Free Republic

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, told Breitbart News exclusively that he is better suited than Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to take on GOP frontrunner billionaire Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) --in large part because Rubio has failed to stand firmly behind his open-borders positions, which Bush made clear are more leftist than his own. "Marco's a friend but Americans are looking for a leader," Bush said in an exclusive email interview after the most recent debate in Charleston, South Carolina, when asked why he's better suited than Rubio to take on the two...

On 4/23/2007, Jim Robinson posted a manifesto, "Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement" (and a knife in the back) . The thread was subtitled, "The only difference in a Liberal Rudy Giuliani and Liberal Hillary Clinton is the fact of which bathrooms they select to use and there are some who are willing to even question that.

Democrats can't hold the White House forever. Losing in 2016 might make more strategic sense than losing in 2020. Nobody is acknowledging it yet, but in all likelihood the next president, be it a Republican or a Democrat, will have just four years to get as much done as possible before passing the torch to the challenger in 2020. Republicans have little hope of a two-term presidency (let alone winning in 2016) due to changing demographics, and a narrative shift that favors acceptance and diversity over traditional values, and Southern dominance. There is a realignment occurring in the United States...

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ted Wade hasn’t cared about politics enough to cast a vote in a U.S. presidential election for almost a quarter of a century, back when he supported Ross Perot’s independent candidacy in 1992. But Republican Donald Trump's 2016 White House bid has motivated Wade to get involved and he plans to support the real estate mogul in Nevada’s nominating caucus next month. Trump is a "non-politician" who can fix the "chaos" in Washington, he says.

Hillary Clinton called out "systemic racism" in the criminal justice system, during the Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday night. And when NBC Nightly News Anchor Lester Holt asked, "are black lives being cheap a reality or just perception?" Clinton answered: "Sadly, it's reality." Police brutality, and how to combat it, was a large topic at the debate, which took place not far from where Scott -- a black man from North Charleston -- was shot and killed as he ran away from a police officer. "It has been heartbreaking, and incredibly outraging, to see the constant stories...

Jeb Bush based on the best case scenario is floundering like a fish out of water. Trying his best to make it back into the pond with the big fish (Trump, Cruz and Rubio) but unable to even get back near the shore. In fact he is set to hit the grill. According to an upper level campaign insider if Bush fails to place in the top three in both Iowa and New Hampshire, his largest donors have let him know they will be moving on to greener pastures. Current Iowa polls show him having no chance of placing in...

Trump's "birther" theories have sparked a growing controversy in the Republican Party and critics are now using it to question the eligibility of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and even Donald himself. Donald's "birther" theories have sparked a constitutional lawsuit in Houston questioning Cruz's eligibility to be president, while Trump defended Rubio Sunday morning saying he was a natural born citizen. Meanwhile, a strict interpretation of Donald Trump's own "birther" theories could call into question his own eligibility to be president because his mother was born in Scotland, according to CNN. "I would note that the "birther" theories that Donald has...

There's horse****, and then there's outrageous denial of something that nobody ought to take at face value or believe. Sure, the NY Daily News and Cruz are "no longer friends" after his gratuitous slam at New York in the debate, but that's not the part that ought to make people simply shout LIAR! or even CROOK! every time they see him. No, it's this story: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) downplayed a report late Wednesday that he had not listed personal loans he and his wife received before donating roughly the same amount to his 2012 Senate campaign, calling the matter...

I like Donald Trump and would support him for president if he were the nominee. Even with another northeastern liberal Republican -- Scott Brown, who Trump has floated as a VP candidate -- on the ticket. But my clear favorite is Ted Cruz, because he's the one Constitutional conservative who actually goes to war for what he believes. In 2013, he single handedly shut down the government in an effort to defund Obamacare (a promise that Mitch McConnell made to voters in Kentucky that he quickly abandoned). He called out his own party's leader on the Senate floor for lying...

It's worked on one opponent after another. Here's why he's met his match with Cruz. As every verbal bully can tell you, simply slathering your adversary with insult is never enough to drive him publicly, humiliatingly into the ditch. If you're going to wound, the insults have to contain some truth--often just a seed of truth, enough to nurture injury's bitter fruit. So in calling Jeb Bush "low energy" again and again and again and again, Donald Trump is not dishing a random taunt at his opponent. The insult works because Bush does look low-energy, perhaps because the rapid loss...

