Free Republic

A lot can happen between now and Election Day -- and with no GOP adult in the room, that's a frightening thought.There was a time when the well-worn “clown car” description of the Republican presidential primary field wasn’t so on-the-nose. But as of right now, not even a few months into the process, it’s impossible to avoid daily news items in which one GOP candidate or another is self-immolating with ludicrous remarks or unforced errors. Frankly, it’d be really fun to observe if it weren’t for a nagging sense of danger. We’ll circle back to that. Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio,...

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Hillary Clinton didn’t explicitly endorse a $15 minimum wage, but she nevertheless made a surprise call yesterday to a convention of fast-food workers who are rallying for the cause. The Democrat declared, “I want to be your champion.” * On “Face the Nation” yesterday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) reiterated his support for a federal crackdown on states that legalized marijuana. Asked if he would “go after” state experiments, and prohibit the legal use of...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is in Raleigh this weekend organizing his campaign in the state, sees some parallels between the crowded GOP presidential primary and the NCAA basketball tournament. With the GOP primary becoming increasingly crowded, Cruz said it is useful to break down the field into brackets. Candidates must win their brackets in order to advance. “I think of the Republican primary very much like an NCAA tournament bracket,” Cruz said in an interview at the Raleigh Convention Center on Friday. The typical Republican primary, Cruz said, is composed of 35 percent of self-identified moderates, 15 percent libertarians,...

Downplaying a joke he made earlier this year about transgender people, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that he believes voters are more concerned about his thoughts on other issues such as the economy. The former Arkansas governor, who returned to his home state for a fundraising swing, declined to elaborate on the comments he made during a speech in February to the National Religious Broadcasters Association in Nashville. During those remarks, Huckabee objected to local ordinances that he said would allow transgender people access to restrooms based on their gender identity. …

In reacting to recent comments by Mike Huckabee about transgender individuals, GOP candidate George Pataki said everyone should be showing respect for people who make those choices, not mockery.Huckabee made the comments months ago, but they’ve received lots of attention today because, thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, trans issues are back in the news. Huckabee joked about identifying himself as female in high school so that he could shower with the girls in the locker room.Pataki told Wolf Blitzer on CNN earlier that Huckabee’s comments were clearly in jest, but did go on to say, “We should give people their...

The Kentucky senator gets a lot of attention for his outreach efforts. But he’s not the only Republican looking to win black voters in the post-Obama era. If Republicans really care about winning in 2016, then they may want to pay more attention to the voters who haven’t ever voted Republican. With each passing election the Republican electorate has gotten older and whiter, while America is getting younger and browner. That presents a problem for what is increasingly becoming the Gray Old Party. The only real choice for Republicans is to win a meaningful share of brown or black voters....

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee wants Rand Paul to make a choice: Protest the Patriot Act either on the Senate floor or on the campaign trail. He joined a chorus of Republican presidential hopefuls weighing in on the Kentucky Republican senator's protest of the Patriot Act, key provisions of which lapsed Sunday. Paul claimed credit for blocking parts of the renewal of the controversial law, and his protests included an 11-hour speech on the eve of the chamber's Memorial Day break, as well as objections to several short-term extensions of the Act. In response to a question about Paul, Huckabee...

The conventional wisdom shows Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul strongly competing for the Republican presidential nomination. But a close analysis of the latest Quinnipiac University National Poll indicates that with strong elements of the Party’s right wing, they perform poorly in comparison to Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and, for now, Ben Carson. Among all Republican voters, the poll shows Bush, Walker, Rubio, Huckabee and Carson are all tied at 10 percent each while Paul lags at 7 percent and Cruz at 6 percent. But an analysis of the three key conservative groups that drive the nominating...

Mike Huckabee doesn’t have a lot of prominent defenders, and I am not volunteering for the job. Huckabee has always struck me as a right-wing populist-progressive. A deeply religious — and by all accounts decent — man, Huckabee nonetheless has a view of the state that would have jibed almost perfectly with such forgotten titans of the Progressive Era as Richard Ely, Josephus Daniels, and even William Jennings Bryan. Ely, a mentor to Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt and the founder of the “Wisconsin school” of progressivism, believed that “God works through the state in carrying out His purposes more...

