Free Republic

The Republican party is full of rebranding efforts these days. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has his. And the NRSC is working on appealing to the young and hip with their Buzzfeed-style website. Now there’s Sen. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, whose campaign is out with a new web video that splices inspirational lines from McConnell speeches and argues that the GOP is the party of opportunity for minorities and immigrants. But the video also has a decidedly Tea Party feel at times. It has gotten more than a million views in a day.

The FBI will have more details soon on the investigation into how a strategy meeting of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell campaign staff was secretly taped, according to McConnell’s campaign manager. Three main theories have emerged about how that audio recording was made: 1. That the office was bugged. But McConnell Campaign Manager Jesse Benton said Tuesday in a statement to the press that the staff had not found a bug in the office. 2. That someone in the room recorded the meeting and released it. Benton told Pure Politics on Wednesday he was confident that didn’t happen because the only...

In what was probably the most reported on tweet in political history since the Anthony Weiner scandal, actress Ashley Judd’s run against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell was put on hold in 140 characters. The brief media frenzy that ensued before she ended speculation could all come back to the commonwealth. Jonathan Miller, the former two-term state treasurer and one-time gubernatorial and congressional candidate, told Pure Politics that Judd might move back to her old Kentucky home. “I do really think she’s thinking about moving back to Kentucky permanently,” Miller said in an in-studio interview with Pure Politics. Miller said Judd...

Actress Ashley Judd's next role will not be as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky. Judd said on Wednesday she has decided not to run in 2014 to try to unseat Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, after considering such a candidacy for months. "After serious and thorough contemplation, I realize that my responsibilities and energy at this time need to be focused on my family," she wrote on Twitter. Judd and her husband, three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti, announced in January that they had decided to end their 11-year marriage. Judd, 44, considers Kentucky...

Former President Bill Clinton has spoken to both Ashley Judd and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes about the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, encouraging them both to take a hard look at the race. ABC News has learned that Clinton encouraged Judd to enter the race and promised he would help her, according to several Kentucky political sources. That conversation happened sometime between the November election and President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Earlier this month Clinton met with Grimes, who is also weighing a bid, after he spoke at an event for former Kentucky Sen. Wendell Ford in...

Mother Jones is shocked. The Huffington Post is shocked. The Left, everywhere, is shocked. It’s shocking. It’s really, really so terribly shocking. And appalling and disgusting. That in these times, here in the year of our deity (or no deity because that, too, is a valid life-path) 2013, terrible, misogynistic men like Steven Crowder still exist. This man-beast, this throwback to an unenlightened age, when women were forced to stay home and vacuum in high heels and pearls, clearly hates women, probably because he wasn’t breastfed hard enough. Steven Crowder is asked to speak at clandestine cabals like the Conservative...

Former President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Sen. Wendell Ford have recently downplayed an Ashley Judd run for U.S. Senate seemingly opening national discussion for Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes to potentially run. Ford, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1974-1998, said last week there may be a better Democratic candidate than Judd to face Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014. “I think there’s maybe some other candidate out there that might be better — with political experience, and with some background. She’s a smart woman apparently,” Ford told Brandon Bartlett of 14-WFIE TV last week. Clinton would likely...

**SNIP** The email is designed to look like a fundraising pitch for Judd from Democrats. "Ashley Judd needs your help. Despite the fact that she lives in Tennessee, Judd desperately wants to run for Senate in neighboring Kentucky. I know what you're thinking: how can a person who has said "Tennessee is home," that San Francisco is "my American city home" and that she "winters in Scotland" run for Senate in Kentucky?" the email reads. "Well, that's where you come in.," it says. Littered with links to "donate" to Judd's campaign, the email also includes photos of the Versailles, Kentucky...

Hollywood cutie Ashley Judd is preparing to run for the Kentucky senate seat currently held by Mitch McConnell (R). The 44 year-old actress has no prior political experience, but exudes confidence she’ll win. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have the edge in the swimsuit and evening gown portions of the competition,” Judd bragged. “Talent-wise, I’m prepping by taking singing lessons from my Mom. The one iffy part I’m facing is the ‘poise question.’ There are so many worthy causes I’d like to promote during my reign that it”ll be hard to pick one.” Judd speculated that “McConnell’s ugliness is a definite...

