Free Republic

Republican presidential candidate and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made no friends with the RINO GOP establishment on Monday, going where establishment-backed “moderate” squishy candidates like RINOs Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham or Chris Christie would probably never go. Appearing on the Glenn Beck radio program on Monday, Walker told Beck that RINO leader Mitch McConnell is “part of the problem” in Washington, citing broken GOP promises regarding Obamacare and funding Obama’s illegal amnesty. “Mitch McConnell is part of the problem. Will you go so far as saying that there are people in the GOP that are part of the establishment, like...

His supporters, waving blue-and-red signs, ate it up. Soon, the cheers were drowning out the detractors. Scott Walker's entered a late summer slump. The Wisconsin governor was largely sidelined at the first Republican presidential primary debate, when his rival candidates earned more attention with flashy one-liners. He's also forfeited his monthslong polling advantage in Iowa, where he's slipped behind Donald Trump and even Ben Carson, according to the latest CNN survey of the outlook for the caucuses. So when he stepped on the Iowa soapbox stage at the state fair Monday, Walker probably would've preferred not to look out and...

......"I think this was the first time outside of Wisconsin where he's been kind of surrounded by protesters as he's leaving a place and where it appears he's been a little boxed in," said Scott Foval, one of the protesters and a Madison activist with the liberal group People for the American Way.Foval's group is one of several on the left that flock to events by GOP candidates and try to make them answer questions on their issues of choice."We're bird-dogging all of them,"Foval said. But he said Walker is a "particular" magnet because of the way he wears their...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may be dominating social media, but a new study has revealed that a vast percentage of his online following is legally incapable of voting. According to data collected by the social analytics company, Macromeasures, just 39.4 percent of the real estate mogul's Twitter followers are members of the voting-eligible population, as first reported by Forbes. The company analyzed a handful of GOP hopefuls, including Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Carly Fiorina. Among those Republican candidates, Trump carried the largest percentage of disenfranchised followers. In comparison, 95.7 percent of Fiorina's...

Many people who have not followed the construct of the RNC/GOP plan as it originated (November/December 2013 – through the construction in May/June 2014 and end result in April ’15) are fundamentally misunderstanding the origin of the GOPe Roadmap to elect Jeb Bush.... The road map was originally contingent upon Graham, Fiorina, Perry, Rubio, Christie, Huckabee, Gilmore, Pataki and Kasich staying in the race through at least March 2nd 2016. Hence Super-PACs were established to keep them funded through the point of their usefulness. Obviously things so far have not gone quite as planned/preferred. Specific issues messing up the plan:...

Did you know that the Republican Party is only at half strength? “Half strength.” What does that mean? It means that in your voting precinct, where you live, the Republican Party only has, probably, one-half of the local, precinct-level, voting member slots of the Party filled with a warm body. These slots are called “precinct committeeman” in most states. And the reason conservatives have been pretty much impotent when it comes to having a voice “inside” the BEST political tool for defeating the Democrats – the Republican Party – is because not enough conservatives are “in” the Republican Party where...

[BIG SNIP top of Morning Jolt] "....Do Republicans Even Care What Conservatism Is Anymore? In mid-August 2011, Rick Perry was the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. He led every national poll from mid-August to late September. Of course, the following six months turned out to be one of the most tumultuous periods of any presidential primary in recent memory: Herman Cain led some polls -- he reached 27 percent in one survey -- followed by Newt Gingrich, and before the primaries were done, Rick Santorum was the frontrunner for several consecutive polls. At one point, Michele Bachmann was in second...

An interesting observation from Steve Hayes on Donald Trump’s “Fox News truce” interview this morning: Trump launches unprovoked attacks on Walker, Bush — and doesn’t respond to a tough Hillary Clinton attack on him http://t.co/HzQt5Pk1O8 — Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) August 11, 2015 From Hayes’ piece: >>> In an interview Tuesday morning on Fox & Friends, Trump twice went out of his way to criticize his competition. In the first instance, he took a question about his standing in polls and turned it into a blistering–and highly inaccurate–attack on Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. And in the second, Trump bypassed an opportunity...

The race was closer among viewers of last Thursday’s debate: Trump and Walker were tied at 14 percent, with Rubio (11 percent), Carson and Fiorina (tied at 10 percent), and Cruz (9 percent) close behind. However, among likely caucus voters who skipped watching the FOX NEWS debate, Trump (21 percent) led Carson (10 percent) by a wider margin, with Rubio and Walker tied at 8 percent.With just six months until the Iowa caucuses, businessman Donald Trump (17 percent) leads the field of Republicans among likely GOP caucus voters, according to a poll from Suffolk University. Meanwhile, a subset of voters...

