Free Republic

[BIG SNIP] ".....Sen. Cruz is America’s last hope for a credible border. By that I mean a border that is controlled by the citizens of America, not the citizens of other countries. I mean a border that is controlled primarily for the benefit of citizens of America, not the citizens of other countries. I mean a border that is controlled by an American population that appreciates and welcomes immigrants, but only when they come here legally, and in numbers that are conducive to their assimilation into the American value system that is based on the principles expressed in our Declaration...

The Boy Scout Motto is "Be Prepared." Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who achieved the rank of Eagle Scout as a teen, has taken that motto seriously. His Eagle Scout status has him so prepared, he indicated this week, he's ready to serve as commander in chief of the U.S. military. The Republican governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate spoke on Wednesday at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Phoenix, Arizona. The event was closed to press, but video of Walker's conversation with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt was recorded by the opposition research group American Bridge and released by the...

“Believe me, I know this is a David and Goliath story,” Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward (R-Lake Havasu City) told national radio host Mark Levin. Her interview centered around the possibility that Ward may challenge Republican establishment incumbent Senator John McCain in a 2016 primary. Levin describes Ward as a “constitutional conservative,” recalled her work at the Assembly of State Legislatures meeting, and remarked that he considers her less-than-lengthy political career an asset. “I am a family physician and very, very proud of that,” Ward began. “I’m definitely not a career politician. I’m somebody who I never thought I would...

Scott Walker and Jeb Bush were bound to collide sooner or later. It turned out to be sooner. As the son of a Baptist minister, and the son of the 41st president of the United States, these two were destined to be the odd couple of the 2016 election. Walker is running against the establishment and the Washington elites. Bush embodies both. Walker will need at least $100 million to compete in the GOP primary, and more if he makes it to the general. Most of the Republican donors who write those kinds of checks are on Bush’s speed dial....

Asked about what to do with the people here illegally, however, he stressed that he had never tried to undo the goal of allowing them to stay. “The amendment that I introduced removed the path to citizenship, but it did not change the underlying work permit from the Gang of Eight,” he said during a recent visit to El Paso. Cruz also noted that he had not called for deportation or, as Mitt Romney famously advocated, self-deportation.When it comes to immigration reform, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has made it abundantly clear what he opposes: giving citizenship to people who broke...

What were Talent’s first impressions?“I found him to be exactly what he appears to be: He’s very down to earth, he has an air of confidence about him but there’s no arrogance with it. I like that. He’s just a regular guy.”Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has added one of Washington’s leading advocates of military readiness to the ranks of advisers helping prepare him for a likely campaign for president. Jim Talent, who represented Missouri in both the House and Senate before becoming a fellow at The Heritage Foundation, confirmed Thursday that he has joined Walker’s budding national security and foreign...

Gov. Scott Walker has opened up a large lead in the battle for the 2016 Iowa GOP Caucuses, according to a new poll from Opinion Savvy. Walker holds a 15-point lead, more than doubling the support of his nearest competitor, Dr. Ben Carson: 2016 IOWA GOP CAUCUS POLL – Opinion Savvy (3/24/15) Scott Walker 29% Ben Carson 14% Jeb Bush 12% Mike Huckabee 11% Ted Cruz 7% Rand Paul 5% Marco Rubio 5% Chris Christie 5% Donald Trump 3% No opinion/Other candidate: 9.7% Walker now has a 7.6 point lead in our average of 2016 Iowa Caucus Polls.

“I am a servant of the Lord. I am a servant of the Lord. He has opened doors all of my life. The Lord has. He has pushed me over the mountain this time. I don’t know why, but I have no doubt that he has.” Ted Cruz could not have said it better during the official launch of his presidential campaign on Monday. He could not have said it at all, in fact, because uttering those words would have made him guilty of plagiarism. They were spoken by Ohio Gov. John Kasich during his first inaugural address in 2011....

Bloomberg Politics is drawing fire from the National Rifle Association over a recent story claiming there is a potential rift between likely presidential candidate Scott Walker and the Second Amendment advocacy group. A recent Bloomberg Politics article floated the idea that Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely presidential candidate as well as a favorite of gun rights activists, may not be as "pure" as other White House GOP hopefuls, citing a 1995 bill that failed in the Badger State's legislature. The NRA also says Bloomberg's reporter failed to contact the group for comment. "Now that Walker is preparing to...

Now that it’s been confirmed that Ted Cruz is running for president, it’s time for everyone to weigh in, and Scott Walker was one of the first to be asked about the announcement on Fox News. Walker was very gracious to Ted Cruz, while jabbing at Jeb Bush yet again by saying we need a fresh face to combat Hillary’s haggard decrepit visage. Watch.. [comments start at 6 minute mark] [full interview with Fox runs around 8:00] While Cruz will almost certainly get a bump for being the first candidate to declare his campaign, Walker is still ahead in the...

