Free Republic

"...in the Republican camp there's a soft civil war going on in preparation,..for the upcoming Iowa primary. One wag..indicated Iowa should get the first primary in the nation or ethanol subsidies,but not both. The point is well taken. With the exception of only Cruz to my knowledge, candidates desiring an early win and momentum promise to keep the subsidies going.(The Democrat caucuses in that state resemble nothing so much as the Zimbabwe farmers-workers meetings where in true Marxist style the layabout operatives who can stay at it longer win the game as everyone else goes home to work or tend...

Rick Santorum said he will reconsider his presidential campaign if he fails to finish "ahead of the pack that's sitting in single digits right now" in the Iowa caucuses next week. "If the people of Iowa put their faith in me, we're going to continue on," Santorum told the Des Moines Register Sunday. The former Pennsylvania senator surprised pollsters with his narrow victory in Iowa in 2012. But eight days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Santorum sits at just 1.2 percent in the Hawkeye State, according to the RealClear average of Republican polls.

"When asked to compare the RFS and corn ethanol mandates to other issues they may be following, Iowans ranked the RFS dead last among a list of 10 issues we surveyed," the poll summary stated....Ethanol might not be playing its conventional role as a major election issue for Hawkeye State voters, according to a new poll from Iowa. A poll by FTI Consulting, commissioned by the American Council for Capital Formation, of 700 registered Iowa voters earlier this month showed 94 percent of those polls put the Renewable Fuel Standard outside their top three most important issues. The American Council...

This seems like it may be a day late and a dollar short as the saying goes, but someone has decided to ask a question in Iowa this week which would normally border on blasphemy. Do Iowans really know much about the ethanol issue and, even more to the point, do they really care? Going by the conventional wisdom this seems like a preposterous prospect. Iowa is the domain of King Corn and it drives all things political out there, right? Well, the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) decided to take the question to the voters directly rather relying...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has a 14-point edge over Sen. Ted Cruz, his nearest rival, according to a new national poll. Trump garners 34 percent support in the Fox News poll released Friday, with Cruz at 20 percent. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ranks third with 11 percent, followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 8 percent. Former Forida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich tie for fifth with 4 percent apiece. The poll also found that Cruz and Trump are the most popular second choice for likely Republican primary voters. Cruz is the second choice for 22...

Jeff [rey Lord] is calling for a Trump-Cruz ticket. Maybe Jeff didn't get the memo, but Trump has been arguing that Cruz isn't qualified to be President because of his Canadian birth. In which case, if Cruz isn't eligible to be President then how can he be eligible to be VP?

Since joining the Trump campaign as a national spokeswoman in November, Katrina Pierson has served as an attack dog of sorts for Donald Trump, attempting to expose his critics and opponents as faux conservatives who are simply pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. And yet, Ms. Pierson's own statements reveal she is a self-proclaimed devotee of Malcolm X (whom she has referred to as her "idol") and has a history of attacking conservatives as racists, sneering at Christians who are unable to "handle the truth" and mocking candidates who open up about their faith on the...

Just minutes after Donald Trump came under fire for retweeting a white nationalist on Friday, another Twitter user pointed out that the Republican presidential front-runner's latest campaign ad features images of Soviet soldiers. [screen capture at source] The images were included in a 40-second video posted to Trump's Facebook page Friday and accompanied by the following caption: "Our veterans are being treated worse than illegal immigrants. If Trump becomes president, that will end immediately. Our veterans will be proud and respected again. #‎MakeAmericaGreatAgain." Several of the medals worn by the veterans depicted in the video are engraved with a hammer...

The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls finds that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are each ahead of Hillary Clinton in head-to-head polling, while Clinton is ahead of Donald Trump. Clinton leads Trump by a tally of 45 to 43 percent. Meanwhile, Rubio leads Clinton by 46 to 44 percent, and Cruz leads Clinton by 46 to 45 percent. Limiting the results to polls taken since New Year's Day, the margins are a bit greater. Clinton leads Trump by 4 points-48 to 44 percent. Rubio leads Clinton by the same 4 points-48 to 44 percent. And Cruz leads Clinton...

Goldman Sachs once gave Ted Cruz's campaign a $1.43 million loan. His campaign also got a loan of less than $500,000 from Citibank. According to Donald Trump, in a claim that has been repeated roughly a billion times, that means THEY OWN HIM. Even though, as far as I can tell, all or part of these loans have been repaid. As I reported yesterday, at various times Donald Trump has had hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from Citibank and Goldman, some of which have been repaid, some of which were discharged in bankruptcy when Trump's Altantic City casino...