<p>Ashley Judd has yet to officially announce her political aspirations, but a source with intimate knowledge of the situation tells FOX411's Pop Tarts column the actress is preparing herself to challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his Kentucky seat in 2014.</p>

She’s not even a candidate yet. But the GOP opposition research machine is already in full froth over what it views as perhaps the juiciest 2014 target: Ashley Judd, who is exploring a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Republicans are homing in with glee on the actress and activist, picking apart her views and statements and compiling a thick compendium of speeches, writings and tweets. What they found: Judd may not have a legislative record, but she has left quite a paper trail. This early opposition research effort seems as much about scaring Democrats nationally about a...

Gov. Steve Beshear said Tuesday he has now talked with actress Ashley Judd about how “seriously” she’s considering running for U.S. Senate in 2014 against Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. While Beshear would not go into detail on the conversation, he did say that he is convinced that Judd is “seriously considering a race for United States Senate in the Democratic primary.” Beshear told reporters Tuesday at a bill signing that he thinks Judd could be an “effective and formidable opponent” against McConnell in a general election. Beshear has a good idea of what that takes having lost by double-digit...

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WHAS11) -- After two decades in front of the camera as an actress and more recently as an activist, Ashley Judd has been unguarded in her comments -- a candor which might cause complications if she runs for U.S. Senate from Kentucky. As Judd inches closer to a decision, her outspoken nature is yielding decades of pointed and controversial comments which Kentucky Democratic strategists concede are a gold mine for the campaign of potential opponent, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R). Judd's essays and speeches are easily accessible on her website. In one, she criticized the tradition of a...

While some Kentucky Democrats have been skeptical of a potential Ashley Judd candidacy for U.S. Senate, House Speaker Greg Stumbo is no longer among them, saying Thursday he would encourage her to run. “When I talk to her I’m going to encourage her as I would any other candidate that this is a winnable race,” he said. Stumbo went on to blast Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, calling him “Dr. Doom” and “the father of gridlock.” Stumbo and Judd have traded phone messages in recent days. He said she left him another message on his work phone last night. Stumob...

Actress Ashley Judd and Indy Car driver Dario Franchitti are ending their marriage after 11 years, and, yes, the news impacts Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Judd is weighing whether to jump into politics and challenge McConnell in Kentucky in 2014. She was in Washington for the inauguration and attended an event at EMILY's List, the group that backs pro-choice Democratic women running for governor or Congress. Judd even carpooled with Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who demonstrated she knows how to win in a red state after defeating the self-injurious Todd Akin.

Tea party activists looking to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a GOP primary may get some help from an unlikely source: Democrats. Big Democratic donors, local liberal activists and a left-leaning super PAC in Kentucky are telling tea partiers that they are poised to throw financial and organizational support behind a right-wing candidate should one try to defeat the powerful GOP leader in a 2014 primary fight. -snip- Now, Paul is supporting McConnell’s reelection bid. And much to the chagrin of tea party activists looking for a McConnell primary challenger, Massie has emphatically said he won’t take on...

When he asked by WMAL's Brian Wilson what he thought about a possible Senate run by Ashley Judd (against him or McConnell), Sen Paul responded that 1. He thought that she should be running for the British parliment. 2. Wondered how she was going to commute between Kentucky and Scotland since the concorde was no longer in service. 3. How she was going to run in a coal state if she thought the coal industry was the enemy. Go Rand go!

Henry Clay. Daniel Webster. Ashley Judd? Yes, there are actually Democrats in Kentucky so eager to get rid of Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell that they would support putting Ashley Judd up as the Democratic Senator for Kentucky.U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, said: “If you had an Ashley Judd-McConnell race, I think it would be as high profile a race as Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown… The money would pour in here as soon as she entered the race.” Former Auditor Crit Luallen said that Judd would be “an attractive candidate.” Some supporters of the idea say such a race could...

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS- Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said he’s confident that the Democrat Party will field a viable candidate to run against US Senator Mitch McConnell in 2014. “It’ll be tough to raise the kind of money that Senator McConnell can raise because he’s the king of fundraising,” Beshear said. Beshear would know. He lost to McConnell in 1996. But don’t look for Beshear to go for a rematch. Beshear said on Pure Politics last year that his re-election for governor was his last one. Actress and singer Ashley Judd has been mentioned as a potential candidate after she said at...

Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that it’s understandable why 40 percent of Democrats in this month’s West Virginia presidential primary opted for a convicted felon serving time in a Texas prison over incumbent President Barack Obama. “When you’re out of work, man, it’s a depression. And a lot of people are still hurting because of this god-awful recession we inherited that cost 8.4 million jobs before we could really get going. And so I don’t blame people; they’re frustrated, they’re angry,” Biden said in an interview with WTOV-TV in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio. “At the end of the day, they’re...