Free Republic

".... Lisa Wagner, Romney's 2012 Midwest fundraising director, said that once voters meet Bush, "they see his head and his heart are connected" and they are "very, very taken" with his "sincerity."During a question-and-answer session after the Detroit speech, Bush said losing his first bid for Florida governor in 1994 taught him that winning campaigns requires building an emotional attachment with voters. When he won the job four years later, he said, he campaigned in places—from black churches to public schools in poor communities—where few expected a Republican to go for votes.That, Bush said, allowed him to "to connect on...

Various media attacking Sarah Palin for eight days after one speech suggests she might be making the establishment nervous as her presence looms over a crowded GOP 2016 field. American Thinker goes into the stinker with latest anti Palin diatribe. Questioning "Walker Mania" isn't forming a circular firing squad against him. It's called basic vetting. What Rush isn't telling you about Walker's record. Low info voters on the right are the reason why conservatives can't have nice things. Why I will face palm the "lesser of the two evils" argument for 2016.

The House Freedom Caucus is only a few weeks old, but some members say the new conservative faction is already pulling the House Republican Conference to the right. Before the HFC convened a single meeting, it so complicated the GOP debate on a proposed border security bill that leadership eventually had to pull the measure from the floor. But even more than a formalized “hell no” caucus that can thwart GOP leadership’s most moderate plans, the HFC could be a springboard for a new conservative leader — even if that’s not the group’s intention. (snip) It’s an early bit of...

<p>It's the beginning of the beginning for another GOP primary.  And if you're an informed conservative, you probably had the prescience to predict its rollout back during the primary season of the 2014 midterm elections.</p>

It wasn’t a goal-line interception, but it was a game changer. Just one week in to our Fox News First Power Index and we already have a major overhaul after frontrunner Mitt Romney’s unexpected departure. (Though his conditional statement to supporters left enough doubt to still be “on the radar” until he makes a more Shermanesque statement.) Not only did the frontrunner self-deport, but several second- and third-tier competitors showed surprising strength to make substantial strides. We would expect to see the field unsettled a year out from the first nominating contest, but as you’ll see below, the tumult is...

There is a basic mystery at the heart of modern Republican presidential politics. The party’s voters, despite electing conservatives to the House and Senate, have repeatedly chosen relatively moderate nominees, like Mitt Romney and John McCain, in the primaries. With the 2016 campaign underway, and candidates positioning themselves for money, endorsements and staff, the establishment of the party is again at the center of the conversation. Even though Mr. Romney said on Friday that he had decided not to pursue the nomination, a third Bush seems poised to run, and has suggested he will not bow down to conservative activists....

Conservative lawmakers are officially rolling out a new group aimed at advancing a conservative agenda in the House of Representatives after they expressed discontent with the direction of the Republican Study Committee.“Our main hope is that we can represent the voids and valleys for our constituents back home,” Rep. Raúl Labrador of Idaho told The Daily Signal today. “With a small group that is nimble and able to work on issues that are of importance to our constituents, we can make a difference in Congress.”Called the House Freedom Caucus, the group serves as a conservative alternative to the Republican Study...

Sarah Palin made headlines last weekend when she said she was interested in running for President. Palin has been an important part of the Tea Party and conservative movements in this country since she came onto the scene in 2008. Nobody on the right throws red meat to a crowd quite like Palin. Her ability to sarcastically tear down liberal sacred cows is second only to Rush Limbaugh. Best of all she drives liberals up a wall. They hate her more than any other conservative in this country, including George W. Bush and Limbaugh. Watching liberals fall to pieces over...

How is it possible that a president can win re-election by a relatively comfortable margin while receiving fewer raw votes than his first election? Enter Mitt Romney. A simple data comparison is very telling. That comparison is the Romney raw vote vs. all votes for congressional Republicans in a given state. Crunching the numbers, Romney significantly underperformed the Republican congressional vote totals in multiple states. In North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin -- all presidential swing states -- Mitt Romney underperformed the total raw votes cast for all Republican congressional candidates by an average of 3 percent. That means that...