Brian Kilmeade gets Scott Walker's response to Trump's Democratic Party talking points. $2.2B deficit is a proven lie. Kilmeade Re Gov. Walker: "He's always in the eye of the storm."

Hillary Clinton on Monday said she attended the 2005 wedding of Donald Trump, a financial backer of her political campaign and the Clinton Foundation, not because she was sucking up to donors, but because she “thought it would be fun” and “entertaining.” What is most problematic about Hillary’s attendance, however, is the fact that just weeks before the Jan. 22, 2005 ceremony, Trump published the paperback edition of Trump: How to Get Rich, one of his many, massive bestsellers. According to Cosmopolitan, the book contains the second “most disgusting thing Donald Trump has ever said“—this passage about female contestants on...

Maybe they go five-for-five. Maybe they hit a walk-off. Maybe a diving stop followed by a double play wins the game. ESPN's "Top Ten" has lots of different kinds of highlights. Point is that there are as many ways to have a great debate as there are great baseball days. Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina both had great debates, because they did everything they did very well. "Five tool" players rarely use them all in one game, but Fiorina and Rubio did. To them, the laurels. Scott Walker got in one towering homer, to mix a metaphor, by putting the...

In the next few days I’ll rate the 8 leading GOP candidates for the 2016 Nomination as reported by RealClearPolitics on 6 August 2015. I will rate four criteria; potential to change our nation, electability, personal integrity, and past performance. I will score them from 0 to 3. The ratings will be color-coded as follows. Blue = Excellent (3 pts) – Implies candidate is solidly better than most of the GOP and all of the Dems. Green = Good (2 pts) – Implies candidate is better than GOP average and probably all Dems. Yellow = Low Pass (1 pt) –...

Last week’s Republican primary debates have quickly become a cultural and political phenomenon. Even progressive pundits have been forced to acknowledge the high quality of the Fox News moderators, the toughness of their questions, and the sheer entertaining excitement of the shows. Contrary to the usual soporific political debates, with robotic recitations of prefabricated talking points, this one had fireworks and substance. Let’s hope this new paradigm for presidential debates carries through all the way to next year’s presidential debates. But there’s another value to the debates. A lot of progressive received wisdom was exploded last Thursday night. First is...

Ahead of Thursday night's big Republican primary debate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign sent a notice to her supporters. "Here's your to-do list to be prepared," wrote Christina Reynolds, Clinton's director of rapid response. "Stock up on soft projectiles to hurl at your television to give your jeering some attitude (marshmallows get the job done)." Then the Democratic front-runner's campaign zeroed in on just three Republican candidates: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida). "Make sure your phone has a full charge," Reynolds added, "so you can tweet...

WASHINGTON -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) says the proper way to address racial issues in America is by concentrating on what brings people together rather than focusing on "racial discord." Doing the latter, the presidential candidate argued Sunday, could risk generating even more unrest. Walker was campaigning outside a restaurant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, when a reporter asked him about the anniversary of the death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and what it portends for race relations in South Carolina. The governor answered that Americans should emulate the families of the victims of the Charleston church shooting....

"...Which brings me to Gov. Scott Walker....he is not as self-publicizing as Trump,not as long-standing as Bush, not as sweet-talking as Cruz.However, as governor of Wisconsin, which was bankrupt when he took office,he set to work at once on doing what none of the other three would have thought or been able to do. He hit the telephones and spoke to everyone who mattered,on both sides in politics,and convinced enough of them to work with him in a sensible bipartisan co-operation that he succeeded in saving the state from going bust and being unable to pay the wages of its...

Gov. Scott Walker was the last candidate to speak at #RSG15 before host Erick Erickson wrapped things up for the day (no, Megyn Kelly won’t be appearing tonight in place of Donald Trump), but his speech managed to energize the crowd and elicit several standing ovations.

RICHMOND — State Sen. Mark D. Obenshain will serve as chairman of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign in Virginia, the campaign announced Friday. The notice came the day after Walker appeared onstage in Cleveland with nine other White House hopefuls at the first Republican debate. The rollout of supporters seven months ahead of Virginia’s March 1 primary is more evidence of the outsize role the swing state will play in the 2016 election. “I am privileged to introduce State Sen. Mark Obenshain as the leader of our campaign’s efforts in Virginia,” Walker said in a statement. “Sen. Obenshain is...

A major political strategist has left Donald Trump’s 2016 GOP presidential candidate, a new report says — but it’s unclear who severed the relationship. Roger Stone is no longer aiding the outspoken billionaire’s quest for the White House, according to CNN. Reports conflicted on Saturday over whether Stone’s departure was a firing or a resigning, the news outlet added. “Mr. Trump fired Roger Stone last night,” a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign told CNN on Saturday. “We have a tremendously successful campaign and Roger wanted to use the campaign for his own personal publicity. He has had a number of articles...