Speaking in South Carolina Thursday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker alluded indirectly to the recent departure of a communications aide he had brought onto his political team after she had drawn fire over tweets she sent about Iowa, an early presidential state. “One of my clear rules is, if you’re going to be on our team, whether on the paid staff or a volunteer, what I always say is you need to respect the voters,” Mr. Walker said in Greenville, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. “Because, really, if you think about campaigns, it’s not about the candidate or the staff. It’s...

Focus group work by Bloomberg Politics suggests both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush are vulnerable in New Hampshire. Democrats are questioning Clinton’s use of a private email account while she was secretary of State, while GOP voters question whether Bush is conservative enough, according to the work by Bloomberg Politics and Purple Strategies. While the voters in the focus group say they would still back Clinton, they questioned whether the perception of secrecy surrounding the email account would hurt her and said that they supported a third-party examination of her email server to put the issue to bed. Bloomberg and...

Greenville,S.C.—Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will spend a second day Friday campaigning in this crucial southern state as he looks to connect with a full spectrum of voters....After hosting events Thursday for the South Carolina Republican Party in Columbia and Greenville, the Republican governor will attend two more Friday in Rock Hill and Charleston. He'll also speak to the National Rifle Association in Charleston.The two-day blitz...is important because the state holds the third presidential nominating contest in the country. It follows recent trips to the states that hold the first two, Iowa and New Hampshire.In his Thursday speeches, Walker spoke of...

"...“Sometimes it takes a little while to warm up to a Midwesterner,” said Zee Homoki,an Aiken resident who came the Columbia luncheon with her husband, Steve, an Aiken city councilman. But Homoki liked Walker’s references to his upbringing, his focus on national security issues and his “deep love of country.”“He can appeal to a larger section of the Republican Party,” she said. Her husband agreed. “He might be the guy to actually combine the tea party types and establishment types,” he said. “We need somebody from outside the Washington establishment,someone with new ideas and the perspective of Middle America.”Some saw...

Fresh off of claiming the scalp of Liz Mair (more on that later), The Website Bearing Breitbart’s Name issued another broadside yesterday consisting almost entirely of the fact that Michelle Malkin thinks Scott Walker has a lot of problems. I’m not going to link the piece because I’m done linking to Breitbart, as I view them as summarily unhelpful to the movement. If you want to read a website that performs the function that Breitbart himself would have wanted for the movement today, read the Washington Free Beacon instead. But I think that the point of what Breitbart and Malkin...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- At the start of Scott Walker's quest to be president, foreign policy has been a source of trouble. The Wisconsin governor has appeared shaky talking about world events and had to explain some perceived blunders. But as Walker opened his first campaign swing across South Carolina here in Columbia on Thursday, foreign policy emerged as the highlight of his stump speech. Walker's sharp, rat-a-tat critique of President Obama's foreign policy record drew a sustained and boisterous standing ovation from the crowd of 150 Republican activists at a party luncheon.

What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Scott Walker have in common? They all changed America. And they didn’t need a college degree to do it. On Feb. 12, Demo­cratic former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean deemed GOP front-runner Scott Walker unfit for the pres­idency because he dropped out of college. “The issue is, how well educated is this guy?” said Dean on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I worry about people being president of the United States not knowing much about the world and not knowing much about science.” The current Republican governor of Wisconsin attended Marquette University for four years but...

Asked whether they would rather vote for someone who agreed with their views on every issue that mattered, or someone who could beat the Democratic nominee, 72 percent said they want someone who can win.Iowa and New Hampshire may hold the first two nominating contests of the 2016 presidential cycle, but South Carolina picks presidents — or so the saying goes in the state Gov. Scott Walker will visit Thursday and Friday. Eleven months out from the Palmetto State’s first-in-the-South presidential primary, Walker, who is all but certain to run, finds himself in an enviable position, according to Clemson (S.C.)...

Scott Walker is making some controversial personnel decisions—but voters in Colorado don’t seem that upset. Even after his campaign made news in Iowa, the Wisconsin governor remained the far-and-away leader in the Centennial State, according to an overnight flash poll conducted by VoterGravity.com.One-third of Coloradans in this survey picked Walker. That’s better than double the support for second place Jeb Bush. The former Florida governor, busy raising campaign cash for his PAC, earned 14 percent support. Dr. Ben Carson was right behind, at 12 percent.The survey is comprehensive. It includes only people who are extremely likely voters—those who’ve cast ballots...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — An official at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library on Monday sought to clarify her account of how Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker came to handle a family Bible the late president used when taking the oath of office. Library registrar Jennifer Torres said a "simple misunderstanding" left the wrong impression that Walker personally sought to hold the book. A spokeswoman for the Reagan Foundation says Walker's retelling of the moment is correct. Walker told the story of having his picture taken with the Bible at a 2013 Reagan Day dinner in Milwaukee. He described in...