Party Movement? Is it really a movement that seeks to simply replace the current crop of liberal democrats in the Congress with a conservative group of republicans? While I laud the idea and the passion behind...

Besides, in a stroke of strategic brilliance from an otherwise dim bulb, Pelosi played to the social conservatives and made fools of them using their own hottest-of-buttons issue--abortion--against them. As I wrote yesterday morning here at America's Right, and as I guessed almost perfectly on October 30, Pelosi and the Democrats used their lack of respect for unborn life as a shell game of sorts. Those who stood opposed to this bill got suckered, big time, by the woman in the blood-red body condom. She and her flunkies included, in the 2,000-plus pages of H.R. 3962, a provision which would...

Doug Hoffman’s narrow defeat in New York’s 23rd Congressional District special election was one of few blemishes in a nearly flawless Election Day for Republicans. But Hoffman’s strong showing — coupled with the successful uprising against Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava’s candidacy — will embolden some conservatives to consider abandoning the GOP and initiating a broader third-party movement. As a staunch conservative Republican whose political action committee invested much in Hoffman’s campaign, I believe nothing would hurt the conservative movement, or the GOP, more. National Democrats would love nothing more than for conservatives to start looking for third-party candidates all across...

Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), the lone GOP vote for the House health reform bill that passed late last night, has responded to RNC Chairman Michael Steele's warnings about stepping outside of party lines. (WATCH Steele: "We'll come after you.") Cao told CNN that Steele retains "the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need." He represents the second congressional district of Louisiana, a solidly...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The wave of voter anger aimed at incumbents in last Tuesday's off-year elections is just what an against-all-odds campaign in New York's governor's race needed. Two weeks ago, Republican candidate Rick Lazio was quietly running an uphill campaign for the 2010 race. He faced a rising Democratic wave in New York, with every statewide office held by Democrats, rising party enrollment and a Democrat in the White House. Lazio even called his effort "the little engine that could." But the Election Day vote that ended the tenures of suburban county executives, legislators and two governors gave...

Ok, I hear around Free Republic those who argue "the GOP is hopeless, Conservatives got to form a third party". Now without debating the merits of if a third party is, or is not, the route to go for Conservatives, tell me what you put in the political platform of such a replacement party? Think of it this way. You are actually writing the plank to put in the platform, what do you personally want put in there?

WASHINGTON – Democrats just don't get the election message from voters and are pushing a liberal, big government agenda at their party's peril, Republican officials said Sunday as they predicted a political price after the majority's victory on health care. Voters are "tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers," said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 House GOP leader, pointing to GOP victories in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey last week. The Democratic-controlled House narrowly approved a health care bill Saturday night, with 39 Democrats voting against it and a single Republican voting...

The One Republican Vote For Socialized Medicine Was Rep. Anh (Joseph) Cao of Louisiana One Republican voted for Pelosicare: GOP Rep. Anh (Joseph) Cao of Louisiana. And from the time he was elected, Cao has backed the S-CHIP expansion, the $108 billion IMF bailout, and the omni-waste spending bill. And he voted to rebuke GOP Rep. Joe Wilson for calling out President Obama on his health care lies. His remarks: "Louisiana Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao on Sunday morning released a statement after he voted as the only Republican in favor of the Democratic health care reform bill.