Mike Huckabee is not a serious Presidential contender, but he is bait for some of the Religious Right, and some “compassionate conservatives” who just can’t stomach hardball politics. Recently, Huckabee attacked Senator Ted Cruz comparing his zeal to that of General Custer at the Little Big Horn. Governor Huckabee said that Cruz was rash and inexperienced, and did not have a long term strategy like other Republican leaders. What a joke! I agree that Bush – Romney – Boehner – McConnell have a long term strategy. But that strategy includes amnesty for illegals and only minor tinkering with Obama Care....

Fox News has decided that Mike Huckabee should not be the Republican nominee, so Chris Wallace went on the attack against Huckabee’s flat tax plan on Fox News Sunday. Video: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)CHRIS WALLACE: You want to abolish the income tax. You want to abolish the IRS and create a fair tax, which as you say is a national sales tax, but critics say the problem with that is that it’s too regressive. The Tax Policy Center said this, that “the average rate for the lowest income group would exceed 33% while the average rate for the top group would fall to...

Mystifying. But then this is the same guy who decided to pick a culture-war fight with Beyonce despite knowing that he’d have to break out of his niche as a social-con warrior to have any chance at the GOP nomination. Not being too judge-y about youthful intra-family child molestation seems like a smart hill for the GOP to fight on in 2016.

A day after Josh Duggar apologized amid allegations that he molested several underage girls while he was a teenager, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee criticized “those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins.” “Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable,’ ” Huckabee said in a statement posted on Facebook Friday. “He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his...

This November’s biennial convention of the Reform Jewish movement’s congregational umbrella organization will feature interviews with candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Chuck Todd, moderator of the NBC television network’s popular “Meet the Press” program, will conduct one-on-one interviews with each presidential contender before the audience of the 2015 Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) convention in Orlando, Fla. “URJ’s biennial, because of its timing, location, and audience, will be a must-attend event for the top presidential candidates,” Todd said Thursday. “Florida has long been a key state in presidential elections, and I am very much looking forward to this...

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) will skip the Iowa Straw Poll in 2016, he confirmed in an op-ed for The Des Moines Register in which he questions the relevancy of the poll that helped spur his 2008 bid “I have concluded this year's Iowa straw poll will serve only to weaken conservative candidates and further empower the Washington ruling class and their hand-picked candidates,” he wrote. “It's clear that pitting conservative candidates with limited resources against each other in a non-binding and expensive summer straw poll battle, while allowing billionaire-backed establishment candidates to sit out, will only wound and weaken...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, the 2008 Iowa caucuses winner, is running again for the GOP presidential nomination, but this time he’ll skip the state’s high profile straw poll. Huckabee, who took second place in the 2007 survey, announced Thursday morning in a Des Moines Register op-ed that he won’t compete on the Iowa straw poll, instead saying that he wants to focus his resources on winning the state’s official caucus. “I appreciate the Iowa GOP for recognizing the need for some reforms, but playing to win in the straw poll still requires a heavy concentration of staff...

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/05/18/christian-evangelicals-elections-demographics-medved-column/26474707/

We all know that if the Republican debates include all the declared candidates that it's going to be a circus. Each candidate will only get to speak for a few minutes and we won't learn much. We'd learn more if the debates were limited to the candidates who had the greatest chance of getting the nomination. Here are the most realistic candidates--not the best candidates, but the ones who have at least a chance to win the nomination: Scott Walker: Current governor of Wisconsin, an inspirational speaker, riding high in several polls. Jeb Bush: Former governor of Florida, he's been...

Paul Pressler, a former Texas appeals court judge who has long been a supporter of conservative causes and active in Texas politics, announced Saturday that he is endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R) for president. Pressler, who in 2012 hosted a large group of evangelical leaders who voted to coalesce their support behind Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign as a challenge to frontrunner Mitt Romney, said he announced his endorsement of Cruz at a meeting of conservatives in Washington Saturday. “I feel that Ted Cruz is electable and he stands by his convictions in an articulate manner,” Pressler said in an interview...

Let’s assume, as I do, that the Supreme Court finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage when it decides Obergefell v. Hodges sometime next month. What happens next? It may be a morning-after landscape of more confusion than clarity, with some rain falling on the victory parades. Conservative Christians, claiming victimization by the onrushing tide of marriage equality, aren’t like to be deterred in their quest for the right to withhold goods and services from same-sex couples. Indiana’s retreat last month, under pressure from some leading corporations, from a law that would have given businesses a religious excuse for discriminating...