Three new Iowa polls were released on Thursday, and the polls show that real estate mogul Donald Trump has the edge over Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.). A CNN/ORC poll shows Trump with a double-digit lead over Cruz: However, this does not necessarily guarantee a win for Trump:***** Phil Kerpen ✔ @kerpen Note this has always been Trump's best Iowa poll and Cruz has GAINED on him since last month. 3:14 PM - 21 Jan 2016 ****** This is accurate, as the previous CNN/ORC poll in Iowa had Trump at 33 percent and Cruz at 20 percent. The poll also may...

Today, a dollar bet on a Donald Trump primary victory will turn a profit of $1.52 on Betfair. His odds are ranked the best of any GOP candidate on the site. Trump's share price to win the entire election reached its all-time high Wednesday on PredictIt, a site that allows users to trade futures on candidates' chances. Trump's price sits tied with Bernie Sanders for second place at 27 cents, and 16 cents behind leader Hillary Clinton. At 48 cents per share at press time, Trump holds a 23-cent lead over Marco Rubio for the Republican nomination. Trump is now...

What a strange soundbite for a Republican frontrunner, suggesting that his famously crooked would-be Democratic opponent has more integrity than the most conservative candidate in the race. Gosh, I don't think even Mitch McConnell would say that. Not publicly, anyway. This is a smear, by the way. He's seizing on the revelation last week that Cruz never disclosed a margin loan from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works, during his first Senate run. That's true, sort of - he never disclosed it to the FEC, which Cruz blamed on a "filing error." But it's not true that he never disclosed...

Mr. Trump's support [36 percent] was down a bit from 41 percent in a Monmouth poll released last month, while Mr. Cruz picked up 3 points of support since last month.Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has a 19-point edge over his closest 2016 GOP rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, in a national poll on the Republican field released Wednesday. Mr. Trump was at 36 percent in the poll from Monmouth University, followed by Mr. Cruz at 17 percent, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 11 percent, and retired doctor Ben Carson at 8 percent. The survey was conducted from...

According to press releases issued by the Trump campaign, Palin was supposed to spend today (and the next several days) criss-crossing Iowa with Donald Trump, stumping for him. However, at the rally Trump held this morning, Palin was absent with no explanation from the Trump camp. Instead, Trump just took the stage for a little longer than planned. The media inquired about Palin's absence and were basically given "no comment" in response.

"...Corn has long been king in Iowa, the nation's top corn-producing state, implanting in Iowa voters a sentiment that every candidate must cheer Washington's backing for ethanol. Since 2011, though, that universal backing has been eroding. Congress decided at the end of 2011 not to renew a tax credit that cost the government $6 billion a year. Critics of the government’s ethanol policy then set their targets on the ethanol mandate, which requires refineries to blend an increasing amount of biofuels into the U.S. gasoline supply each year. At the ethanol summit Tuesday, Mr. Trump also read a prepared statement...

Donald Trump says Ted Cruz is a "nasty guy." The Texan's Senate colleagues agree. Yet here's the surprise from watching Cruz on the campaign trail: Ideology aside, he comes off as ... rather likable.... I knew before seeing Cruz on the stump that he is smart - dangerously so from my ideological perspective. I knew from watching him operate in Washington that he is ruthlessly ambitious. Seeing him in action, it's clear he's adept at retail politics as well. Cruz knows how to connect with an audience; to soften people up with laugh lines and a smattering of scripture; to...

Ted Cruz is a really smart guy. This is one of the biggest reasons Ted is polling high in the GOP presidential race. Cruz graduated valedictorian from high school, cum laude from Princeton University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Then he served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Solicitor General of Texas. Can you spot why this picture from one of his campaign stops is going viral? ...That might not be a bad campaign slogan. Ted Cruz 2016: More Stuff Upstairs...

The Constitution provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." But, as Gary Scott Smith of Grove City College writes in his new book, Religion in the Oval Office, "Throughout American history many citizens have viewed strong faith as an asset, if not a requirement, for politicians, especially presidents." The biography of faith, such as it is, of the Republican presidential candidate who has led the polls for six months starts with First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. That is the church Donald Trump's parents attended...

Bristol Palin on Tuesday urged her mom, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to endorse Donald Trump over Republican presidential rival Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas). The younger Palin took to her blog to note that her mom "has consistently supported" Cruz and accuse the Texas senator of "arrogance" for thinking a Trump endorsement could hurt her. "After hearing what Cruz is now saying about my mom, in a negative knee-jerk reaction, makes me hope my mom does endorse Trump," Bristol Palin wrote in her blog post that her mom shared on her Facebook page and tweeted to her 1.2 million followers....