It’s time to admit that, whatever their motivation was at the time, the Alaska governor’s critics always had a point. Has conservative genuflection at the altar of Sarah Palin finally come to a halt? In case you missed it, her speech in Iowa this week was not well received on the right. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York called it a “long, rambling, and at times barely coherent speech” and National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke said she slipped into self-parody. And there’s more. The Examiner’s Eddie Scarry, for example, contacted several conservative bloggers who were once Palin fans, but have since...

It doesn’t take a genius to ascertain the political motivations behind the behavior of GOP leaders in Washington. When you believe in a specific issue or principle with all your heart, you harness every opportunity to advance the cause. Conversely, when you lack a core belief in the cause you are tasked to pursue, you will look for every excuse to avoid any significant achievement of that goal. The recent behavior of Republicans on a host of issues reveals what many of us have known for quite some time – the party leadership fundamentally does not share our values, principles,...

Republican Eric Cantor on Saturday addressed the inaugural gathering of a group formed after grass-roots activists helped Dave Brat topple the former majority leader in last summer’s GOP primary. The day-long meeting of the Virginia Conservative Network featured a who’s who of establishment Republicans in the mold of Cantor, many of whom are frustrated with the party’s loss of all five statewide offices in recent years. According to organizers, Cantor gave an invitation-only crowd of more than 100 people tips on how to frame their message to voters as Republicans prepare to defend their slim majority in the state Senate...

The GOP establishment can’t make Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel go away. On Friday, McDaniel will be announcing—he told Breitbart News exclusively—a new Political Action Committee (PAC) designed to help conservatives across Mississippi, and the nation, get elected to political office, replacing GOP establishment politicians. The PAC, titled the United Conservatives Fund will focus on “electing conservatives and holding Republicans accountable while messaging conservatism in a way that secures conservatives get a chance to be elected even over some of those in the establishment,” McDaniel tells Breitbart.

This week marks the twenty-sixth anniversary of the “massacre of the Reaganites” by newly elected President George H.W. Bush that effectively ended the prospect of institutionalizing Reaganism as the governing principle of the Republican Party and America. We call it the “massacre of the Reaganites” because, in a well-thought-out and carefully crafted purge, on Inauguration Day 1989 practically every conservative who remained in government at the end of President Ronald Reagan’s second term, and certainly any conservative of any political consequence, was fired or forced to resign from their post in the federal government. Even those who had worked tirelessly...

LAS VEGAS — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declined to speculate on a potential 2016 run Thursday at the 2015 SHOT Show in Las Vegas, but she did offer the GOP some free political advice. We caught up with Palin as she was promoting the second season of her show, “Amazing America,” which airs on the Sportsman Channel Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET. “I’m not going to talk politics except to say the GOP had better go on offense. Man, they are not going to win any game on defense,” she told TheBlaze. “Being in the majority there in D.C....

Just read that Romney and Jeb are meeting in Utah to discuss how best to ram one of them down our throats so their campaigns don't compete against one another. NO MORE BUSHES!! NO MORE ROMNEYS!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!

Based on House Republican documents reviewed by Breitbart News, pro-amnesty Republican freshman Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida will be delivering the Republican’s Spanish-language address in response to Obama’s State of the Union speech. Curbelo recently made waves with a January 18 interview in The Hill, which focused on his strong dissent from the basic Republican position on immigration and all but stated his support for Obama’s executive amnesty.... The Florida Republican is a vocal supporter of actions on immigration reform that many in the GOP have rejected, including a Senate-passed bill that House Republican leaders have refused to bring up...

he Republican National Committee will announce Friday that it has sanctioned nine presidential primary debates, starting this August in Ohio and continuing through March 2016, with the potential to add a few more. The schedule will be rolled out at the party’s winter meeting here later this afternoon, but POLITICO obtained a first look at the line-up from insiders. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/rnc-2016-debate-schedule-114329.html#ixzz3P0qSfxLm

On Tuesday, three Republican Senators joined three Democrats to introduce legislation that would expand the number of guest-workers for the tech industry even though there is a surplus of American high-tech workers. The Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) bill, introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would also enable companies to hire an unlimited number of workers with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions in science, technology, engineering and math, which critics have said would turn some universities into diploma factories for foreign students. Currently, the first 20,000...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took a swipe at Mitt Romney on Monday, saying that Republicans’ path to the presidency doesn’t cut through “the mushy middle.”