Like a lot of my American friends, I watched in fascinated horror last week's debate between the seven candidates for the Republican Party nomination to the US presidency. It was politics as blood sport: venomous and angry, a competition in verbal excess. I could not get out of my mind that bar room scene in the first Star Wars film, when Harrison Ford is confronted by a row of interplanetary grotesques. It is genuinely alarming that one of the two Republican frontrunners - Donald Trump, the bouffant-haired billionaire demagogue, and Ted Cruz, the hard-right Cuban-American senator from Texas - could...

In the department of Presidential candidates hearing jeers-not-cheers from crowds, Donald J. Trump -- Republican frontrunner, real estate mogul, racist eater of burgers -- is not having a very good week. During Thursday night's Republican debate on Fox Business, Trump faced criticism from the crowd in South Carolina after he attempted to lob attacks at Texas Senator (and closest polling threat) Ted Cruz. If at first you don't succeed, try and fail again. On Saturday afternoon in front of a crowd of tea party activists, Trump again attempted to toss shade at Cruz, and those in attendance defiantly booed the...

As we enter the third week of January--just two short weeks away from the Iowa caucuses--it is beginning to dawn even on the most stolid political media figures that Donald Trump is the likeliest bet to win the Republican presidential nomination. It is also becoming apparent even to those most in denial that in the event of Trump's failure Ted Cruz, the most hated man in Washington and 2nd most unelectable of the GOP candidates in November, will almost certainly become the nominee. Most of the political and journalistic class see the prospect of a Trump/Cruz nomination as so unthinkable...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign ads are provocative, thoughtful, visually engaging, and funny. Unless you're Donald Trump and can count on the news media to breathlessly cover every one of your steps, you probably need television ads to help win a presidential caucus or primary. Ted Cruz has the best ad game of the bunch. Let's look at three recent ads to see their effectiveness. 'Invasion' Last week, Cruz released a provocative ad about immigration ("Invasion"). It features a bunch of professionals in suits carrying computers and suitcases running across a border. They traverse a river and have difficulty...

According to Frank Luntz's Fox News focus group, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz won the latest Republican presidential debate. Though hardly a scientific measure in the usual sense, the finding is nonetheless informative and will help shape the race in the closing days before the crucial first in the nation Iowa caucuses. Cruz is battling New York developer Donald Trump for the lead, which probably explains why Trump - who in the past had nothing but kind words for the first-term senator - has finally opened fire on his erstwhile ally. Cruz has become too big a threat to ignore,...

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - With two weeks to go until Iowans head to the polls in the first vote of the 2016 primary season, Republican front-runner Donald Trump ramped up his attacks against rival Ted Cruz on Friday, while Jeb Bush scored a key endorsement for his White House bid. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham announced he is backing Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, praising the former Florida governor's approach to national security. "I have concluded without any hesitation, any doubt, that Jeb Bush is worthy to be commander-in-chief on day one," Graham said Friday at a...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Actress Kirstie Alley said Thursday that she admires GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump for shaking up the political debate. "Donald Trump, whether you like him or you don't like him, is waking this country up," she told FoxBusiness.com. "If you hate him, you're going to talk about how much you hate him," Alley continued. "If you love him, you're going to talk about how much you love him. "I want someone who will rev us up and make us pay attention. I think that's a really great step for this country because this country's gotten very complacent." Alley said...

The host of HBO's Real Time, which returns Friday, on why he's scared of Cruz, and the 'underage hookers' scandal that could sink Hillary Clinton's campaign. For the past month and change, there's been a void in the political commentary arena--and political incorrectness, in general. Yes, Bill Maher was on vacation. But the acerbic satirist seems recharged and ready to dive headfirst into election season--which he'll do by kicking off the return of his late-night series Real Time with Bill Maher with a big campaign of his own. You'll have to tune in to HBO Friday night to see exactly...

After I wrote about the twisted codependency of Donald Trump and the media a few weeks back, some readers got in touch to complain that the attention paid to Trump had all but obscured the rise of Bernie Sanders. In an interview with CNN that week, Sanders himself made the same point, referring to a report that claimed network news shows had devoted 234 minutes to Trump and only 10 to his campaign. (Yes, 10 - for the entire year.) Judging from what's happening right now in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders and his avid supporters have a legitimate point....

I've always distrusted people who never question their assumptions or test their opinions against their critics' arguments. I believe empathy is the starting point of wisdom, and imagining things from an opponent's point of view is essential to solving problems in a closely divided polity. Yet on the subject of Donald Trump, my mind is closed. Slammed shut. Triple-bolted. Sealed like a tomb. Nothing anyone could reveal about Trump could get me to change my opinion that he's an @$$hole. And not a "yeah, but he's our @$$hole" kind but rather a cartoon villain, a fake, a cheat, a liar,...